Okay...you know how I said that some of my adventures would be bad ones? Well, here is a great example! But, it was a learning experience, and I thought some of you may benefit from my lessons learned. Therefore, I am (somewhat reluctantly) showing you the good, the bad, and the downright ugly. I attempted my first gradient. I used my usual SH Double Duty base, and added two coats of Orly Cotton Candy. I let that dry, then I grabbed a makeup sponge. I painted Orly Wild Wisteria and more Cotton Candy onto the sponge. I sponged this onto each of my nails. Then I topped them all with a coat of SV. Since this was my first time, my index finger experienced the strongest learning curve! LOL
With the index finger, I learned that if you don't pay attention and start moving the sponge down, it's very hard to go back and fix it! No, you can't paint on more of the pink and try to cover it. And no, you can't paint more pink directly on the nail and try to sponge it to blend it back in. Yup, tried that, too! :oD
With my middle finger, I learned that putting tape around your finger will help cut down on cleaning up. However, I also learned that you need to pay close attention to make sure you haven't put tape over your nail at all. See that sharp line near the cuticle edge that is very pink with no purple? Yup, that's what happens when you inadvertently cover part of your nail with tape. Which leads me to my final lesson learned. I actually learned this lesson with my index finger, but I was already committed.
Whatever color you use as your base, use that color for the cuticle edge of your gradient. Otherwise, it will look like mine, with a line of your base color showing around the edges. No matter how much you try to sponge the second color around the edges of the nail near the cuticle, you will get more color on your cuticles than the edges of the nail.
Hopefully, some of you will benefit from my mistakes. And hopefully, my future attempts will look much better!
