NAIL ART: Fields Of Poppies Remembrance Day Nails

by - November 11, 2022


It almost seems fitting that right in the middle of doing this mani, I sliced my pointer finger of my right hand opening a polish bottle that I didn't realize had cracked at the corner and was about to fully break with a little bit of pressure. I ended up with a not insignificantly sized shard of glass in my finger, throbbing pain, and (apologies if this is gross) a lot more blood than one would have expected from a little old finger. How I actually managed to finish is absolutely beyond me, but as I type this my finger is still Band-aided and aching a little bit and it all seems sort of fitting - bleeding for my Remembrance Day mani. I, of course, wanted to be sure to do a poppy mani this year because I think this is an important time in history to remember the losses and struggle of the past, to remind ourselves to try and avoid repeating those things. I don't want to soap box, but I do think it's important to look back clearly and remember the cost so that we don't repeat the mistakes of the past. 

Keep reading for more!


Poppies. It had to be poppies. There was other imagery I could have gone with, I suppose, but for me the poppy is the most persistent symbol for Remembrance Day and it was what I wanted to put on my nails for this occasion and, of course, it really drove the color story. Honestly, from the moment I decided to do these nails, there really was no question of exactly what products I was going to use to do it.

Jen & Berries' He Forced Me To Ruin My Dress, which is a PPU polish from last year, is a white crelly with black, white and red speckles through it in the form of hex glitters and flakes, and serves as the perfect base for black and red designs. This is honestly the reason I love white crellies with glitters and flakes in them, they serve as beautiful bases for nail art in matching colors and they add a little bit of texture to the background. Also, they're just so much easier to work with than white crémes, if I'm being honest.

Anyway, to start, I applied two coats of He Forced Me To Ruin My Dress to all of my nails and let those dry down. 


For the stamping, I wanted to sort of give the vibe of a poppy field sprawling outwards with the full image on only the middle two nails and then just a portion of the image on the outer nails. As I'm not personally a huge fan of having all of my nails look the same, I love when I'm able to edit full cover images in order to make them partial images. In this case, because the flowers are so connected to each other, I used a dotting tool to break the lines at the edges of the flowers I wanted to isolate and then used a lint roller to pick up the rest of the image smoothly. Then I used a really tiny dotting tool to fill in the flowers on all of my imagines in a really classic red shade which might be a little more neutral than a classic poppy red, but I think it still gets the message across.

Once my base was dry and the images were ready to be transferred, I started by applying a thin layer of sticky base coat to the nails and then letting that dry down until it was tacky before transferring the images straight from the stamping. With this type of image, I would recommend pressing down the stamper in one smooth, even motion and try not to wobble, because those slim lines are easily broken at this step if you wobble or pull too much when transferring.

Once I was happy with the overall design, I sealed it in with a nail art top coat and then followed with a matte top coat to smooth everything out and take down the shine. And voila!


All Products Used
Jen & Berries - He Forced Me To Ruin My Dress
Whats Up Nails - Neither Noir
OPI - A Kiss On The Chic
Orly Bonder Base Coat
Apipila Smudge Free Top Coat
Anchor & Heart Sea Glass Matte Top Coat
Whats Up Nails B026 Fashion Prints Stamping Plate
Whats Up Nails Magnified Clear Stamper & Scraper
Pueen Latex Tape Liquid Peel Off Cuticle Guard


As I said above, I really do think that Remembrance Day is an important time to really remember the cost of war. Certainly, let us honour the people who fought and died (or fought and lived the rest of their lives carrying that weight) but let's also remember that anything we can do to avoid war and the cost of war is worth fighting for because that cost is far too high.

Thank you for reading!

If you want to see how I did this mani, be sure to head over to @pblnails on Instagram to check out the video tutorial. 

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