Sprites thread of Nail Art and stuff

[Sprites]

So recently I realised, I’ve been spamming up the pics thread with my nail polish stuff when I figure, I oughta just post my nail art stuff here instead as I can tell how I did it and put up my most creative stuff , so welcome to my nail art thread, I admit I’m not the most artistic of people but I love creating stuff on my nails and find it really therapeutic. For each little creation I’ll put up pics of the colours I used and any tools I used too, so enjoy

To begin with I’ll give some basic tips for before and aftercare of applying nail polish in general, not everyone does it and it doesn't have to be constantly done but I find with the amount of change ups I do, usually changing my manicure every 2 days it’s vital to keep my nails healthy before I apply a new manicure.

Always ensure hands are clean and moisturise with a good hand cream to begin with so that your hands are prepped for any nail polish.

Use a nail file that has a buffer and polisher on it to buff and polish your nails before applying anything.

Once every two weeks I trim around my cuticles to keep the skin healthy and clean with a cuticle trimmer, I use an orange stick/cuticle pusher as they’re called to push back the dry/dead skin then gently clip it away.

Use a cuticle and nail oil and massage in before applying any nail products as nail polish and remover can dry your nails out and leave the nails feeling brittle if like me you constantly apply it. Nail polish should also be applied a little bit away from the cuticle as this helps stop drying them out too.

Below is a pic of my pre-nail care: hand cream, cuticle oil, clippers for nails and cuticles, cuticle pusher and a 6-way nail file.

Have a good basecoat to hand before applying any nail polish, basecoat is a clear polish that acts as a barrier between the nail and the chemical in the nail polish, it keeps your nails healthier, it prevents staining on the nails from darker pigmented polishes and reduces the amount of dragging or streaking whilst applying a polish.

For afters a good top coat keeps the manicure looking fresher, last longer and gives a nice bit of added shine to the manicure and helps prevent the dredded “sheet marks” those little lines that appear if you gone to sleep with applied polish that looks like tiny little slices. I normally use a quick drying topcoat as it prevent me from smudging it by accident a lot more quickly. Below is a pick of my base and top coat that I love using. I’ve included some cotton buds in the pic as I use them to help clean up nail polish outside of the nail and around the cuticle, they also come in handy for nail art

Finally for removal, a good bottle of nail polish remover, again I use one with added vitamins because I tend to have brittle nails, cotton buds and the all-important hand cream to keep hands lovely and soft and nails well looked after, your hands tend to feel a bit dry after using nail polish remover.

Well now that that’s out of the way, next post will be some actual nail art, how I did it and all that Jazz, I’ve got two coming up so bear with me while I post on them

 

[Sprites]

The first nail art you’re about to see is a pic I put up recently on the pic thread. I was inspired by the hot weather and the thought of a melting ice cream with sprinkles on it or just melting ice cream in general. I was already wearing the pink the day before which has begun to wear at the tip and decided to jazz it up.

Next what I used to create it
BarryM Nail polish in Pink Flamingo,
BarryM Dolly Mixture (mixture of pastel rainbow non-shiny bar/long glitter)
BarryM Nail Art pen in white,
A small flat Nail Art brush.

I’ve not included my base coat or topcoat as they’re always applied except with certain polishes.

BarryM is probably my favourite brand of nail polish and the make I own most nail polish for, but you could use any kinds of nail polish to create the look.
1. Apply base coat and then two coats of the pink nail polish

2. Once the coats are dry, take the white nail art pen and create melting style designs on each nail, it’s definitely much trickier to apply on my right hand as my left hand isn’t my dominant one, but the key is to go slow and steady. Once you’ve made your melting shapes fill in the outline with the pen. The nail art pens tend to dry fast as well so there are no worries about it smudging.


3. For this stage I recommend getting some paper to blot the glitter polish onto to prevent mess. On some paper take your glitter polish and blot it using the nail polish brush onto the paper until you get a small puddle of polish, just a small one mind you don’t need to tip out half the bottle.

4. Take your nail art brush and dip into the polish blotted on the paper, then carefully apply on the white part of the melting style. I find that if you gently dab the polish onto the nail with a nail art brush and build it up rather than applying straight from the bottle is easier and much neater to apply when you’re putting it on something a bit more fiddly. Use your own judgement to decide how much of the glitter/sprinkles you want on your design, then allow to dry for fiveish minutes or so.



5. Dip a cotton bud into some nail varnish and carefully clean around the nail and cuticles where excess nail polish has been applied.

6. Apply one coat of topcoat to each nail to smooth the design and give it some shine or if you don’t want to feel the extra grittiness from the glitter apply another to smooth it out.

Done.

 

[Sprites]

Next up, summer skies.
This I came up just this evening and it really took no time to do, I’m quite pleased with it for the first attempt, again it was inspired by the hot summer weather here at the moment.

Again this was made mostly using BarryM nail polishes, I bought some today and was dying to use them, so here’s how I did this one
BarryM Blueberry Icecream
BarryM limited edition Yellow
Rio Nail Art polish in white
2x dotting tools one large and one small. A dotting tool is used to make pretty much a perfect dot in nail art however if you can’t get hold of one, a bobby pin or a toothpick dipped in clear nail polish and left to dry for a bit work quite well as substitutes.

Cotton buds. (I should point out my cottons buds are flat one end and pointed the other as the pointed ones are really good for cleanup but normal ones will work just as well for this design)
Paper for nail polish blotting.

1. After applying the usual base coat, paint on one coat of BarryM blueberry ice cream, it’s quite a thick polish so one coat is more than enough. Allow it to dry for ten minutes or so.

2. Blot the white nail polish onto some paper, then using a cotton bud gently dab the tip into the polish.

3. Carefully apply the cotton bud to the nail in a gentle dabbing motion in different areas of the nail, to create a smudged “fluffy cloud” effect, neatness is not key here, just make sure you have enough space so that your clouds don’t run into one another, if the white doesn't show enough over the blue then carefully dab a little bit more to each cloud to make the effect slightly more intense. Do this to each nail EXCEPT YOUR RING FINGERS and allow to dry.

4. To create the accent nail on the ring finger (an accent nail is when the manicure differs from the rest of it, in this case the ring finger has a sun on it whereas the rest of the design is clouds) blot some of the yellow polish onto the paper until you have a small puddle.

5. Using a larger nibbed dotting tool, bobby pin or whatever you prefer, dab it into the polish and the apply onto the nail in a circular motion , if you feel confident enough you could always free-hand it.

6. Using the smaller nibbed dotting tool or a very fine nail art brush, dip into the yellow (you may need to add some more polish if it’s starting to dry up on the paper ) and make small streaks or lines from the yellow dot on the nail to make a sun and allow to dry.

7. Once the design on the accent nail has become touch dry, as in you can touch it without it feeling tacky, apply your top coat, it’s very important to only apply the top coat TO THE ACCENT NAIL once it’s in this stage as it could smudge the sun if applied too early, whereas if it smudges the white clouds it makes them look a bit more fluffier which is nice so you can apply your top coat on ahead to those but just give the sun a bit more drying time.

I like this design and I think I’ll try a couple of more techniques next time to improve my sun and the look of my clouds, but overall not bad I think

 

[Tennyo]

Cute idea! I like the ice cream one quite a bit. Very cute.

 

[Sprites]

Alright guys here’s another little piece of simple nail art,

Why did I choose to do it with lighter colours instead of darker?…meh, originally I decided to do a blue and gold glitter combo and then I thought I wonder how it would looked jazzed up with stars, and I really like the effect, the silver is really reflective the gold shimmer polish. Anyways there's two photos with the flash on and off, the effect is different for each but I personally prefer the natural light.

So here’s what I used I’ve included the top coat in this picture for a reason.

BarryM Blueberry Icecream
A-England …And the Moonbeams
Sally Hansens Insta-Dry topcoat
A pot of little silver stars I got with one of my nail art kits although you could easily get them in any beauty shop that does nail art accessories.
Nail rhinestone and motif applicator, this has a handy rubber end (I’ll explain the use of this)

Again these colours are my preferences but you could use any you wanted.

1. Apply Base coat of choice

2. Paint one coat of Blueberry Ice cream, it’s quite a thick nail polish so one coat usually does the job and allow to dry for 5ish minutes

3. Paint one coat of …And the Moonbeams over each nail. (it’s title actually had ellipsis in the beginning). Can I just say this is one of my favourite glitter/shimmer polishes I’ve ever used, it’s a very delicate polish, almost pale lemon rather than full on gold in colour and really does give that moonbeam feel you can see from the photo it’s not a very ‘in-your-face’ glitter polish, it goes really nicely with the blue on it's own too. It goes on really smooth and isn’t as difficult as some glitter polishes to remove. A-England is an indie brand so you can only order it online but it’s pretty reasonable prices and the polishes are all stunning, so money well spent…for me anyways

4. Clean up any nail polish around the cuticles with a cotton bud dipped in nail polish remover.

5. This next step is the trickiest and longest and also the reason for the applicator (again you can buy this probably any place that does nail art accessories) instead of your fingers or tweezers. While you could apply the stars with your fingers or tweezers you risk fingerprint or smudge marks, the applicator has a rubber/waxy end which makes it easier to pick up the stars and manoeuver them around the nail without smudging or marking your polish.

The tub with the stars as you can see from the photo is small, so it’s best to grab a pinch of them and spread them onto paper or a plate so that they’re spread out from one another and lying flat, I use an empty cotton bud containter for stuff like this as any remaining stars I can easily pour them back into the tub. It’s also ideal to have a small cap full of water for this next bit and I’ll explain why.

I’ve done a diagonal design so I’ll also explain how to line up the stars perfectly too. Using the applicator dab the rounded rubber section in a cap full of water or if you want to you could wet it with your tongue, this will help pick up the star though it may take a couple of attempts to pick up something so tiny. Once picked up gently press the star down on depending which direction you want to go, the left or right bottom corner of your nail where your cuticle is, if you have curved nails like me you may need to press it down a little more firmly to help it stick or lie flat, your nail polish will probably still be a little tacky at this point so this should help hold it in place which is why it’s better using the applicator to prevent smudging.

Repeat the same process for the second star only this time apply the star to the top of the nail in whichever direction you’re going, this means when it comes to apply the central star you can easily align it between both to get the alignment nice and straight. One you’ve done ONE nail only follow the next step.

6. Apply a good helping of topcoat carefully over the nail, this will help the stars to stick into place and not budge, I generally apply two coats of topcoat on each nail just to be safe and to give extra coverage. It’s easier to do this when you’ve applied the stars one nail at a time otherwise they might fall off if you leave until the end. Repeat the process for each nail depending on how many nails you want to put the stars on.

You could do only one for an accent nail and a more subtle effect, if you choose this you only need to apply topcoat once to the nails without the stars just to seal everything up and give extra shine to your nails. Once again finish off by cleaning up any extra topcoat around the cuticles, and you’re done

 

[Octo]

Sprites, when you get the chance line up all your varnishes in colour order and post pics fgj! /ocd

 

[Mage]

OH MY GODS.

I love the stars! If I were more of a nail polish person I would have a go at that one. Personally I own three nail polishes.

 

[Arianna]

Nice work, Sprites!

 

[Sprites]

Sprites, when you get the chance line up all your varnishes in colour order and post pics fgj! /ocd

That could take some time as my collection amasses to 108 bottles alone not including my base coats and top coats, (the collection comes to 113 bottles if you add them), but I could do it by Brand and effect types within the brand and also take a pic of all the nail art accessories, mind you it'll be very pic heavy so I'll try and do one massive pic spam of it in the next couple of days so you can see the whole thing, just to give you an idea though here's a photo of the entire collection minus my nail art accessories, taking up a full shelf in my wardrobe and yup I keep them organised like that so I know how to find them all

 

[Octo]

Me gusta!

If I ever win the lottery, I'm going to have a big room with nail varnish and paints and wool and shit all arranged in rainbow order. It's weird though given that I'm such a slob about everything else.

 

[Lex]

All I see is Disney <3

 

[Sprites]

Indeed you do spy it, normally I have THEM arranged by their DVD colour cover, it's still a bit noticeable but, I was being a bit messy at the time, it's fixed again now. I own mostly the classics. The only major ones I'm missing include Cinderella, Snow White, Sleeping Beauty and The Little Mermaid, just haven't got round to purchasing those ones yet


MORE NAIL ART

Again this is a very simple but pretty design and rather than full on I&#8217;ve created two accent nails with cute flower motifs on my thumb and ring finger. I&#8217;m going to a friend&#8217;s leaving do tomorrow so wanted to do something a little bit different. Here&#8217;s what I used to make it, again I&#8217;ve included the Top coat as it&#8217;s important in this one for the nail motifs

BarryM Black
*Max Factor Fantasy Fire*
Sally Hansen Insta-dry Top Coat
Assortment of flower nail motifs
Tweezers.
When I say this one is easy, I mean it, the steps are pretty short all in all it only took about 20 mins to do, some of my more crazy stuff can take over an hour.

1. As always apply your base coat

2. Paint two coats of BarryM Black

3. Paint two generous coats of Fantasy Fire

4. Allow these to become touch dry/slightly tacky

5. Pick your nail motifs, the clear backing they&#8217;re stuck to is perfect to line up the ones you want on the nails you want to put them too, One you&#8217;ve chose your designs, gently with your tweezers, peel the motif away from the backing and gently apply it to the nail. The type I used are adhesive so be careful when applying them as if applied wrong it&#8217;s an absolute pain to fix. It&#8217;s up to yourself where you choose to apply the motifs, I quite like applying them by the cuticle. I used one type on my Ring finger and two different ones on my thumb. Once the Motif is applied very gently with the flat part of the tweezers press over it to seal it to the nail.

6. Apply Top Coat, this is particularly important to seal the adhesive completely in place, as the designs will start to peel off or some away in water pretty quickly if they aren&#8217;t sealed. Again I&#8217;d use two coats on the accent nails to keep it extra sealed.


Done!

*Fantasy Fire, is a very special polish, it&#8217;s one of my absolute favourites but the bottle is so small so I use it quite sparingly as it&#8217;s quite hard to get hold of. It&#8217;s base colour is almost ultra-violet purple with shimmer running through it and is known as a &#8216;duochrome&#8217; and &#8216;layering&#8217; polish meaning it flashes different colours depending on the light. It&#8217;s also too sheer to use as a normal polish so it&#8217;s best layered over another colour. Depending on the colour it&#8217;s layered over depends on the colour it also takes, for example in the photo above of my nail art it&#8217;s layered over black and looks quite rubyish in colour however it changes to gold or copper and sometimes flashes green depending on the light.

Below is what it looks like layered over a very pale powder blue, I used about 4 layers to get the colour but as you can see it&#8217;s almost electric blue and the shimmer is more purple than red, I was wearing this yesterday, it&#8217;s so, so very pretty.

I&#8217;ve also included a photo of it in the bottle so you can see the different colours it becomes in the light, you can also see the change in the colour of my nails, they&#8217;ve gone from that dark, ruby, red colour to a coppery, green &#8211;hued gold and in the bottle you can see the purple, green, gold, red and blue tones and the shimmer running through it, it&#8217;s so complex and beautiful and I could gush about it forever I just wish it came in a bigger, bottle form but so far it&#8217;s not been released like that dammit. Anyways sorry I just wanted to show you just how amazing this tiny little bottle of polish is

 

[AvecAloes]

Aaaaa I love the flowers!

 

[Mage]

The sparkly blue is pretty damned stunning.

 

[Octo]

Question, has anyone here ever had a professional manicure and if so would you say it was worth the money? Every now and then when I can be bothered I go over my nails with a buffer and get rid of the ridges and stuff, I was wondering if a professional could do a better job of it than me. I'm talking about natural nails here not acrylics.

Also since having Freybs I'm washing my hands 2x as much as before, I think it's drying them out and making them look old. I don't want Sarah Jessica Parker/Madonna hands. I still havent been able to find a hand cream that I don't immediately want to wash of because its greasy. :/

 

[Sprites]

If you're looking to get something to get your hands in good condition again then you should get like a deep treatment style one in a spa where they usually do hands and arm massages then buff the nails, clean and trim the cuticles, then round the whole thing off by doing a nice manicure and it's heaven, I've had one done before. But a spa is better for that sort of thing than a nail salon sometimes though both always do a pretty good job with buffing and cleaning up the nails in general.

In terms of nail salons and natural manicures, I don't think they're always worth the money on their own unless you're going for gel or acrylics which over usage of tends to fuck up the nails, my mum's has natural manicures done but found the polish chipped pretty quickly again though they do a pretty good job of buffing the nails and cleaning up the cuticles.

I'd recommend a balm rather than a hand cream if you've really dried hands and to use a very tiny pea-sized amount as they can be greasy but they do wonders if you massage it in well. Nivea does a really good SOS balm that I use in winter when my skin on my hands gets so dried it cracks and bleeds. I'd also recommend a nail and cuticle oil if you get dried skin around them. The body shop do an awesome one in a pen style that has a cuticle pusher with it and I have a bottle of OPI stuff but that's expensive so not always great for the cost but it does wonders for my cuticles.

 

[Sprites]

If anyone is curious to know, I change my polish every 2-3 days or as soon as it starts to chip or wear at the tips. The manicure I last posted I was hoping to get another day out of but alas after scrubbing dinner pots with a pot scrubber this evening, my polish took a pretty bad blow at the tips, I&#8217;m really loving using my Fantasy Fire polish at the moment, motifs and decals so I did another one, this time I used a different blue nail polish, darker in colour so I used less layers of Fantasy Fire to achieve almost the same effect in colour as the photo of Fantasy Fire layered several times over a paler blue polish. It&#8217;s a little darker and more purple in person but comes up almost the same in the flash photo. I then added some nail crystals on my ring fingers for a subtle accent effect.

One photo in flash and one without flash.

And here&#8217;s what I used to create it.

BarryM Blue Grape (it&#8217;s a gorgeous cobalt blue colour on it&#8217;s own)
Max Factor, Fantasy Fire
Sally Hansen Top Coat
Crystal type nail decals
Tweezers (forgot to add those to the photo)

Again this is a pretty simple bit of nail art but requires a little bit of a steady hand in placing the little crystals on the nail and there&#8217;s glue involved.

1. Paint two coats of Blue Grape

2. Paint two coats of Fantasy Fire

3. Paint one light coat of Top Coat on each nail

This next bit is fairly tricky as you really only get one chance to pop these on carefully without ruining your manicure and you need a steady hand so take your time and be patient. The backs of these little crystals are adhesive, but I&#8217;ve used them before without applying nail glue and they didn&#8217;t last long even when sealed with a top coat so I apply nail glue to them. For this design I chose a flower crystal and two little rounded crystals for each nail. The backing they&#8217;re attached to is clear to give you an idea of what might look good and where to place them on the nails before you actually remove them.

4. Remove the lid off the nail glue so you have it ready, the nail glue I have comes with a very handy, tiny applicator so I usually unscrew it first. Using an applicator or if you don&#8217;t have one use a bobby pin or even the flat end of a toothpick to gently dab a tiny amount of the glue on the nail where you want to put the crystal on.

5. Using tweezers remove the crystal you want and place carefully on the spot where you&#8217;ve applied the glue then gently pat it down with the flat end of the tweezers, as these are 3D designs essentially you can safely use the tweezers to press it down without hitting your design. The glue dries clear so you won&#8217;t see any residue and once you add your top coat it&#8217;ll smooth the whole thing out. Repeat the process for as many crystals as you want or if you&#8217;re quick enough and confident about the application you could dab the glue in the general area you&#8217;re going to apply the crystals and apply all three in succession. I prefer to go a little slower and do it one at a time so as to be precise on the design and careful of the placement.

6. Apply a thick coat of Top coat over the whole design to help with the sealing process and to smooth the glue marks left over from the application.

Done.

 

[Mage]

@ Octo: I've had a salon job on my own nails, and also a spa version of the same, and Sprites has the right of it, the better job will be in the spa. However, if like me you fail at manicuring your own hands, it's worth chucking some money at for a special event (mine cost £12 for a wedding I was going to).

For non-greasy really effective hand gunk, I recommend Lush's [SPOILER='Gurugu'.]

[/SPOILER]

I put

Spoiler: this

on before I go to bed and wake up with human hands as opposed to gardeners' paws.

 

[Sprites]

Heeeey, new nail art post and something a little bright and funky this time and it&#8217;s my first time using striping tape to help create a design so I must say I&#8217;m pleased with the success I had with it

Quite summery I think, although I could come Christmas time use different colours to make a more wintery/Christmassy design

I almost wish I&#8217;d included photos of the taping process to give a clearer idea or it but next time I will, here's what I used anyway.

Sally Hansen Insta-dry Top Coat
Barry M limited edition Bright Pink
Barry M limited edition Yellow
Barry M limited edition Lime Green
Finger rest for painting nails
Striping Tape (this is a special type of tiny tape used to either help with creating straight lines in nail art, or it doubles up as a type of nail accessory itself
A Dotting Tool
Tweezers.

1. Base coat


2. Paint two coats of Bright Pink

3.Add a coat of Insta-dry, the important part of this nail art is using a fast drying top coats like Insta-dry or Seche-Vite is another one, as they literally dry your polish bone hard in about 2 minutes and you need a fast drying one for the striping tape steps.

4. Once the top coat is dry, (I would probably wait around 15 mins before doing this stage just to be safe) cut off small sections of striping tape and using two pieces for each nail arrange them in a triangle shape from the egde of your nails to make a point in the centre for them to meet. Ensure you leave a small bit of striping tape from each piece to go over the edge of your nails to help peel it off later.

5. Once you have applied the tape to all of your nails, carefully apply two coats of Lime Green in the gap between the two pieces of striping tape. This bit is a little tricky as you need to be careful not to go over the line of the tape. I&#8217;m quite happy to use the brush from the bottle to do it but if you don&#8217;t have a steady hand or worry the brush is too big you can use a fine/thin nail art brush or paint brush to do it. Allow the polish to dry for roughly 5 mins.

6. Using tweezers, very slowly and gently peel the striping tape off the nail. The reason for applying a quick drying top coat before applying striping tape is that it will peel off the polish underneath if you don&#8217;t allow it to dry and your polish underneath will be ruined so always wait until you can touch the polish without it feeling tacky as al to do this stage. You must also be very patient with the peeling it off part too as the polish in the triangle gap pull off slightly with it depending on how much you went onto the tape line.

7. Apply another layer of Insta-dry, don&#8217;t worry your design won&#8217;t smudge it will smooth and soften out the line left from the striping tape instead.

8. Using Yellow blot some of this onto paper until you get a nice little puddle on the paper. Using your dotting tool of preferred size, dab it into the puddle and using the point of the triangle as your guideline place some dots from the point of the triangle to your cuticle and as the triangle point will sort of meet in the middle of the nail the dots should look quite central. I managed 4 on my thumbnails and 3 on the rest of my nails.

9. Apply one more layer of Insta-dry to smooth your dots and seal the design completely and you&#8217;re done.

 

[Sprites]

It's been a while since I've posted any nail art stuff but I've been playing about with 8 brand new polishes I ordered online instead.

So no nail art posts as such this time around, the splint on my hand is gonna make that tricky but for the time being I thought I'd show off these two holographic beauties, from a make called Dance Legend, when the light catches them they're so beautiful and eye catching

The second pic with the purple one was taken with my left hand as I couldn't hold my phone with my right hand (my dominant one) hence the showing of my splint and it looking a little messier around my nails

Enjoy for now.

 

[Obsidian Fire]

Those are some pretty colors!

 

[Sprites]

Very! I also have a rose coloured one but haven't taken a pic of it yet, oh I also got some storage boxes for all the polishes and they store nicely under my desk in my room, so very easy to take around

my next plan for nail art is to do some Gradient work, I still need some practice though so I won't post pics until I've perfected the technique.

 

[Sprites]

4 weeks since an update....I am ashamed of myself!

So it's been a while but I have to admit I've not really been inspired lately to do nail art and have just been painting some very nice colours on my nails without any art stuff BUT I got inspired tonight and I'm super excited to show this because it's my first successful attempt at a gradient (tie-dye effect) and on the first successful attempt I picked some really lovely colours which just worked, so when it came out as pretty as it did I got really excited. The gradient reminds me a little bit of a sunset on the ocean with the sky fading from that blue to golden colour and I added a small slick of glitter to give it that kind of sunset sparkle on the ocean effect.

Soooo pretty! But be warned if you try a gradient they are a messy affair and unless you tape around your nails you could have a bit of a clean up job, I didn't tape up my nails as it was an attempt and the attempt turned out so well that I carried on, it didn't really take long to clean up after anyway
So here's what I used:

A-England The knight Base coat
Rio Nail Art polish in White
Barry M Blueberry Ice-cream
Barry M Berry Ice-cream
Barry M Lemon Ice-cream
Barry M Pink Iridescent glitter
Sally Hansen insta-dry top coat
paper
A small piece of make up sponge
Cotton buds for clean up.

What I like about the purple I used is that because it's a pastel colour it's not as noticeable in the gradient and it adds to the fade from blue to yellow to give that sunset effect whereas I find when purple in a polish isn't a pastel colour it can be very dominant.

How to do it:
1. apply base coat and once dry apply two thin coats of White nail polish, white is an excellent base colour as it makes your colours pop more especially pastel colours.

2. Apply one coat of insta-dry...this step is optional but the reason for it is you need to let the white dry completely before starting the gradient otherwise the sponge will stick to the white and the gradient will be messy as I noted from previous attempts, a quick dry topcoat speeds up the process and the insta-dry stuff is dry in like 5 minutes.

For the next two steps if you look at the pic above, I included the paper I used for painting my stripes of polish and the sponge I used to give you an idea of what I mean for using them both as I can't unfortunately (unless I sprout a third arm to hold my camera) show you the step-by-step complete process of applying the sponge with polish on it to the nails:

3. on paper paint a horizontal stripe of blueberry, berry and lemon ice-cream or whatever colours you choose to use for your design and build up the colour enough so that it's not too thin on the paper.

4. using a small piece of make-up sponge dip and dab it into the colour vertically then carefully apply by dabbing in a gentle up and down motion on the nails, this will cause the colours to slightly run into each other to create a tie-dye gradient effect.

5. As the make up sponge absorbs more colour; add more polish to the lines to keep the polish wet and stop it from becoming too sticky, as you can see from the paper in my photo, I used only used one area to add more polish to over and over again, this helped the colours run into each other more on the sponge and make the gradient more pronounced on the nail. Build up your colour as strong as you want, you'll probably need to go over each nail twice to get the gradient nice and strong as the application will probably be quite weak colour wise on the first go, the second application is so much stronger however. If the colour becomes too saturated on the sponge, have a backup piece handy, I would probably use 1 piece for each hand.

6. Clean up time! Dip a cotton bud in nail polish remover and carefully clean up the excess polish around your fingers and cuticles, or if you've taped your fingers with nail tape, then carefully peel it off, you'll find yourself using more than one cotton bud but just be patient when removing it.

7. Add one thin coat of Pink Iridescent glitter so the effect is subtle and not overloaded with glitter or if you don't want any glitter head to the next step.

8. Clean up any last little bits of polish and add one more coat of Insta-dry topcoat to seal, dry and give the manicure a lovely shine.

All in all the process once you get the hang off it really won't take that long, it took me maybe 30/40 mins to complete the whole thing. The thing to remember is that the gradient won't be even or the same on each nail so there's no point in trying to be neat about it, if you use the same spot on the paper where you create your lines of polish it will serve as your guide when dabbing the colours with the sponge so the manicure lines itself up anyway.

I've had a few fails in the past when attempting a gradient, I'm serious when I meant this was my first successful attempt, I'd nearly given up in attempting a gradient altogether, but tonight as I couldn't figure out what to do with my nails, I decided to have another go and it just worked this time, just make sure you use a good makeup sponge so that you don't get little bits coming off while sponging and you'll be fine.

Good Luck!

 

[Sprites]

Following on from my previous post, here's another gradient and I think I've got the technique pretty much down now. I also added a butterly decal accent nail on my ring finger just to jazz it up a little

I was thinking of what to do next and became inspired by the colours of a

Spoiler: Tequila Sunrise cocktail

so I decided that would be fun to attempt.

Again creating this method on the nails can be messy but it's a lot of fun watching the colours meld together and trying different colour combination, next attempt might include some glitter.

I haven't included the pics of everything I used this time around, nor will I mention how I did it as apart from the change in colour of nail polish for the gradient itself, the methods I used to create the gradient remain the same, including using the same white nail polish as a base, but the pics of the polishes I used this time around are included.

Barry M Lemon Ice-cream
Barry M Pink Flamingo
Barry M shocking pink.
The butterfly decal was applied the same way as my flower decals were on the previous page.

On a final note by pure coincidence whatever way I was holding my camera when the flash went off on one of my photos it ended up nearly matching my nails and amused me quite a bit so here's an extra shot of that

If anyone else has some nice nail pics, I'd love to see them in here too

 

[Pixel]

Check this out at the 9 minute mark
http://www.channel4.com/programmes/gadget-man/4od#3574037