Tie Dye Gradient & Geometric Nail Art

Long time no see!

A lot of things were going on during the past months, that made my mood and inspiration go down the drain. To top that, my nails were very weak at that point, so I decided to take a long break not only from blogging but from polishing my nails as well.

Now I'm back and even though summer is typically over, here in Greece it's very hot and sunny, so I'm still in a very colorful mood!

Before we even move on to the pictures, just let me say this.

1. I love gradients even though they're a real pain to clean up.

2. I love line work, geometric shapes and aztec prints on nails and there are so many nail artists out there that I admire just for that!

So after that being said and the title of the post, I guess you can see where this is going..

Here we go..

For this look I started off with two coats of white nail polish as a base, so that the colors I'd use on top of it would pop and applied a fast drying top coat. We need our base to be completely dry before we start "sponging" the color on. Then I took a make up sponge, cut it in a square shape and made it as smooth as possible for the polish to apply evenly. I chose very bright and neon colors for this almost tie dye looking gradient effect, randomly placed them on the sponge (see picture below) and dabbed it onto my nails. After the first layer had dried I did a second layer, reapplying nail polish on the sponge after each use, to get a more intense look. Wherever I felt like I needed more color, I just used small pieces of the sponge to apply the nail polish and topped it again with a fast drying top coat for an even finish.

This is what my nails looked like after the clean up.

PS: You could also leave your nails like this if you like. It still looks very beautiful.

However, I chose to keep going..

After the messy part was over, I took a long bristle nail art brush, that I had trimmed to be very thin and used white acrylic paint to do my line work. Keep in mind that brushes with very long bristles help us to make very straight and long lines, compared to short bristle brushes that are better for smaller details. Once that was dry, I used fast drying top coat (Again!) to seal everything.

All in all this was quite a time consuming design, but I believe it's fun, eye catching and well worth a try. Feel free to leave comments with your thoughts! :)

Polishes used:

OPI Nail Envy Maintenance Nail Strengthener

Seventeen - 103

Orly - Purple Crush

Orly - Risky Behavior

Orly - Key Lime Twist

China Glaze - Too Yacht To Handle

Sinful Colors - Endless Blue

Seche Vite Fast Drying Topcoat