Tequila Sunrise Nails

That's what these nails remind me of, a tequila sunrise cocktail.  I used two of the new Gelly Hi Shines from Barry M, Mango and Passion Fruit, over yesterday's Kiko 359 to create this peach through red subtle ombre effect.  I sponged on the two darker colours.

 

Unfortunately it doesn't show up nearly as well in photographs as it did in person, probably due to it being a fairly subtle gradient.  There was a little bit of colour drag when I added the top coat but it barely showed in person, sadly it's fairly obvious in the photos though

 

 

I think the colours work well together, in person they really did seem to flow into one another.  That's the one annoying thing about using macro shots for the blog pictures, it's hard to get an idea of what the nails look like in context of a whole body or from a distance.

 

The new Gellys sponged really nicely so I think I might have a go with some other colour combinations from the range soon.

 

Another Gradient Manicure.

I am mildly obsessed with gradient manicures at the moment, they're fairly simple to do and I love the look they give.  I'm still not 100% sure about the best way to go about doing them yet but for the moment I am sticking with putting all the polish onto the sponge at the one time rather than trying to sponge on each colour separately.

Here is my set up for gradient sponging:

For this particular look I used Kiko 331 & 339 and Barry M Blue Moon (NP317) and here is how they turned out:

I think once I get this technique perfect, or as close to perfect as I can, I might do a full tutorial showing each step, I've picked up a few little hints along the way which I think make it easier so it might be nice to share them with everyone.



Rainbow Nails!

I decided to have another go at sponging a gradient manicure, this time I thought I'd go all out colour wise and try to create a rainbow look, here are the results, I'm pretty pleased with how it turned out.

Neon Nails!

I decided to give a gradient manicure a shot, so after painting my nails with white nail polish to provide a base I used a make up sponge to add different shades of neon polish from  collection of Primark nail polish that I bought recently.

 I'm pretty pleased with how it turned out:

The gradient isn't quite as seamless as I would have liked but I think the general effect is pretty good and I'll definitely be trying it with other colours in the future:

I'm also looking forward to trying these polishes on their own as they are very bright and have a lovely glittery shimmer through them.  I think they definitely benefit from the white base layer to make them show up better.

The one downside of this sort of manicure?  The length of time it took me to get the polish off my fingers and cuticles after the sponging, it was a pretty long job!