Rodarte inspired Basket-Weave Manicure – How-To

There are so many amazing nail trends for this season that we’ve been struggling to choose which ones to give a go ourselves, but when we saw this look at Rodarte we suddenly felt inspired. Here in the SheSaidBeauty office we thought this was the perfect opportunity to try out a similar look using just three polishes, and once we broke the design down into a few simple steps it was so easy to create. It’s a classic basket-weave (remember doing those at school?) – you could go the whole-hog and track down some material to create this look exactly, but we’ve decided to make it a bit more wareable by layering polishes and sticking to an accent nail.

First things first, prep your nails. File them down to one length and push back your cuticles. Give the a light buff with a white bloc and dehydrate your nail beds using a cotton pad soaked in nail polish remover. Next paint your nails with a good quality base coat (we love Nails Inc Silk Base Coat) and two coats of your first polish – we’ve used Essie Nail Polish in Master Plan and painted all of our nails apart from the ring finger which we’ve only painted halfway up.

Leave this layer to dry for a minute or so and then take your second colour (we’ve used Barry M Nail Polish in Peach Melba) and paint a diagonal stripe across the botton half of the nail. Once this has dried take your third colour (we’ve used China Glaze Call of the Wild) and paint another diagonal stripe crossing the other way over the second colour.

Take your first colour and paint another diagonal line from the opposite direction to the last colour overlapping the top. Next, take your second colour and do the same going the other way.

Repeat again with your third colour and back to your first.

Finish off your look by repeating these steps right to the end of the nail. You can make your stripes as thick as you like – the thinner they are the more stripes you can fit on your nail. Finish your manicure by cleaning up the edges using a cotton bud dipped in nail polish remover and apply a good top coat – we’ve used Lancome Le Vernis Top Coat.

You can create this look with as many colours as you like – get creative with different combinations and tweet your best picture @SheSaidBeauty