O.P.I Ombre.

So I've been feeling terribly lazy with my nails at the moment, I just can't seem to find the motivation to spend the time hand painting pretty little designs on them, and with this I've been exploring simpler but still striking designs, more detailed posts on this are coming very soon. In my quest for cute but easy nail art I have been playing around with Ombre or Faded nails, and I think I've landed on techniques for me!

There are a few different ombre options floating around the net, many of which I've attempted or ignored. Why did I ignore some of them? Time. I am a terribly impatient and busy individual, and as therapeutic and relaxing as painting nails can be, I simply can not justify 30 something minutes on fading.

I have two favoured ways of creating the ombre effect, the first one I'm posting on is the sponging method. Sponging is great for a really dramatic fade on your nails. I think it works really nicely with some super bright shades and really catches your eye. Now I've found, in my experimentations, that there are some really key tips or rules to stick to when taking this route.

One - Let your base coat dry fully. If your get too impatient and start to stamp before everything's dried you're going to find that the polish you're stamping with pulls up the base colour, and you'll need to start again.

Two - Less is more. Apply less polish, than you think you need to your sponge, this allows you to build up your colour and means that you don't create two solid blocks of colour and no fade.

Three - Use a nice thin polish. This one goes hand in hand with number two. The thinner the polish, the easier it is to create a fade by building colour gradually, and it also means that each layer dries a little quicker, cutting down the time it takes to mani. The Nicki Minaj O.P.I's I chose for this post are just the right consistency for this.

Four - Top coat. A top coat is pretty vital to sponging, it really helps to smooth everything out, as you would expect, but it also helps to pull all the fade together merging the colour slightly, stopping it look so stamped on.

So anyway, start with your chosen base colour, after a base coat of course, and let that dry completely. After that paint your fade colour on a sponge wedge, the reason I choose to do it this way and not spread the polish on a piece of paper then dab on the sponge is simple, it just means less unwanted polish on the sponge and of course your nail, and it makes it easier to avoid your cuticles. So there's less mess to clean up, yay! Stamp your painted sponge on to the nail, and let that dry as much as possible, then use the brush to paint a very thin tip to the nail, allow this to dry fully. Now use the excess on the sponge to dab and blend the fade together. Don't worry if it starts to look or feel tacky, because your top coat will fix a multitude of sins! Apply a fairly decent top coat, to make the most of your hard work, and keep those nails looking fresh!

Tahdahhhhhhhhh ombre nails!

Keep a look out, and I'll post again soon on another quick, easy and stunning way to ombre your nails!