Julep “Family” Vintage Rose Vines Nail Art – Starring My Family

Hi everyone! I’ve got a very special manicure to show off today: these lovely vintage-looking rose vines. Look closely to find the hidden message:

Yes, that’s right, this manicure is about my family! I took advantage of the fact that Julep gives their nail polishes women’s names, and acquired a bunch of the colors with the names of my family members. The ones I have here are all from my maternal side of the family, since Julep doesn’t have many names from my paternal side. When I looked at the colors all together, I came up with the vintage rose vines idea and it was perfect! At first, I was worried that the colors would be too disharmonious to look good as nail art, but in this design they look awesome together – kind of an antique look. Plus, the vines allowed me to spell out words on my nails (left: “family”, right: “love”), which was what I really wanted to do. It’s also very appropriate that these are rose vines, since my maternal great-grandmother was named Rose.

The polishes I used (and family members with the same name) are:

• Julep Abigail (light pink silk finish shimmer) – my first cousin; totally not her personality
• Julep Laura (army green creme) – my mom; this is probably her least favorite color
• Julep Emilie (medium green creme) – me! My favorite color! What a coincidence!
• Julep Sharon (medium red shimmer) – my sister; definitely suits her (intensely) awesome personality
• Julep Lois (dusty rose frost) – my grandmother; this seems pretty apt

I started off by painting my nails with two easy coats of Abigail (the light pink silk finish shimmer). Two coats didn’t give me 100% opacity, but since I was doing nail art on top of it, I didn’t care. It’s GORGEOUS. Due to the silk (semi-matte) finish, it doesn’t look like normal shimmer polish when it dries (when the shimmer lights up in one direction because the polish is applied cuticle to tip). The silk finish makes Abigail catch light uniformly rather than in only one direction, and the overall effect is very luminescent. The light pink color is very sophisticated and flattering; I imagine it would be quite “work-appropriate” for most people. It looks great matte or with topcoat. I took pictures of it both ways so you can compare and contrast. The application was pretty great as well; the formula was a little thick  but manageable.

I kept on the layer of topcoat to do the nail art, so the matte finish is gone. Since I was going to topcoat the nail art anyways, the silk finish was never going to stick around. There really isn’t much to say about the technique I used to do the rose vines, since it was mostly just a combination of a striping brush and patience. I decided against making a full tutorial because the process doesn’t require much by way of explanation or informative photos. However, I did make a mini-tutorial of all the steps so you can see the progression with minimal descriptions. There are a few pieces of information I want to add to supplement the tutorial. First, when making the cursive vines go from one nail to the next, make sure you line your nails up well and make small dots to indicate where you want the letters to begin and end. That way you can ensure that the cursive will line up nicely. Second, the roses are supposed to be smudgy, so use whatever tool you like best to make misshapen blobs. That’s about it! Check it out:

The finished look:

On my right hand, I spelled “love”:

I’m quite happy with the finished look, but I think, if I was going to do it again, I might put on fewer leaves. The abundance of them makes the look kind of cluttered, and the letters become harder to see. It’s not too bad, though, and the hidden message is kind of cool when it’s not so obvious. I’m really pleased by how the colors combine nicely in the rose design, especially because I was so worried about them looking awful together. Overall, I’m satisfied 🙂

Since this manicure worked out so well, I’m considering a sequel! While Julep doesn’t have a lot of names from my paternal side of the family, Zoya does, and I have a few of those polishes. I was thinking of combining a bunch of them into a different manicure with the same kind of hidden message idea. Maybe I’ll get around to it…eventually…

I hope you’ve enjoyed this manicure and the tutorial! Thanks for reading!

– Emi