Nail Art Book Review: Basic Nail Art Techniques and How to Combine Them (by Ina from My Nail Polish Online)

*Disclaimer: this product was provided for review. All opinions expressed are my own and not influenced by anyone or anything.

Hi everyone!

Today's post is very different from what normally appears on this blog - and then again it's actually not different at all! The "different" part is the fact that I'm reviewing a book - the "non different" part is that it's a nail art book! :D This is my first book review, so if I forgot to mention something feel free to ask in the comments! This will be a long review, but it's worth it!

Ina from My Nail Polish Online recently asked me if I wanted to review her nail art e-book: Basic Nail Art Techniques and How to Combine Them. You can find her e-book here on Amazon! 

It's for Kindle and it costs $5.99 which is a great price for it I think: the book is filled with tutorials. If you don't have a Kindle, that's no problem! You can download the Kindle app on your smartphone or tablet and even on your computer! Ina provided me with this screenshot:

The e-book starts with a little basic introduction about how to take care of your nails (moisturize, use gloves when doing the dishes...). After that you get a step-by-step tutorial on how to paint your nails properly:

For us bloggers this is already familiar, but I remember when I first got into nail polish I didn't know that you had to start painting your nails in the middle of the nail! So it's a good introduction for people who are new to polish. 

In the book you don't get a entire explanation about the different parts of your nails and what they are made of and such, but this e-book is first and foremost a "basic nail art techniques" book and it certainly lives up to that name! The book explains sooo much nail art techniques, including animal prints, the dry brush technique, the watercolour technique, framed nails, gradients, ruffians, ikat, floral designs, needle marbling, dreamcatchers, and much much more. 

For every technique, you first get a list of the materials and supplies you will need. Then you get a step by step tutorial, after which you get some suggested colour combinations - Ina has some stunning combo's! The final part of each tutorial gives you some more advanced ideas to try out with the techniques. The tutorials are all very straightforward, without unnecessary "blah-blah": you get the explanation you need, short and sweet.

So, let's take a look at a few tutorials! I picked some fun tutorials that I really wanted to try out, and I'll show you how well the design worked out for me and how Ina's explanation works. While I was scrolling through the e-book I really wanted to try out so much! I've limited myself to only three designs though :p I have only used Ina's book to do these designs and I didn't look at Youtube video's or other tutorials.


Flowers using the Watercolour Technique
First up are these flowers using the watercolour technique. Ina tells us this about these flowers:

Here's a look at Ina's supply list for this technique:

And here is Ina's step by step tutorial! You get pictures depicting all the steps, and she explains it in text as well. She has two earlier chapters in the e-book which explain how to do five petal flowers and how to do the watercolour technique, so you could look back at those if you need some more guidance.

Now, how did I do with this tutorial? ;) I used Sinful Colors Snow Me White as a base colour and Essie Lapiz of Luxury for the flowers. I also used Black Passion from Only You for the black dots.

This design was really easy to do if you just follow the steps in the tutorial! I myself wouldn't know how to start these flowers, so it gives me some security to follow a tutorial that shows you step by step how to do this design. I skipped step 5 from the images and didn't outline my flowers. I love the outcome, it looks so delicate!

Camouflage Nails
Next up are these camouflage nails! I've never ever done camouflage nails so it was a great opportunity to try it out. Here's Ina's step by step tutorial (only the pictures, not the text):

And here's how my recreation turned out! I used OPI My Vampire is Buff as a base coat and used ELF Chocolate, ELF Smoky Brown and Arcancil Gris Cashmere for the camouflage spots. Ina's design only uses two colours for the camouflage spots but I used three because it felt empty in my design otherwise.

Ikat nails
And another technique that I have never ever tried out: ikat! Here's Ina's step by step tutorial:

And here's my result. This technique was actually really easy. I just followed Ina's steps. The only thing I would suggest is instead of painting "irregular shapes" on your nails in white, try painting rhombus shapes. I used Essie Angora Cardi, nr. 44 by D'Orleac, Sinful Colors Snow Me White and Only You Black Passion. I love love love the combo of Angora Cardi with the dark blue!

I like how Ina explains things in her tutorials, and her e-book is filled with so much inspiration! The only thing I found a bit confusing was the fact that the numbers on the picturial and the numbers in the text version of the tutorial didn't match - maybe for a next book something to look at? ;)

EDIT: the numbers only don't match in the pdf version of the book that I got sent for review. Something went wrong with the numbers and they jumped a bit. However, in the Kindle version everything is totally fine with the numbers, as you might have seen in the preview on Amazon ;) So this wasn't Ina's fault at all and something just went wrong with my pdf version. So if you buy the e-book, it will look perfectly fine! :)

The techniques that are explained in the book are, as the title says, basic techniques. But still, I've been blogging for a year and a half now and there are techniques in the book that I still hadn't tried! It's a great source of inspiration and I also like the "try this advanced option" bits, where Ina explains some more advanced designs you can do once you have the specific nail art technique down.

Of course, if you are a true beginner, besides a good tutorial you will need practice! So don't expect that every design will work right away; nail art is all about practicing your skills - but of course a decent explanation of a technique helps a lot ;)

You can judge for yourself! There's a preview available for the e-book here, where you can read a few chapters. Just click "Look inside" left on the screen, just above the picture of the book :)

Thanks for reading!