June 13, 2024

Celebrating Pride Month: Nail Art Inspiration

This June, we're celebrating Pride Month with a splash of colour and a dash of creativity! Join us as Coral from @ohlushnails guides us through an exclusive Pride nail art tutorial. Not only will you learn how to sport the vibrant hues of the rainbow, but you'll also gain insight into the meaning behind various Pride flags.

Watch here:

Feeling Inspired?

We want you to feel confident in expressing your pride and celebrate diversity with your clients! To make this even easier we've broke down the flags in the tutorials and listed all you'll need to recreate your own!

Flag 1: Intersex Inclusive Flag

Flag 2: Transgender Flag

Flag 3: Non-Binary Flag

Flag 4 : Lesbian Flag

Flag 5: Bisexual Flag

Flag 6: Queer Flag

Video Transcript

Hey, everyone, it's Coral, and Happy Pride Month. Today I'm going to be doing a super easy tutorial on these pride nails. First up, I'm going to do this intersex inclusive, progressive pride flag. Now, every set I'm doing today is starting of a base of the gel polish strobe. And because I'm going to be doing lots of detailed lines, I'm going to really soak my brush in each colour, I like to really lather it on, wipe it through, make sure every single bristle is covered, and then back through again.

So for that first line, I'm just gonna draw a super simple wiggle shape, I'm not really pressing too hard on the brush, I'm gonna go back through, make that line a little bit more pigmented and cleaner, the second run through and then each colour after this, I'm just going to draw right up next to the previous line. So here are the orange, I'm going up so it's touching the red. See what this yellow going super close, but super slow. If I move lines like this, you won't really take your time to make sure that you're getting a nice clean line. You can also work in sections of the line. So I tend to do the bottom off first and then do that top arch afterwards. And as I finish up with this purple colour, you might want to just leave it here and have a standard LGBT flag. But I'm going to do the progressive flag. So I'm moving on now to do a black line, then a brown followed by pale blues, pinks, white, and a yellow and a purple. So these colours all represent minorities within the LGBT community. And I think the representation that this flag gives is so so important that we are at, so I love featuring it quite heavily. So now on top of the flag design, we're going to add some little stars. So I'm just dotting some white detail paint over the nail. And with a striper brush, which has been again really drenched with the detail paint, I'm going to just pull it to through the sides to create a star shape. Adding these little stars is my absolute favourite way to kind of add something to any nail design. So if you've seen anyone else, you've probably seen these a lot over every single now. Now in the centre of the stars, I'm going to add a little.of colour, I just think this helps make the stars really stand out and just look even more extra. And of course, we're gonna go in with some super shine top to finish and just seal all that in. Now the reason I love this design so much is because it's so versatile with every single flag, whether it be a trans flag, the non binary flag, the lesbian flag, or even the bisexual flag you can literally do is design for every single one. So as I personally identify as queer, I'm going to now do this design for the queer flag. I identify as queer in both the sense of my gender and sexuality. I don't identify as cis and I don't identify as straight but beyond that, I don't feel I fit into any specific label. So therefore I have coined the term queer. This year will be my sixth pride since I came out. And pride is so important to me because it was the first time that I really felt that I could celebrate and recognise that part of myself. This year is also my first year having my own space during pride, and I have been so excited to get to decorate and really just enjoy the month as an nail tech, and queer person. It's so important that nail techs are ensuring they are creating a safe space for members of the LGBT community, not only during pride, but also outside of it. Not all nail techs and all clients are straight women. So you want to be making sure these spaces are comfortable for people who have may not felt that in other salon experiences. One thing is being conscientious of the words we're using for maybe always using Hey Girls and Hey ladies, to. Hey guys, Hey folks, how are you lovely lot. Simpler changes like that can really make me recognise whether I would feel comfortable in the space. It can also be as simple as simple be putting something out on your social media saying that that your space and appointments are LGBT safe spaces. Hope you all enjoyed this tutorial so much. I can't wait to see what flag you'll put on your own nails and have a Happy Pride Month.