Radiant Gradient! Blue gradient nails NOTD

I'm endlessly fascinated by the awesome techniques and trends that arise from the nail polish blogger community, and when I found this tutorial for gradient nails on Do Not Refreeze recently, I just had to have a go. She uses eyeshadow sponges to dab a second colour over a one-colour mani to create this effect.

As you can see from the pictures above, I was far too eager to get pictures and didn't clean up around the edges of my nails. But apart from that I'm really pleased with the effect. I've had several compliments in the last couple of days while wearing this blue gradient mani.

Here are the three colours I used - the Bourjois blue-violet is the base coat, and the shading was mostly No.7 Poolside Blue topped off with this Barry M sky blue shade. Needless to say I generously smothered the whole lot in Seche Vite to achieve a smooth and glossy finish after I'd finished shading.

To add my 2p's worth to Leanne's tutorial: I found that the first nail I did with the sponge was by far the easiest and produced a much neater gradient. As the polish on the sponge started to dry and become tacky it was harder to work with later on and by the final nail it was downright awkward. So if you have a few sponges spare, consider using a fresh one midway through your shading process to make life easier.


Here's my "brush" and "palette" - so glad I haven't chucked out all of my sponge applicators. I knew they'd come in handy one day.

A couple more images of the results: