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I have to admit that I am not an artist. I draw about as good as a 3 year old discovering their first box of crayons. So, it is with a little trepidation that I tried a nail art pen. Specifically, I am talking about a Sally Hansen Nail Art Pen. I picked up a black and a silver pen and set about to learn what I could do. I have enjoyed dotting designs that are simple and easy. But I can see that with these pens, it will make the job easier still. These pens are simple to use. The tip is plastic and hollow and holds the water based color that you apply to your nails. The tip is surprisingly fine and it is easy to use as fill or dotting. So let me show you what I did with the pen.

But first, a few tips about using these pens from a newbie:

• Before using the pen, you have to shake it to mix it up. There is a small mixer inside that you can hear as you shake the pen back and fourth.
• Before the first use, I would bleed pressure off the pen. I live at an altitude of over 4000 feet. The pen was likely made at a lower elevation than that. The first pen I “charged” squirted a healthy dose of black all over my work surface. Luckily, that was only paper but if it had been anything else… You get the idea. The second pen I kept tip side up and bled the pressure by depressing the point. Nothing came out and it charged without incident when I was actually ready to use it.
• When you are done, cap the pen fully. I also took the step of shaking the excess off the tip first onto a paper towel but I suspect that I did not need to do this.

Using a Nail Art Pen

I first used the black to clean up the line that forms the lunula I had painted on. The black on O.P.I. Russian Blue hid nicely and even gave a little accent outline, which was nice. I did not initially try the silver pen until a few days later. As it turns out I did chip a nail at work. That meant a repair on my silk wraps (yea, I have silks). To do the repair, I lightly buffed off the topcoat without cutting into the color below, glued my nail back to proper shape, applied a silver lunula accent and then dotted the accent. I was impressed with the result – for a first time!

Now, drawing lines with your non-dominant hand is difficult at best, but I think I did alright. What I discovered is that my dominant hand (right) is not all that better. It could have been that 2nd martini I had but that will require extensive experimentation to verify. I will need more practice with these pens and I may even pick up a few more colors for fun as well. All in all, these are great additions to any nail art kit.