Gradient Pattern Strip Nails

What you need:  Three contrasting nail colours it is easiest if two are lighter colours and one is very dark.  For the pattern you will need a piece of tin foil/plastic, a cosmetic sponge, some striping tape, a cotton wool bud and some nail polish remover.  It is a good idea to use a top coat for this design.  

To see my striping tape tutorial click here.

I painted a base coat on my nails of Nails Inc Mayfair Mews and let that dry.  I only used one coat as it was quite thick and this design required a lot of layers.  I then put a few drops of MaxFactor, Max Effect polish in Intense Plum onto a piece of tin foil.  Dip the tip of the cosmetic sponge into the darker colour and just dab it onto each nail in a gradient style. 

Note:  You can use other types of sponges but cosmetic sponges tend to be quite dense and spread the product nicely! You can re-use your cosmetic sponge for this technique by cutting off the part you used with scissors.

It does not matter how perfect the gradients are or which direction they go in, it is up to you but I chose to do mine at all different angles.  If you are messy like me you will need to use a cotton wool bud dipped in nail polish remover to get rid of the polish that ends up on the outside of your nails.

The gradient should look something like this.  You could just stop here if you wanted to but I did these very roughly as they would be under the next coat.

Wait for the polish to completely dry before starting this step.  Attach your striping tape in whatever design suits you and then put on your third colour.  Click here for a link to my striping tape tutorial for this step. Click here for my second tutorial on nail striping tape.

I used Rimmel London polish in 416 night flight.  Annoyingly this polish was quite dried up despite the fact I have only used it a couple of times and have not had it for too long.  I am not a huge fan of Rimmel products because I find they are generally quite bad quality and overhyped.  Because I had already painted the first nail when I realised I had to persevere but it really did ruin the effect of this design which I think was a shame.

I did not have a normal clear top coat at uni so I used Rimmel's matte finish top coat.  I still quite like how they turned out and they lasted for a good couple of days.  They just ended up looking so messy because of my silly decision to use a dried up nail varnish.  At some point I will try this technique again with a better polish and see how it goes!

The finished result!