Ombre Nails Tutorial

November 21, 2012 by Talia 14 Comments

I’ve finally attempted to put together a tutorial. A lot of people are unsure how to do the ombre or gradient effect, so I hope that by sharing how I do it it will help. Remember, I’m no expert, but I’ll give it a try. So here it goes 🙂

What you will need:

• Base coat (optional)
• White nail polish as an undercoat.
• At least 2 different polishes (preferably colours which contrast or range from dark to light)
• Sponge
• Scotch tape
• Nail polish remover and ear buds for cleaning your nails
• Top Coat

I bought a sponge holder from Missha (Korea) which helps prevent your hands getting messy 🙂

The polishes I used. All Sally Hansen Xtream Wear. From left to right – “Black out”, “Purple Potion”, “Twisted Pink, “White on”.

I attempted to do a four colour gradient, which was perhaps a bit overly ambitious. Two or three colours are just as pretty and effective (You can see a two colour ombre mani I did a few days ago Ombre Nails. Also, I found with four colours there was quite a bit of wastage, this will be avoided if you overlap the colours more to make the area that the polish covers on the sponge smaller (Here is another 4 colour ombre mani I did a few days ago with black, dark brown, beige and white Ombre With a Twist.

Once you have all of these goodies and you’ve decided on your colours, you are ready to get started 🙂

1. Apply base coat.
2. Apply your white undercoat and allow to dry.

3. Put scotch tape around your nails (trust me, this will save on cleaning up later).

4. Hold your sponge in one hand, paint your colours directly on the sponge. Paint them in the order that you want them and overlap the colours slightly, this will help blend them a bit.

5. Immediately after applying your colours to the sponge, roll the sponge onto your first nail (Don’t press too hard as all the polish can ooze out of the sponge, just sponge down relatively lightly on your nail). If the colours aren’t blended enough, then you can press the sponge on the nail again. Don’t sponge more than about 3 times, as the polish on the nail dries it can pull off more polish than it puts on.

6. Repeat this process for each nail. Apply more polish before each nail, unless you think you have enough polish on the sponge already.
7. Wait for the first coat to dry and then repeat the process for the second coat. (haha, look at all the wastage, oops! Maybe I should’ve spaced the colours closer together or just used 3 colours)

8. Remove the tape.

9. Clean around your nails using nail polish remover and ear buds.

10. Finally, apply a top coat.

Here is my final result. I hope you like it 🙂