A Lava Lamp Manicure Is Going Viral on Instagram
We should have known the '60s were back the moment we saw tie-dye nails and jumpsuits making a resurgence. Manicures inspired by the world of tie-dye and groovy fashions have been trending on Instagram and on IRL manicures, and now, another nail design is here to satisfy your inner flower child: lava lamp nails.
Spotted most recently on the Instagram feed of nail artist Liam Peter, the trend takes stiletto-shaped nails and transforms them into miniature lava lamps.
"Have wanted to do something like this for like a year and finally did it," Peter wrote on Instagram. To create the look, he used The GelBottle Inc. gel nail polish in Cosmopolitan, a sheer yet bright pink color, and Bellini, a creamy orange shade.
"Layering jelly and neon gel polishes gives depth and makes it seem as though the blobs are really flowing around," Peter told Allure. "The real star, though, is the sunlight. Just like with holographic effects, these come alive when the sun hits the nail."
The flower child decade has certainly entered 2019, but this isn't the first time that lava lamps have made their appearance on a nail bed: Back in 2015, NailPro.com called out lava lamps as a "moving nail" trend. "The liquid moves around inside the nail – with bubbles of both colored and clear fluid," the site reported at the time.
Both Peter and the site claim that aquarium nails walked so lava lamp nails could run. Another professional-level nail trend, aquarium nails involve stacking two nail tips on top of one another, then injecting baby oil between them with a syringe to create the illusion of floating water. Just inject colored blobs instead of colored fish, and you've got yourself a very groovy nail.
Fans on Instagram are fawning over Peter's creation in the comment section. "Omg this is amazing," wrote one future flower child. As another commenter aptly put it, "these are insane and I love it." There are also calls (which we echo) for the nails as a press-on set.
As one nail artist wrote on Instagram, "took forever looks pretty cool but probably wont keep it," which is exactly how I feel about the lava lamp I once hunted down at a garage sale.
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Originally Appeared on Teen Vogue
