#reciprocal gradient

Faded Forest

I wanted this to be another fall design but everyone keeps telling me it looks wintery/Christmassy because of the evergreens 🌲🤷‍♀️

It's a reciprocal gradient!  Ala Cristine of @simplynailogical fame (but I have no doubt plenty of other nail artists thought it up as well).

I'm not a big fan of sponging but the existence of liquid latex does make things tidier.  And as I went along I got better at it.  I also realised that you really should do a base coat of the paler colour first, because I could not get it fully opaque just sponging it on.

I started this mani on Friday (it's now Sunday) but ran out of time and had to go out, so I just left it as a pretty aqua ombre until this morning when I finished it off.  I was worried that the paler colour wouldn't work over the darker but it actually worked surprisingly well with only two coats.  One of the nails I accidently started with the colours the wrong way around, but you'd never know. ;)  The second layer also covered up a few dings I made in the first layer.

I can never get striping tape to sit absolutely straight up and down on my nail, but my skills at wrangling striping tape and Simply Peel are improving, I now use an orange stick to unstick the bits from my tweezers - it's almost impossible otherwise.

I think it would look better with slightly wider lines, but overall I'm pretty chuffed with it.

Colours