Hey nail lovers! I have a gradient manicure to share with you for Day 26 of the Nail Art Challenge! I did this mani in a hotel room, late at night, without proper tools… so hopefully it’s still craftynail-blog-worthy!
Last month I bought a bunch of AVON Nailwear Pro+ polishes from their recent Petal Impressions collection. So I tried a gradient with with the blue, green and nude colors from this shimmery collection. The polishes are called:
Forget-Me-Not-Blue (blue)
Garden Green (green)
Sweet Pea Dreams (nude)
Even though these polishes look great paired together- the champagne color is a lot lighter than the blue and green. I figured it could be a challenge to get Sweet Pea to blend in naturally. So I decided to make my gradient heavier with the Sweet Pea polish just to throw off the balance of the three colors. I only reveal a bit of the blue and green and I like the way they pop! It looks cool in real life! Too bad my cuticles are a wreck though! I have been moisturizing a lot while out of town this week for work- but they have still gotten really rough and dry! In my luggage I packed my normal lotion and my rarely used tube of Onsen Cuticle Conditioner. I bought this Onsen stuff in Las Vegas from a high pressure sales rep in 2011. It was pretty expensive but it came with a buffer, a file, and a makeup bag so I thought WHY NOT. Well, I never really ended up using it religiously. Until this week. And I found out– it kinda sucks! It’s too watery, it doesn’t feel very moisturizing, it just rubs right in and seems to evaporate and disappear. My cuticles are in worse shape than they’ve been in months. In these pics I’m trying to cover up a hangnail- but it hurts! I just typed up a negative review on their website. I’m curious to see if they approve and publish it cuz they haven’t yet! Now that I’m back at home- I’m going back to my oil and LUSH cuticle butter! I guess I will slather some good stuff on my cuticles tonite and try to enjoy my pretty gradient. Hopefully I’ll be back to normal soon lol!
Craftynail 
Beautiful! I love how you’ve skewed the gradient to one end of your nail and let the lightest colour dominate. I’ll have to try this.
Yay thank you! Thats what I was goin for! I was afraid it would look lopsided…so Im happy you like it!
Looks like the sea meeting the shore 🙂 I really like this and the colours reflect beautiful watercolours of gardens and lakes with lilies so I think Avon did a good job. I might need to bite the bullet and order some!
thanks!! the blue base color was a one-coater and dried fast too! i picked up an extra bottle from this collection (inspired iris) for my giveaway! i just need to figure out the whole international shipping debacle first!
As far as I am aware we can accept polish in the UK just not send it out, but not 100%. I have been trying to organise a giveaway but deciding on an appropriate prize and whether to be internation or just UK…. so complicated *cry*.
oh rly? i was looking at a shipping website and it said that polish can’t be shipped internationally from the us. i will investigate more but i was thinking of two sets of prizes maybe- one for us and one for outside us. we will see!
Ah that might be the US and the UK rocking the same lame rules 😦 booo.
Your late night gradient looks great! To bad that a expensive product is so disapointing.
Jacqui. Hope you are doing well.
I wanted to give you my input in this to give you an idea of why your onsen products didnt work correctly. Some of the products do have expiration dates and as well it is preferable to be keep cool instead of damp and hot environments. I am not sure how long you didnt use the product for.
I personally have been using the Onsen Cuticle Conditioner. I have even purchased the Onsen Nail Kits for a few of my friends and they work AWESOME !!! I LOVE THEM !.
I would suggest giving them a call and asking them on why it did not do the job.
http://www.onsensecret.com
Wish I knew exactly how you did this.
I love using 2 or 3 shades on my nails.
I love your nail color and would love to know how to do it.
Thanks
Wanda
Hi Wanda!! Thanks for your comment. I use a makeup wedge/sponge that I cut up into small pieces and then dab polish on with that. This is kinda how I do it: http://craftynail.com/2013/05/31/rainbow-nails-and-my-gradient-technique/