Ombré nails are a type of manicure in which a color gradient is created. A light color on the top of the nail gradually blends into a darker color toward the tip. Getting the perfect ombré effect can take time and practice, but there’s a lot of room for originality to make your ombré effect unique. To find out how to DIY an ombré nail at home, read on the tips and tricks to ensure your DIY mani looks like you just got home from the salon.
What you Need DIY Ombré Nails at Home
1. Base Coat: A base coat creates a protective layer between your nail bed and the nail polish in order to keep nail damage at bay—think peeling, stripping, breaking, and all the bad stuff—and to shield your nails from the gross yellow discoloration that often comes along with reddish, pinkish, or dark colors.
2. Top Coat: Top Coats give your nails a long-lasting gel manicure, from a high-shine (or gorgeous matte) finish to offering a layer of protection to your nails. Top Coat helps to prevent chips and scratches to your gel polish, shielding your nails to ensure your gel manicure looks great and lasts longer.
3. Nail polish remover: Traditional nail polish removers are made up of an acetone solvent and a fatty material like lanolin or caster oil. Acetone removes polish by quickly breaking apart the nail varnish and stripping the polish from the nail plate surface.
4. Disposable makeup sponge: Before there were makeup mixers, there were handy sponge wedges for makeup -- you can find them in the drugstore makeup aisle. These are exactly what you need to achieve the ombre look.
5. Liquid latex tape: Any brand of tape will do. This is just to clean the detritus off the makeup sponge.
6. Nail polish shades: It can be tricky choosing which ombré shades you want to blend into each other, you can blend just about any colors you want. If you’re feeling indecisive, Pinterest has tons of inspo to guide you. Choosing colors in the same color family is always a good bet too, like fading pinks into magentas and then reds, or pink into lilac then blue.
How to Create your Ombré Nails
Now that you have all the products you need, let's break down how to DIY your own ombré nail look.
Step 1: Apply The Base Coat
Apply one to two coats of your base coat of choice and let dry completely before adding more color.
Step 2: Clean the sponge
Take a piece of tape and dab it on the sponge. This ensures that your sponge is clean and ready to use, and that no loose pieces of sponge fall out and get stuck on your nails.
Step 3: Add color to the sponge
Line each color up in a row [on the sponge], overlapping each other, leaving no space in between. Overlapping them is very important for a smooth ombre effect.
Step 4: Start applying
Dab your nails with a sponge. Let each layer dry, Garcia says, and then pat it again. It takes two to four coats to get a good ombre.
Step 5: Clean things up
When you're satisfied with the pigmentation on your nails, use a brush or cotton swab dipped in nail polish remover to clean the sides of your nails and skin.
Step 6: Add a top coat
The coating on the surface will make everything smoother and will be the final seal
This is a beautiful brown french nail. You can use multiple colors to create shadow effects or glamorous shimmering shadow nails. The following video will help you understand how to make colorful undertone nails and shimmery undertone nails.
