Sunday 9 December 2012

Laser Splotches

Hello!!
As promised, I have a tutorial for you here.

What you'll need:
At least 3 colours - they can be in the same family, as these are, or they can be highly contrasting,
it's just about your own taste
Black, White, base and top coats
Striping tape
Cosmetic sponge (stupidly not pictured...*facepalm*)
Clean up brushes, q-tips and acetone/remover




Paint your base coat, and then a coat (or two) of white.
I use white here, like I do everywhere, to really make the colours pop. You could use the lightest of your colours as a base colour (like in any gradient nails), but I like being able to blend the edges out nicely (keep reading to see what I mean).

Paint a corner of your sponge with the first colour you'd like to use...

...and dab it onto your nails in any random pattern, making sure to leave enough blank spots for your other colours.

Cut the corner off, and repeat steps 2&3 with the next colour.

Repeat step 4 with the next colour.

I didn't like that the pink covered so much of the purple at the bottom of the nail, so I went over it very lightly with the purple again to blend the edges together a little better.

Clean up the edges using the q-tips for larger areas on your skin, and a small brush for the area right next to the cuticle.

Leave your nails to dry completely (you can use a fast dry top coat here to speed the process, or like me, you can read a book for 10 mins), and then apply the striping tape in any way you like.
I prefer the randomness of the laser effect for a mani like this.

Next, one nail at a time, paint over the nail with your black (or any other one coater colour you'd like to use), and remembering the order in which you placed the tape initially, peel it off quickly but carefully.

You'll be left with this wonderful result, with patches of colour showing through.


Don't forget to top coat your design, to protect your work, and you're done!









This is what the finished effect of mine looked like.
I decided to do it just as an accent nail, mostly because I ran out of time, but also because I really love the ombré effects on the nails.



Please feel free to leave me a link to your attempt of this design, I would love to see them!

Hope this has been helpful,
xNai