This was the first gradient mani that I ever did, so it’s not as neat as it could be.. but still pretty 😀

Start with your clear base coat and then one coat of the lightest colour that you are going to be using in your combination, eg.

Paint a generous amount of your 3 colours onto your sponge, overlapping the edges. And then sponge it onto your nail using very slight vertical wiggling movements to make sure that the edges of the 3 colours are well blended on your nail (here I used a foundation sponge which I cut a little smaller).

I have found that you have to repeat this step a couple of times to ensure that you get the right amount of polish on your nails, because a lot of it is sucked into the sponge and then doesn’t all transfer onto your nail.

Also try to re-sponge before the polish on your nails/sponge get too tacky, otherwise you’ll end up taking more off with your sponge than you are putting on… lol

Wait for it all to dry 100% before carefully applying your clear top coat, for a softer effect (and for the obvious benefits of adding shine and your mani lasting longer) OR leave the out the top coat for a more textured effect.

Another method is to also apply the 3 colours directly on your nail (over the base colour) and then sponging on some more of the same 3 colours on top of that as in step no 2.

There isn’t really a right or wrong, basically try both methods and see which one works better for you!

Here is another example where I used 3 colours that aren’t quite shades of the same colour, but from the same ‘colour family’ as a “sunset” gradient 😉

And here I created a “field & blue sky” using the gradient technique, as a base:

For this ‘Field of Spring Flowers‘ design that I did: