The ombre trend has been pretty major in fashion this year & the beauty world caught on as well! From our clothes to our hair & right down to our nails, everyone’s been rocking something with a gradient.

In the recent Jen Kao SS2012 show at NYFW, the models were caught backstage with manicures called “Lethal Love” by CND. These were some amazing airbrushed ombre nails that went from black to gorgeous jewel-toned coloured tips. Since those photos emerged, manicuristas have been trying to figure out ways to achieve the airbrushed ombre look by smudging together their wet nail polishes. Sure it could work, but it’s no fun having gooey messes and ending up with mixed colours in your expensive nail polish bottles.

Would you believe that the solution is the tool you use to apply your polish?… and that tool is waiting for you in your makeup kit already!

WHAT YOU’LL NEED:

- any two colours of nail polish

- a makeup sponge !

- fast dry topcoat

TUTORIAL:

[ PAINT ] – Paint on your base colour. In this tutorial we will be using black. As with any nail polish, make sure to paint on thin layers & allow it to dry between coats.

[ LET DRY ] – Wait for your nails to dry. Go write a blog post or comment on some Chictopia entries ;)

[ TEAR ] – Tear off a small piece of your makeup sponge to use as your “brush”

[ PICK UP ] – Pick up a tiny amount of your second nail polish colour on your makeup sponge. If you have too much, dab the excess onto a paper towel

[ DAB ] – Carefully dab a very thin layer of your second colour on the tip of your nail. The trick is to use the second colour sparingly & make sure not to be too heavy handed with the application.

[ BUILD ] – Build more colour at the tips of the nails by dabbing more nail polish on. Don’t worry too much about texture from the sponge, but make sure to allow the first layer to dry before building on more colour. You want most of the concentration of the colour to be at the very tip of your nail

[ CLEAN ] – Use a cotton swab and some nail polish remover to clean up any excess nailpolish that missed your nails!

[ TOPCOAT ] – Use a fastdry topcoat to finish your nails off!

MORE IDEAS

- Try using 3 colours for your gradient for an even more gradual colour transition

- Use the ombre effect as a backdrop for more detailed nail art or stamps

- Use glitter nail polish on the tips instead of a solid colour

Thanks for reading! Are you gonna try this DIY? Tweet us a photo @everybodyisugly

by Sylvia of lipglossandblack

Images by Syl and Sam, Flickr photo by Rachel Scroggins

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We regret that the Jen Kao SS2012 Flickr photo by Rachel Scroggins was miscredited when this article was published. Please see the original photo here.