My first time using water decals!

Okay, so even though I used a whole bunch of water decals back in October for the Halloween nail art challenge, the first time I actually used any decals was way back over the summer.  I just found this post in my archives and figured I'd come back from my long, holiday hiatus with this bright spring-y look!  Don't worry, I'll show you all of my Christmas and New Year's Eve looks soon - probably next week.

My cousin got me a whole bunch of nail art supplies for Christmas in 2014.  For months, all of those awesome things sat around waiting to be used.  I did play with the water decals a little bit a while back, but it was highly experimental and did not yield a blog-worthy mani.  So I finally decided to put them on the blog!

I really enjoy picking out nail polishes that match a certain item - a particular dress, a pair of pajama pants, a tissue box, or a nail decal.  In this case, I went with (from thumb to pinky) Zoya Demetria, Sinful Colors Why Not?, Pop-Arazzi Lime-ousine Ride, and Virago Varnish Faith Hope Courage.  I have Zoya's Naked system on my ring finger to even out my nail tone and brighten my white tips.

I took this second photo on my phone at a really well-lit store just to show my Mom, but I was really impressed with how shiny the lights made my nails look!

 

This was a really simple and fun mani!  In the future, I would totally take the time to use a decal on more than one nail - but this was actually kind of rushed because I started working on it a little bit too late for my schedule that day.  Applying the decals was really easy, though, and I don't see myself losing patience while trying to use more than one!

I did learn two things about water decals: One, they are not like temporary tattoos.  You don't place the design face down on your nail and then peel the paper off; you have to peel the design off of the paper and place it on your nail.  Using it like a temporary tattoo will give you a solid white decal.  And Two, decals are not like stickers.  Once you peel a decal off of the paper, you either have to put it on your nail or throw it away.  You can't stick it back on the paper, re-wet it later, and peel it off again.  I hope you guys can learn from my mistakes so you don't end up wasting two decals! :)

The brand for these decals is pretty vague - I tried Googling "Nail Accessory," which is on the packaging, and of course that mostly turned up thousands of different types of nail art tools and accessories.  I usually like to give you a link to the products that I use, but in this case I just can't find it!  The product code on this particular sheet of decals is BLE1518.

What do you think of this design?  Have you ever used decals before?  What is your favorite type of nail decal?  Let me know in the comments!