Gradients, Lace & Bling

Today’s manicure is a bit of a mix of techniques. As many of you know, I’ve been trying to figure out how to do a pure gel polish gradient and have gotten awful results with the different ideas I’ve tried. Well Nails by Shannon posted this video about her technique and it totally blew me away. I had to try it, and the nails on my index and middle fingers are the result… my first pure gel polish gradient. Now I just have to try doing it in the other direction.

The colors that I used in my gradients are Gelish All Dahlia-ed Up and Rockin the Reef, and then Lime All the Time and Rub Me the Sarong Way.  I topped the gradient nails off with one coat of Vegas Nights.  My thumb and ring finger have lace designs.  I started with three coats of Gelish Clean Slate (this will be coming out in the fall collection in August), and then stamped the honeycomb pattern with Mundo de Unas black and Cheeky Jumbo Plate #5 (Musical Nails).  I then stamped another pattern over top of that using the same plate.

And finally the pinky finger has two coats of Gelish Mali-Blu Me Away, and then I methodically placed hex glitters over top.  I used my Gelish Foundation as the “glue” for the hex glitters and used a dotting tool to place each individual hex.  I’m not sure if it’s noticeable, but I also did those in a gradient pattern.  They shift from green, to teal to dark blue.  I applied two coats of my Gelish TIO over top to get a nice glassy finish.