Updated ombré nails.

Recent gradient.

Howdy ya'll! Today my post is going to be on another gradient nail look! I think since posting my first ombré post back in September, I have definitely enjoyed doing them more! I'm more of a glitter girl than a nail art one, but if it's as easy and simple like gradient nails then I'm definitely going to do them! (You can click here to view my previous ombre post.)

To create this look I used 4 different polishes. Nails Inc Wellington Square & Royal Botanical Gardens, BarryM Berry Ice Cream and Leighton Denny Angel Dust. I think I chose to use these kind of colours because I've been seeing a lot of pastel trends at the moment, as it's now spring time! I used the same kind of sponge as I did in the previous (A standard wedge, I'm unsure of another way of ombre-ing?),

 

The picture above is of the simple sponges I use when doing gradient nails, I just cut them in just about half, so the length and width is about the same as your nails. Also by cutting them in half you have two applications from one sponge. Even better, once you have finished your nails, you can let the polish on the sponge dry and cut that piece off and also re use that part. (I'm a secret scrimper, can ya tell?) You can get these kind of make up wedges in most super markets, Boots etc but I actually got mine in Primark. They were around £1/£2 for a bag of 25ish so if you're cutting them in half like I do, then you're getting 50 gradient manicures from one bag!

 

As I did in my previous gradient post, I used the three shades on the 'plain' nails. I added a fine glitter over the top too just because I think it evens out the polish and makes it shiny! Any excuse for glitter right? Of course a clear fast drying top coat was also used over the top of all of the nails after.

If you have any other ways of doing a gradient kind of effect on the nails then please let me know, especially if it's easy. ;-)

As always, if you have any questions or comments, please feel free to leave them below or tweet me on the link! (@RiaHughesThen) - same name on Instagram!

First time dotting!

Dotting tools!

Well hello there strangers! I haven't done a post in such a long time (6 months in fact!) but I really want to get back in to doing blog posts more often. I just hope that you guys want to still read things like this. I think that is one of the reasons I haven't been posting, is because I'm able to post and interact instantly on Instagram (@RiaHughesThen), but either way I'm going to try! :-)

So recently I purchased some dotting tools on Amazon. They're the ones that most people use I guess because I've seen them on a lot of pictures. They were only £1 with free P&P, so I bought them as they were so cheap really, and because I don't do much nail art, it seemed like a good place to try out something different than glitter polish. It came with 5 tools and both ends have 'dots' on, and there are 5 different sizes.

So the picture above is one of the tools I purchase. (picture from Amazon.co.uk)
I think I most definitely underestimated how hard it is to do tidy dot designs on nails, especially on my right hand because I'm right handed!

This is what I came up with, really simple but quite pretty. I used Nails Inc Sheraton Street and OPI Alpine Snow. I wanted the dots to be relatively even and well separated which was a little bit tricky! It was quite hard keeping the same amount of polish on the tool on each application, but I'll get there! ;-)

There are so many other things that can be done with these tools on the nails, which I've seen on Instagram etc, just like flowers and more intricate designs which I'm looking forward to trying out!
If anyone has any advice on how to keep a steady hand whilst doing dots or what other designs can be done, then please let me know! :-)

Since being away from blog posting, my nail passion hasn't faded, if anything it has grown and I'm loving all the nailspiration on Instagram and YouTube for example.

As always, if you have any questions or comments, please feel free to leave them below or tweet me on the link! (@RiaHughesThen) - same name on Instagram!