NOTD: Pink Gradient Nails

Another post for today! I was actually supposed to post the previous one last night but wasn't feeling well so I posted it early this morning.

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When I saw this entry by Jenn of From Head To Toe of a purple gradient nail art tutorial, I just knew that I had to try it. She makes it looks so simple and fast. She has a great blog and is just so cute.

Since I had already decided that for the month of October I'd wear pink nail polish in support of Breast Cancer Awareness, I went for a pink gradient look.

Products used:

Lippman Hard Rock
Konad R11 Light Pink Regular Polish
Color Club 875 Hot Couture (Pink Glitter Polish)
Orly Sterling Silver Rose
NYX NGP167 (Glitter Polish)
Seche Vite Dry Fast Top Coat

I had originally wanted to shop my stash and use what I already have but I really don't have that great a collection of nail polishes. I think that I mostly have konad polishes. I had also recently purchased the Orly polish and the NYX polish. The only reason why I picked up the NYX polish last week was because it was on sale for only 99 cents. For that price, I was willing to give it a try. Knowing that I wanted to try this technique, I had to find a pink glitter polish, and I found it by Color Club in the same color tone as the Orly. I also bought Seche Vite at the same time, which was on Saturday.

Following Jenn's technique, I did a base coat using Lippman Hard Rock (sorry I forgot to put it into the picture). It dries pretty quickly so I was able to do a single coat with Konad Light Pink pretty much right away. This color is quite sheer so it appears like my own nail color. It also dried quite quickly. I then used Color Club Hot Couture and was actually a bit disappointed that it is so sheer. Even after layering it, the pink color barely comes through. I decided to deviate a bit from Jenn's technique and and started over again. This time though I did my first layer of Hot Couture, then I applied Orly Sterling Silver Rose at the mid point between the end of the layer of Hot Couture all the way to the tip of my nail. After it dried, I then went over Orly with Konad Light Pink to lighten the tone of Sterling Silver Rose. I then applied Hot Couture starting from the mid point between the first layer of Hot Couture and the beginning of the layered Sterling Silver Rose. The next layer with Hot Couture started at just above Sterling Silver Rose. After it dried a bit, I applied Sterling Silver Rose again. Finished off the entire nail with NYX glitter polish and then Seche Vite.

Now I know why many of the bloggers who do NOTD use Seche Vite. That thing is amazing! I couldn't believe how quickly it helped my manicure to kind of set and dry. Of course with all of the layers, the underneath isn't fully dried. I forgot about that since the top was nice and dry and ended up ruining a nail so I had to redo it. I will be using Seche Vite  whenever I do my nails now. The NYX glitter polish is really nice since the gliltters are iridescent. There are some larger pieces of glitter in there that is star shaped, which is cute too. The only one that I'm a little disappointed in is the Color Club Hot Couture. It is way sheerer than I thought it would be. The bottle of polish also became very goopy and thick in just this one use. I don't know if there is a way to thin it out a bit. Any suggestions?

All in all, I am super happy with the way it turned out. It doesn't look as nicely gradient as Jenn's nails do but it works for me. I'm not good at doing manicures anyway. (Still have to master konad. No, not even master, at least make it work decently.)

*Kat*