Swirly Matte Gradient nail art - LNTC

Hey y'all!

This week the Llama Nails challenge brings me to a technique that I've shown a LOT of over the short life of this blog, but it is one of my favorite techniques for achieving beautiful nails without a whole lot of talent required.  To change things up, I actually attempted a different method to achieve gradient nails, but it got a bit mussed and I wasn't happy with the results, so I ultimately went back to my tried and true.

This ended up being another all-Barry M manicure, with the exception of the matte topcoat.

L-R: Barry M Gold Foil, Lychee, Plum, Blood Orange, Mango

I also went outside my comfort zone on the stamping and used a plate that I ordered from Born Pretty Store a couple month ago but hadn't yet tested.  So far, so good as far as quality is concerned, although the full nail images are just a touch too small for my thumb and are definitely pressing the limits on my other nails.  I may have to stick this one in the "Only For Nubbins" file.

Okay, so to start with, I attempted to do a gradient using a fan brush.  I applied a single coat of Mango to all my nails, and then put blogs of Mango, Blood Orange, and Plum next to each other on my blobbing tray and dipped my fan brush into the polish and kind of wiggled it to get some blending.  I then used a back and forth sweeping motion over my nails to get the gradient effect, but as I said before, it just kind of made a mess, especially when I went to topcoat and it smeared and got all up in my topcoat brush and generally just Pissed.Me.Off.  Ergo, I went back over the gradient using the makeup sponge technique and smoothed out my gradients.

After topcoating with SV to protect the work I'd already done, I moved on to stamping.  My ring finger is stamped with Gold Foil, and all others are stamped with Lychee, same image.  I have to say that despite being a bit small for my thumb, the plate worked really well and I didn't have too much fuss involved with stamping here. 

After topcoating again because I've learned my lesson, I put a coat of Sally Hansen Big Matte topcoat over the whole design.  I love the look of creme gradients under matte!

Hope you enjoyed this nail art.  For more gradient looks, check out the other Llama ladies below, and have a fantastic week!

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