birthday ombre

Everywhere I go lately I seem to see ombre effects on everything! From skirts, dresses, pants, tights, to hair it is all over--so naturally I had to do an ombre mani. I found a number of sites that had tutorials on a makeup sponge technique for creating a gorgeous gradient effect, and figured my birthday would be the perfect opportunity to try it out! 

First I applied a coat of butter LONDON nail foundation flawless basecoat. Next, I selected four polishes that complimented each other and painted a single line of each onto the make up sponge. I was aiming for a sunset color palette so I chose butter LONDON's Cheeky Chops, Bumster, Minger, and Jaffa. All I had to do then was to press the sponge to my nail, perfectly printing the design there. After every couple of nails I reapplied the polish to the sponge so each nail had a good amount of color and coverage. This can get pretty messy, so after I completed sponging my nails, using a q-tip, I cleaned all the excess polish off my skin with some acetone remover. Finished with a coat of SV topcoat my sunset inspired nails were complete! 

nfortunately, about 4 minutes after completing this look, I remembered the dress I wanted to wear out for my birthday was blue...and we cant have seriously clashing nails on my birthday. So I wiped all the polish off and repainted the design using five butter London polishes. From darkest to lightest: Royal Navy, Blagger, Artful Dodger, Lady Muck, and Cream Tea.

 Hope you all have as fantastic of a weekend as I'm sure I will! :)