When it comes to picking colors that go together, sometimes it can be a challenge. A client may request a nail art design and then pick a nail polish color she wants as the base, but you might not be sure what other color paints to use to make sure they all complement each other.

Kathleen M. M. Ringwood-Wood of Poughkeepsie, N.Y., advises techs to go to the paint aisle at their local home improvement store and look at the paint chips on display. Most times there will be paint chips with three, four, or more colors that have been pre-selected as complementary colors. “You know they will go well together,” says Ringwood-Wood, “because they have been picked out by professional designers. And every season, the stores will come out with different colors in many different combinations. You can collect them, keep them, and then use them as reference.”

1. Ringwood-Wood took two polish colors that roughly matched two shades on a paint chip display.

2. She then chose paint colors to try to match the other colors on the display. It is sometimes necessary to mix colors together to get them to match correctly. Ringwood-Wood chose ivory, plum, and golden yellow. And she mixed a dusty green with a metallic gold to get a more accurate green shade.

3. For the plum-colored polish, she used Finger Paints’ If It Ain’t Baroque, Don’t Fix it!, and applied intersecting lines using the complementary colors.

4. For the gold nail, she used Dashing Diva’s Butta-Me-Up and chose a flower design to create a more delicate look for the color combinations.   

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