Gradient Nails Tutorial

Here is the gradient tutorial I promised, and I swear it is so easy to do! 

Step 1: The supplies you will need. A makeup sponge, white or off white nail polish for the base, two-five colors of nail polish for your gradient colors a glitter top coat to put over the gradient if you wish and a top coat.  Also work on a piece of paper or some newspaper so that you don't get polish on the surface you are working on and so that you can dab polish off of your sponge.

The colors I have chosen to use are base: Orly Pure Porcelain, gradient colors: China Glaze Electric Beat and Orly Gumdrop, glitter: a mixture of two Sally's Girl glitter nail polishes, top coat: Seche Vite.

Step 2: Paint your nails with one or two coats of your base and then grab your makeup sponge and apply your gradient colors across the sponge.  Tap the sponge onto your paper a few times to get a bit of the polish off.

Step 3: Pounce the sponge with the nail colors onto your nails, you will need to add more nail polish to the sponge after doing two or three nails and I usually apply a few coats of the sponged nail polish onto my nails.  The picture below is after only one application of the sponge and you can see that it will need one or two more passes with the sponge to get the colors opaque and vibrant.  Also note that you really don't need a perfect white base to do this I just choose a base nail polish that is somewhat opaque after just one coat.  This will cut down on drying time and it really isn't necessary for you to have a completely perfect base for this.

Once you have gotten your gradient to the point that you like it the skin around your nails is going to be covered in nail polish!  You could do the tape method that I used for the splatter tutorial but I don't bother with this when I am doing a gradient.  Which brings us to...

Step 4: Cleanup!  You will need some q-tips, pure acetone and a cheap makeup brush or artists brush (mine is a $1 e.l.f. brush from target).  Also the little glass container I have my acetone in is from Sally's Beauty Supply, it is meant for mixing acrylic but works great for pouring a bit of acetone in to clean up your mani's.  I use q-tips first to clean up the larger areas of nail polish from my skin then go back with the brush and make sure all of the extra polish is mostly off of my cuticles and sides of nails.

Now all you have to do is apply your glitter top coat and then seal it all with a quick dry top coat.  Apply some cuticle oil or a cuticle balm to the cuticles and the skin around your nails too so that you don't dry them out with the acetone from cleaning them up.

Girly Nails

Sorry I haven't posted in a while, my computer has been acting up on me and all of my pictures are saved on it!  I decided to show you a few girly and probably over the top manis that I have done.


This first one were the nails for my birthday!  I used China Glaze Fuchsia Fanatic on all the nails, then added New York Colors Love Letters over the top and for the accent nails I added Wet N Wild Sparked and Party of Five Glitters.  I loved the look of Fuchsia Fanatic with Love Letters over it, it was soooo pretty!

For this one I used China Glaze Gothic Lolita and Electric Beat and on the thumb I have OPI Simmer and Shimmer.  I love dotted mani's I think they are so cute and they can be toned down by doing tone on tone dots.

This last one was a manicure I did around Valentines Day, it is a bit over the top but I loved it.  I used OPI Pink Friday on all of the nails, then for the index and ring fingers I used China Glaze Crackle in Broken Hearted (haha fitting for V-Day no??), the heart on the middle finger is China Glaze Fuchsia Fanatic and the thumb and pinky have China Glaze Techno.



I am going to try and get the sponged gradient tutorial up tomorrow if I find the time, but if not I promise it will be soon!

Neon Splatter Tutorial

So I decided to do a splatter mani today and I figured I would go ahead and post a tutorial on it. 

Step one: You will need to lay down some newspaper or something to protect the area where you will be doing your nails.  Choose a base color and 2-4 colors for your splatters.  You will need a straw for each splatter color and some clear tape to tape around your nails so that clean-up is easier.

Step 2: Paint your base color, I chose Orly Au Champagne, I wanted to use white because it would make my neon splatter colors pop.

Step 3: Tape off the area's around your finger so that the nail polish does not get all over your fingers.  Trust me you will want to do this because even with tape the clean-up is no fun.  It is hard to tell from the picture but you want to use the smallish strips of tape and tape just under your nail and on both side getting the tape as close to the nail as you can without covering the nail.

Step Four: Sorry guys didn't get pics of this step!  Basically you pour a small amount of polish onto the newspaper or a paper plate and you dip your straw in the nail polish then blow a quick puff of air into the other end of the straw and onto your nail.  This takes some time to perfect and the splatter is going to vary with each nail.  I work with one color at a time on two nails and then got to the next color and the next.  Don't try to do all five nails on each hand at the same time. It is much easier to tape off two or three nails and splatter those first then remove the tape from them and do the other nails on the hand.  After they have a chance to dry for a bit I applied a Color Club top coat (not sure of the exact name it came with my Electro Candy set and it is supposed to make you nail polish colors more vibrant) then I put a coat of Seche Vite over that.

Your finished result should be something similar to this!

Neon Skittles

I love skittle mani's, they look fun but they don't take any effort and if you can't decide what color to wear it's a great mani to choose.  For this one I used Color Clubs Electro Candy nail polishes, these are some gorgeous neon's with a slight shimmer running through them.

For neon's I usually do a base coat of white, it helps the neon's opacity and it makes them much more vibrant.



Nail polishes used from thumb to pinky Color Club What A Shock!, Ultra Violet, Electro Candy, Tangerine Scream, and Volt of Light. I put a coat of Wet N Wild Hallucinate over all of them.

Pastel Skittles

 I love pastel nail polishes and spring is the best time to wear them!  This is probably one of my all time favorite manicures. 



Polishes used from thumb to pinky, Orly Pure Porcelain, Orly Cotton Candy, Orly Gumdrop, Revlon Top Speed Modern Grace and Orly Snowcone, all topped with a coat of Cover Girl City Lights (can you tell I love City Lights??  Haha it's a great mani topper for almost any nail polish and there are several dupes out there such as China Glaze Fairy Dust.)

Gradient Nails

Lately I have been in love with gradient mani's they are super easy to do and they look really nice!  I will probably do a tutorial on them soon.

This first one is what I would call a cotton candy gradient.  I used China Glaze Fuchsia Fanatic and Electric Beat then topped it off with Cover Girl City Lights.

This second one was an Easter gradient, the colors used were China Glaze Lemon Fizz, OPI Pink Friday and an unamed Cosmetic Arts pastel blue polish, then I topped it with Wet N Wild Hallucinate.

Welcome! My first post

I have finally decided to start a nail polish blog.  I have always been interested in nail polish and I love pretty much anything that has to do with it!  My decision to finally start this blog was after finding some pictures of my nails on Pinterest that had been posted on a beauty community.  It was odd stumbling upon my nails and I think it would have made me feel better had I watermarked the picture and had just had a blog set up.  So here I am creating this!

Here is the mani that started this blog!  It's a neon gradient using Color Club Warhol, China Glaze Flip Flop Fantasy and Color Club Volt of Light, and then I topped it with OPI Blue Shatter and a coat of Seche Vite quick dry top coat.