Pink Nail Gradient

Thursday night, I finally took some time to do my nails. I decided to try my hand at polish gradient (grading) which I had seen a few times but had yet to experiment with. I went with a pink palette (which I'll probably be sticking with for the month of February) and I think it worked out pretty well considering it was my first attempt.

These are the colors I used:

Essie's Vanity Fairest

Essie's Pink Diamond

Nicole by Opi All Kendall-ed Up (from the Kardashian Opi Line)

Essie's A Cut Above (Luxeffects)

Essie's Shine Of The Times (Luxeffects)

The gradient process is pretty easy, but like most polish projects, it is a little time consuming. I usually start with a clear base coat to protect my natural nail. Next, select a nice color scheme and begin with the lightest color you chose. I used two coats since my base color was so pale. 

Here is what the first polish looks like by itself... This is Essie's Vanity Fairest.

After it dries, use the next lightest color in your scheme. Place a few drops on a piece of paper and with a makeup sponge or a eyeshadow sponge pick up a little bit of the polish. If you pick up too much polish it will ruin the effect, so make sure to dab the sponge on the paper before you use the sponge on your nail. 

I didn't take pictures of each step of the grading process, but here are pics of the finished product.

Start dabbing from the bottom of the nail towards the top (cuticle) but only go about 3/4 of the way up your nail. You should get a stippling effect.

Then, use the next color in the scheme and follow the same steps but this time, you're only going to apply the polish about half way up the nail. Follow the same step with the next polish but only go a quarter of the way up the nail. 

Once it dries, use a clear glittery polish over the whole nail to blend the layers together and give a nice glittery effect to the whole look. Finally, just top with a clear top coat to protect your work and keep it from chipping! 

For a good step by step video on nail grading check out this video from KlairedelysArt. Click on the link for her youtube channel.

What did you think? Will you be trying this technique out? Have you already tried it? If you have, feel free to post or link to some pics! Would love to see different takes on the nail gradient technique!  :)

Thanks for reading!

Damarys

Shellac and Konad Pedi Time!

 I finally got a chance to give myself a pedicure on Tuesday night! I used some of my shellac polishes and I decided to try using my konad stamps to add a little something special.  I am happy to report it was a success!

I did one coat of Red Baroness Shellac polish, one coat of Zillionaire Shellac polish and I topped it off with white konad hearts from the M3 plate.

The Zillionaire Shellac polish is a very thin glittery polish. It is great for layering with other polishes. I like the subtle effect it gave my nails. For more of a sparkle, try using two coats instead. 

You can see a little of the sparkle effect on the bottle in this pic. Below, is the end result!

Hope you guys like it! Getting ready to do my mani now. Will post pics soon! Stay tuned!

Damarys

Marble Nails!

I tried my hand at marble nails yesterday and I must say that it is time consuming and messy but the nails looked pretty! I say "looked" because believe it or not, I already messed them up!   :( 

 Here are the pics!

These were taken right after I did my left hand. As you can see I had yet to even clean off the excess polish.

 These were taken at the end of the night after I had already ruined most of my nails.  :(

Unfortunately, the marbling process took a lot longer than I had expected and I ended up having to rush to get ready for dinner and my nails had not yet completely dried. The drying process seems to take a bit longer with water marbling. Also, I got a few air bubbles on some of the nails. I'll have to read up on how to get rid of those.


Either way, it was pretty fun and the colors looked pretty cute together. Here are the polishes I used for this water marbling:

I'll be giving the water marbling another shot soon... up next: Konad! 
Thanks for reading!


        

  Damarys