Vampy Red Gradient with Nails Inc Victoria

I've been doing a lot of glitter mosaics lately and sometimes you have to do something a little different. I've done some gradients in the past but never had too much luck, mostly because I thought I knew more better than the makeup sponge technique. Turns out that it's the best for smooth gradients, I'm silly and should listen to the internet more. Just as well I did because now I get amazing vampy red nails!

It seems that the trick to gradients is the base colour. Light colours need white, dark colours need a dark base with a solid creme polish as the lighter colour. Here, I started with two coats of Nails Inc Victoria, a beautiful deep, dark red jelly. Once it was dry - seriously, let it dry otherwise you get dings like on my ring finger - I painted a stripe of Essie Fifth Avenue on a makeup sponge and laid a thinner stripe of Victoria next to it. I then dabbed it on my nails, working up and down ever so slightly to get a nice blend. I was having some difficulty building up the opacity in the red tip so I ended up just straight applying Fifth Avenue to the tips of my nails then blending it in with the gradient.

The Verdict: I love this so much I can't really believe how well it came out. It does take a while and a few layers of gradient-ing to get it smooth but it's so worth it in the end. Mmm, vampy.

Review: Nicole by OPI A Million Sparkles is Accurately Named

It's amazing what you can find when you wander around at night. My favourite time to go shopping is ridiculously late and I'm extra happy when it pays off. I've been looking for Nicole by OPI A Million Sparkles for a while now at that couldn't be more up my alley if it tried. I finally managed to find it in a Shoppers last night and it really does live up to its name. A Million Sparkles is a predominately blue glitter that has an amazing ability to look like a foil after a couple of coats. Combine that with gold, silver and pink bar glitter and you have a winner. It's seriously so sparkly I got distracted from what I was saying at lunch today. Application is decent but you really need four coats to get completely opaque coverage. That's ok, glitter dries fast. It's a little rough too but nothing Seche Vite can't fix. The Verdict: Yay glitter! If, like me, you like sparklies to the point where it's the biggest tag on y

I'm a Proper Mermaid This Time Beeeeaches

Ermerger guys, I don't have any glitter on me! Well, I do, just on my nails. I always have glitter on me. And cat fluff. It's funny how often my bf comes home with glitter in his beard. That means it's been there all day... Anyway, new nail vinyls mean something a bit different. I swear I'm not actually obsessed with mermaids, it just seems like it... Anyway, again, shall we?

Overlaid Red, Black and White Gradient Nails!

Ever since I did this mani recently I've been wanting to do a better version. The colours seemed like they would work together but it just didn't turn out how I wanted. I wanted to try again and decided to learn from my original mistakes. For example, make sure you use a super opaque creme polish on your top layer, don't bother with horizontal stripes and using thicker lines looks cool too.

Polish All the Nails

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