40 Great Nail Art Ideas: Pastels

This week all GNAI Challenge manis are pastel, since that's the color prompt, and my personal pattern prompt is reciprocal gradient.





Reciprocal Gradient. Hm. That's the first time I've done this. Of course I knew how it looks, and in theory I knew how to create one. But I've never used the sponging technique often, and I thought I just suck at it. I always had my sponge falling apart on me, leaving me with ugly sponge bits on my nails. Then, a couple of weeks ago, I read a tutorial (or did I watch it on youtube? I just can't remember) and I found out, what my problem was: I didn't use enough polish, my sponge was too dry, that's why it crubled. So I did use lots and lots of polish this time, and tada! It worked! No-crumble gradient! This many was quite time-consuming, still. I needed three layers for the light pastel polishes to build a nice, visible gradient, and this times two, for the reciprocal. The polishes I used are all by Essie: Blanc, Find Me An Oasis and Full Steam Ahead.

For those of you who don't know how to create a reciprocal gradient, a quick, four sentence no picture tutorial: 1. sponge a gradient on your nails (I used purple on the base, blue in the middle and white on the tips). 2. let it dry thoroughly (I used quickdrying topcoat to speed that up). 3. Add nail tape (or nail vinyls, like I used) and sponge on a gradient with the same colors, but "the other way round" (in my case white on the base, blue in the middle and purple on the tips). 4. Remove the tape, topcoat the mani (I used KBShimmer Clearly On Top), finished! For easier clean up, I protected my cuticles with Born Pretty Store Liquid Peel Off Tape for the whole procedure.

An InLinkz Link-up