Hiya guys! Happy Monday! Well, as happy as a Monday can be... To attempt to brighten up the start of your week, I've got a rainbow gradient mani for you today. It didn't quite go as planned, as so many of my manis don't, but after the second shot at it, I was relatively pleased with the results! I started with two coats of OPI Don't Touch My Tutu! because I wanted a white base colour to work on, but not a total white out like I get with my BYS French White or OPI Alpine Snow. DTMT is a very sheer white creme-jelly that is simply delicious, as is the rest of the NYC Ballet collection that this comes from. Sorry about the inside after-midnight crappily lit photos at the start! I thought I should snap my base colour but it was very late and all the sun was gone.
Mmmm I just love the whole NYC Ballet Collection, they're just soo yummy! It's been a while since I've applied an OPI colour as a straight base colour, and I'd forgotten how much I love the 'pro-wide' brush! It completely covers my nail in one or two strokes - it just glides on and smooths itself out. Dream application! Once my base colour was almost dry (I wanted a little bit of tackiness) I made tiny puddles of red, orange, yellow, green, blue and purple polish all in a row, and then started sponging! That was the first try...
The above pic of my thumb is from the first attempt. The rest of the photos are from the second (more successful) go. After sponging the polish onto all my nails, I realised how specific my sponging had to be to avoid over-mixing the colours and losing the gradient altogether. Then the intelligent corner of my brain went "you know red and yellow makes orange, and yellow and blue makes green, right?". After sighing at my own over-eager too-much-polish-using ways, I took it all off and started again, using just Revlon Red Hot (red), China Glaze Happy Go Lucky (yellow), and BYS Drop In The Ocean (blue). And whaddaya know, my primary school colour-mixing knowledge was right! This was a lot cleaner, brighter, and easier! Behold!
The wonderful thing with this gradient technique (which I now swear by!) is that you get such an overlapping mix of colours - a true gradient. As eager as I was to use all my colours for this rainbow mani, the more colours I used, the worse it looked! Keep It Simple, kids, and you'll have a lot more fun. Trust me.
It's still not particularly perfect but the effect is very cool, and I've been itching do to a rainbow mani for months!! Part of my craving is satisfied, but I think I can do better. Watch this space!
Dog came to help me take photos, so I thought I should get him back by snapping his. He's not a huge fan of the camera and was particularly shy today (he's the biggest wimp ever) but I got this one so I thought I'd share. Isn't he gorgeous? He sits at my feet under the desk while I write these blogs. Sometimes I reckon he thinks he really is a dog. A wimpy girlish dog, but a dog all the same!
Hmmm yeah it was definitely time to go back inside. The big black clouds were rolling in again so indoors with hot choc and fluffy dressing gown it is! Such a tough life ;-).
What do you think of my first / second attempted rainbow gradient mani? Have you tried to do a rainbow mani? What's your favourite way to see a rainbow mani done - vertical stripes, horizontal stripes, dots, an actual 'rainbow' curve? Tell me what you think, I love hearing from you guys! Enjoy your Monday ;-).
- Ally xx
