Ombre manicure, Hombre, Ole Caliente!

Inspired by ombre nails done like here, I wanted to try myself!

I used Lumene base&top coat polish as the base, Lumene's Groove (just basic orange) as the base color and Essie Ole Caliente (neonish dark pink) on the tip.

The ombre style is quite easy to make with basic makeup sponge and couple of nail polishes, q-tips and nailpolish remover.

Step 1

Apply base coat that helps the nail polish stay longer and protects the nail from discoloration etc.

Step 2

Apply 1 layer of base color of your choice. My opinion is that a lighter color looks better on the root of nail and a darker color better on the tip half of the nail. So apply the color you want to be closer to the root of the nail first. I have this cute little orange matte nail polish from Lumene's Natural Code line.

Step 3 

Apply your base color and the tip color on a sponge as two lines that can overlap a little bit but be careful not to get the other color to the other's bottle :) I also tried to mix the colors a little with a toothpick but I would as well skip that and just go ahead pressing the nails with the sponge.

Step 4 

Press the sponge on the nail so that the line between the colors is about in the middle. Go through all the nails once and let dry. I found out that after some pressings the sponge would start getting bad and small parts of the sponge would stick to the fresh nail polish. So it's good to change the part of sponge every once in a while and apply the colors again always to a fresh place on the sponge. One sponge was totally enough for me for the whole manicure. You can cut off used parts to make it easier to find new clean flat surface.

Step 5

Let them dry. And let them dry well! :D

Step 6

Go through the nails again with the same technique, this time concentrating on getting the line between the colors into a little bit different part so the line becomes blurry. I carefully dabbed the same nail a couple of times to get it blurry enough. Just make sure you don't mess up the lower layers now!

Step 7

Remove the mess from around your nails with q-tips and nailpolish remover. I use Mavala nailpolish remover, which is actually not the best... I prefer a Finnish brand Mirame when it comes to nail polish removers, but I decided to try a new one. FAIL.

Step 8 

Apply a top coat to get them nails smoothed and shiny! I use the Mavala Top Coat Fixator for this, which is a pretty good choice.

Step 9

Clean up...

And RELAX, it's Friday night!

At least nails ready to party :)