Trend Report: Wearing Glittery Nail Polish in a Professional Environment

Posted by workingtoworld on April 24, 2016 in Professional Work Environment, Trend Report | 2 Comments

One of the biggest trends this year is glitter nail polish.  Every time I walk into Sephora, I am drawn to the FormulaX display because of the beautiful sparkle.  The halo-like shine that comes from glitter just makes me happy and just lifts my spirits.  But I am a professional, I work in a very conservative environment in finance and I spend most of my time at work, so I have had to just keep walking.  I cannot wear sliver glitter on my nails at work.

So, I had to come up with a way to make it work.  And so I did.  Below is overview of the rules that I developed for wearing this trend followed by a couple of examples.

• Avoid high shine polishes;
• Avoid heavy metallic , metallic colors should have an almost matte finish to them;
• Avoid silver, it stands out a lot on all skin tones;
• Avoid dark colors;
• Avoid super bright or neon colors;
• Use muted natural looking colors;
• Find a glitter polish that is relatively close to your skin tone with just a hint of color;
• Layer over muted neutral colors;
• Put only one layer of the glittery polish on;
• Use rough  feeling glitters work better than glossy ones; and,
• If you use a top coat, use only matte or natural

As a first step, apply one or two layers of a matte or satin finish natural looking nail color. I used the L’Oreal Nail Color in “Mauvelous”, which is a really pretty mauvey rose color which looks very pretty and neutral on the nail and is very work appropriate on its own.

Next, layer a beautiful neutral toned glitter polish.  The first look below is great for light to tan skin tones and looks very, very professional in person.  The second color is better suited for light-medium to darker skin tones; however, it can be toned down for lighter skin tones with the application of a lighter base color.

For a look suited to the lighter skin tones as described above, I recommend applying one coast of a rosy pink glitter polish; here I used the Milani Nail Lacquer in “552 Pink Flare.” You can see that layered over a neutral nail color, it looks really natural.

Another option for darker skin tones is to use a muted orangey copper color that is similar to the natural skin tone.  Here I used the L’Oreal Nail Color in “I like it chunky.”

Finally, as a way to tone down these colors further, you can use a slightly lighter neutral base color, like the Victoria’s Secret Very Sexy Nail Lacquer in “Pet,” a cream color with the slightest pink undertone.

I hope you found this helpful and that you’ll enjoy some pretty glitter in your life.

If you like this blog, please follow it. If you would like to see more posts like this where I take a trend and show you how to make it office appropriate, please like this post or leave me a comment below.  Also, be on the lookout for an exciting giveaway coming soon.