I get asked quite a lot about whether I do my glitter placements on both hands. Gotta be honest here, I totally don't. Sure, I do my nails for wearing around and it's fun but it's more for the pictures and my left hand just isn't in as good shape as my right. And glitter placements take ages! What I do do (heheheh), however, is something that takes a tiny fraction of the time and looks close enough to a glitter placement that it doesn't look weird to just have the one complicated hand.
I was going to do my full hand with this new rainbow glitter but it's tiny and I got lazy so I decided to show you as a direct comparison what I do with my cinderella hand. To start, I applied two coats of OPI My Boyfriend Scales Walls, always a good white. Given how often a white base is useful, it's worth going for the higher-end polishes here. With this small glitter you need a thin base so you don't lose your glitter as you place it. I went with my usual technique on my thumb and ring fingers - thin stripe of top coat down the middle, laid down my centre column of glitter that will set the spacing for the rest of the nail, repeat til done. What I did do differently though was to liberally apply top coat to my other fingers and sprinkle the same glitter on the wet polish. I also use my finger to pick up an amount of glitter, then lightly press on to my nail. Keeps the glitter flatter. I did touch up a few areas with more top coat so I could get good coverage, but that's it. And Seche Vite, of course.
The Verdict: I like this method because it means you can do just as much glitter placement as you want, and no more. If you're doing a pattern with your glitter, the slap-on approach is more obvious but that's when you just hold out your fancy hand if someone asks. From a distance, no one can tell and you get more time to do things that don't involve sticking glitter to yourself. Yay sparklies!
