TROPICALOMBREMADNESS

Hello!

I have just finished putting together my very first mini tutorial for you all. I am a bit of a sucker for ombre colours at the moment, I love how professional it looks and you can do it with any colours you want, it’s a really easy design to do and you can customise it to any theme for any time of the year!

Saying that however, I have done a sunset/tropical theme… controversial I know with the cold nights already with us! Maybe it might just warm you all up ;-).

Let me know what you think and if you have any questions then let me know! Hope this can give you some inspiration and ideas.

Happy Nail Painting!

Emily xo

So firstly, you will need to push back any cuticles and file your nails. I started off with a natural straight edge nail, as I think it was appropriate for the design. Try and make sure that when filing they are all the same length!

It may mean trimming down that really long nail that you had been growing for ages! It always looks tidier when they are all similar lengths. I used OPI's 'Nail Envy' as a clear base coat (I will write a 'my nail necessities' post soon), this protects the nail polish staining the nails and creates a smooth canvas for you to work on. Leave them to dry for as long as you can!

Then you will need to thinly paint your nails a white colour (Or any base colour that will highlight the ombre colours, white always works the best)

I used Model's Own 'Snow White'. When you first put the colour on and it dries, it may not look perfect and

opaque, but it doesn't matter because it’s only there to bring the colour out of the ombre. You need to leave this to dry as fully as possible, otherwise the colour in the next step won't apply properly and it won't look great!

Now this is the step that everyone expects to be really complicated, but it really couldn’t be any easier!

Put those nail brushes and tiny pieces of car sponge down and pick up your trusty triangle make up sponge! You can pick up these triangle door stopper shape sponges from Boots, Superdrug or any nearby drugstore, they are normally really cheap and you can buy packs of 20 for in some cases for under £5! They should already be wide and tall enough for your whole nail, you can cut them down but I personally don’t.

You want to start by putting the colour you want at the cuticle edge at the thickest part of the sponge. In this case I used yellow by RIO Nail Art. Further up I applied a thin line of a lovely neon orange colour by Nina Ultra Pro called ‘Orange Flame’, above this I applied an orange colour with subtle pink undertones by OPI called ‘Cajun Shrimp’. You need to work quickly before the top layer starts to dry!

grab the nail you want to print on and hover over the top of the nail where you would want to press.

Then, press down quickly and sharply, preferably repeatedly and try to blend the colours together so they blend through to the ombre.

So next,

Make sure you only stamp 5-6 times, as after a while you will start to dampen under layers and it will pull off all the polish! Not nice!

If it does look a little transparent, wait for it to dry and then try again over the top. It will look messy to begin with, but you can always tidy up later on. Also don't forget to tidy up around the nail for remains of lines and colour, I always do it at the end because it won't affect the skin as much.

I would apply a clear coat on top to seal it all together blend the colours together further.

Next I added some separation lines for the effect of a blind window, looking out to the sunset! I used my RIO nail art pens and put 3 or 4 strokes on each nail to separate the colours in ombre. A final clear up at the end around the edges of the nail, and I added on a few palm trees and birds to add to the look, to round off 10 cute tropical sunsets! 

Hope you enjoyed the tutorial, if you have any questions; comment below (even anonymous!) or tweet me at @EJMORGANASHLEY :-D