gradient technique | Craftynail

Today’s nails were inspired by my inner child! When I was a little girl (back in the 80’s) I just loved rainbows! Rainbow stickers, rainbow spiral notebooks, rainbow earrings… pretty much anything that had a rainbow on it caught my attention. Too bad it took me 30+ years to discover this rainbow gradient technique! Well, this mani is dedicated to you, little Jacqui from the 80’s! I know you would’ve loved these nails. 🙂

My first attempts at gradients were total fails- until I came up with this very effective way of using makeup sponges. Here’s a pic of how I use my sponge for a gradient:

I start out with a standard cosmetic application wedge and use sharp scissors to cut it into 4 or 5 long skinny pieces. I take one of the pieces, fold it in half, and dab it into a drop of nail polish on my work surface. Then I sponge it onto my nail to create the gradient effect. I think these folded over sponge strips work well since their surface is slightly curved, yet small-so you can dab, dab, dab away to get the paint just where you want it. I use a different sliver of sponge for each color. The small surface area of the sponge worked great to get the skinny lines of color for today’s rainbow gradient… but it also works well for a larger-scale gradient (like this leopard design where I only sponged on one color). I think this technique is less messy and it’s fool-proof!! I haven’t screwed up one gradient yet since I started doing it this way !