Nail Tutorial: Sponge Gradient

Gradients are my go-to lazy day mani.  They look phenomenal, like you spent HOURS on them, but secretly you know they're so easy and take 10 minutes.  I love things that look awesome and are easy and fast.  Because I'm lazy.  Now I'm going to impart the knowledge and hints/tips on to you, because it hasn't been done before.  Nope.  Never.

Materials Needed:

At least 2 nail polish colors for your gradient

White nail polish

Base coat

Top Coat

Makeup sponge wedge

Nail polish remover

Q-tips

The colors that I chose for this look were royal blue, purple and neon pink.  I was feeling pretty bold.  WARNING:  This is a messy project.  Just a heads up.  There are ways to make it not messy, but like I said.. I'm lazy.  I'd rather clean up later than prevent a mess now.  

Okay, so, paint your nails with your base coat and then with a coat of white.  Some folks skip the white part, but I always use it- it makes the colors really pop and you don't have to layer as much to get an opaque look, especially if you're using lighter colors.  So paint your nails white first.

Sweet.  Now you're ready for the fun part.  Open your bottles of lovely colors and layer them on the makeup sponge.  They should touch, unless you want the white poking through.  No need to worry about blending them on the sponge, that happens naturally (and you can fudge it later if you need to.)

Now comes the part that might take a little getting used to.  Take your sponge and starting at one side of the nail, press and roll it across your nail.  It's NOT going to look solid.  It's going to be rigid stripes, very light, possibly with white bubble things poking through.  It's fine.  Don't worry about it.  We will fix it.

Also, it's going to get on your skin.  I warned you that this would be messy.  Now what you do is just repeat the process.  Add color, swipe across your nail.  Once you have two layers or so, you can start moving the wedge up a smidge and down a smidge when you swipe, so that you're blending the colors a bit.  

When you're happy with  the amount of color, you're ready for top coat.  ANOTHER WARNING: if you don't leave a "bubble" on the tip of your brush, you'll probably end up with a tinted top coat.  Swipe your nails with top coat and marvel at how it makes it blend even more than it had been.  Then get your q-tips and your nail polish remover and do your very best to clean that nonsense up.  I always paint my nails before bed (but not RIGHT before bed or you'll ruin it under the pillow) and then clean them in the shower or under the faucet in the morning- BECAUSE I AM LAZY.  

So here are some pictures of my finished product.

Annnnd here are some gradients of manis past.

FYI, I have a rarely updated nail blog that I pulled these images from.  

So there you have it!  A few simple steps, 10 minutes of your time, and a stellar set of nails that people will always comment on.  And they usually say, "did you do that yourself??? That must have taken forever!"  Just smile and nod.