Today I finally got on the Easter/spring bandwagon and decided to do a pastel sponge mani! As y'all know, I loooooove sponging, so I was really looking forward to this one. First off, let's take a look at the finished mani:
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| Water-colourey pastel nails! |
I was especially looking forward to doing this mani since I decided to use my new makeup sponges! I normally do all of my sponging using a cheap old kitchen sponge from Asda (Walmart in the US?). However, I'd really like to do a sunset gradient at some point, and I know that I can't do this with a kitchen sponge, so I picked up some makeup sponges from Boots.
I'm actually quite surprised, since I figured people prefer to use makeup sponges for a reason. However, I found that the sponge was more absorbent, so colour transfer wasn't as good. In addition, bits of sponge kept breaking off into the mani and I had to keep removing them (grr). Finally, this mani was horrendously messy. I've never understood why people say that sponging or gradients are messy, and now I do: y'all are using the wrong sponge! To illustrate:
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| A messy work in progress! |
I have virtually no clean up when I use a kitchen sponge - and the above photo is only half-way through the mani!
I was originally planning to stamp over the top of this, but I somehow didn't get around to it, and anyway, I quite liked it on its own. If I had to do it again, I think I'd use a kitchen sponge and darker colours, since despite my nails looking like amazing watercolour masterpieces, I missed my usual bright colours! I'd also buy a better white base colour before doing this mani again; I tried using my Essence Stamping Polish in white, but it was too gloopy, so I had to use my white French tips polish from Rimmel, with its tiny, tiny brush! The base coat was just laborious!
Here's the polishes I used:
- Rimmel Nail Tip Whitener (base and mixing)
- Rimmel Show Off (pink - lightened)
- Catrice Salmon and Garfunkel (orange)
- Collection 2000 - Hot Looks Lemon Soda (yellow)
- Catrice Sold Out Forever (green - lightened)
- Rimmel Aqua Cool (blue - lightened)
- Rimmel How Do You Lilac It (lilac)
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| Pastel goodness! *.* |
So what do you think? :-) I'm looking forward to doing more sponge manis with other funky colour combos! What combos would you like to see? :-) Lemme know in the comments!
'Til next time, curlettes!
- Skye x
Very pretty! The end result is beautiful, too bad it was so messy :(
ReplyDeleteThank you, Essie :) Pastels are not really my thing but it was right for my mood at the time ^^
DeleteWow, this looks fab! Reminds me of a Zap lolly that I used to get from the ice cream man as a child -
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I definitely need to try this :-) x x
Awww thank you!!! It totally does look like that lolly - how weird o.O It was ridiculously easy to do - I'd just recommend a kitchen sponge instead of makeup sponges! :) :) :) xxx
DeleteI've just done a gradient and I find that works better with a makeup sponge, just cos I don't get big sponge marks like I did with my Tesco Value washing up sponge! But each to their own!! I really want one of those lollies now :-) x x
DeleteI will confess: I did buy them to do a sunset gradient, and I'm still looking forward to trying it - I think they're just different effects. I don't mind the sponging being rougher when I'm splodging but I know I need makeup sponges to get that perfect linear gradient :) :) Can't wait to give it a go! xx
DeleteLove that! Do you think you would be able to do a comparison of the effects between using a makeup sponge and a kitchen sponge? It'd be interesting to see the difference!
ReplyDeleteThanks Becca ^^ I will try to find some time to do a little experimentation for you sometime :) It will make an interesting post! In the meantime, you can see some of my previous sponged manis (all done with the kitchen sponge) by clicking the 'sponging' label on the right-hand side of the page :) xx
DeleteI think it came out really pretty!! I use a makeup sponge since I have a ton anyways ;)
ReplyDeleteThanks, Sandipa :) I don't wear much makeup at all, so I had to go buy a pack of sponges... I hope I can master the sunset gradient by the time I'm through! xx
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