NAIL ART: Swirling Pastel Watercolor Smoosh Mani

by - April 03, 2023


IT IS TIME. I swear, when I sat down to do nails this weekend, my brain finally switched into spring mode and I'm all in. Bring on the pastels and the florals and all of the springiest spring things. I feel like I'm way too excited for this - especially since it literally snowed here yesterday. ANYWAY, I decided to try something for this week's mani that I'd actually considered several times before but never actually tried out and I'm sort of in love with how it turned out. 

Keep reading for more!


For my first pastel mani of the season, I really didn't want to hold back at all, so I went with five different pastel shades. For the smoosh part, I went with a yellow, pink, purple and blue from Color Club because they are some of my favorite polishes to smoosh. For the base, I knew I needed something a little more opaque than I might normally reach for as a base for a smoosh, so rather than going with one of those shades I reached for a créme polish from Dimension Nails called Loggerhead Sea Turtle**, which is a soft pastel green shade. 

In case you're unfamiliar, I will tell you that Dimension Nails makes, without a doubt, my personal favorite créme formula. It's super creamy and pigmented, many of the shades are one coaters, and it's a black woman owned independent company with a focus on activism, specifically protecting animals. Seriously, if you haven't yet, I highly, highly recommend checking them out. I've personally both received as PR and purchased all of my Dimension Nails polishes from NailStuff.ca, which I am an affiliate with, and if you're interested in checking them out you can use my code TRYSH for 10% off your first order. 

For this mani, I started by applying one coat of Loggerhead Sea Turtle** to all of my nails as my base. 


Now for the fun part. So for my pinkie, middle finger and thumb, I just did a normal smoosh base. I applied dots of each of my four smoosh colours sort of randomly over my stamper head and then pounced it onto the nail until I got the desired blend. For my ring and pointer fingers, though, I did something different. When I do a smoosh, I generally let the leftover polish dry down on the stamper head so that it's easier to clean up and oftentimes it'll create a really interesting pattern on the stamper as it dries. The polish sort of clumps and you get these really cool looking voids. For ages, I've been curious about how those leftovers would end up looking on the nails, so I decided on a bit of a whim with this mani to try that. I just let it dry down most of the way on the stamper and then just sort of firmly pressed it onto the nail. 

Once I had my smooshes applied, I decided that I wanted to add a little bit more texture with some swirly stamping, so I grabbed for the KADS Geometry 021 Stamping Plate to use an image I've had my eye on for a while but hadn't gotten a chance to use yet. It's this really delicate swirly image and it felt like a really good pair for this smoosh base. I applied the image in white, alternating the direction of placement. 

After my stamping was finished and I was happy with the overall design, I sealed everything in with a nail art top coat and then finished with a layer of matte top coat to bring down the shine and pull everything together. And voila!


All Products Used
Dimension Nails - Loggerhead Sea Turtle**
Color Club - Like A Boss
Color Club - Totally Worth It
Color Club - Diggin' The Dancing Queen
Color Club - Meet Me At The Rink
Whats Up Nails - Blanc My Mind*
Apipila Smudge Free Top Coat 
Anchor & Heart Sea Glass Matte Top Coat
KADS Geometry 021 Stamping Plate
Whats Up Nails Magnified Clear Stamper & Scraper*
Pueen Latex Tape Liquid Peel Off Cuticle Guard*

* = PR Sample // ** = PR Sample/Affiliate


I'm so, so glad that I tried out this design and I'm really interested to see what other types of designs I could put together using this technique in the future, especially in terms of being higher contrast. Will definitely be trying that out sometime soon.

Be sure to head over to Cosmetic Proof and See The World In PINK today to check out their #CBBxManiMonday Easter/Pastel themed nails. And check out the video tutorial for this mani over at @pblnails on Instagram!

Thanks for reading!


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