Sally Hansen Beach Paradise: Searsucker feat. Blue Crush / Scaled Gradient

I received some samples for the new Sally Hansen Beach Paradise collection, which will be available in July 2014. Surprisingly so I chose the two blue shimmer polishes first, usually these are not the colors I go for. But oh, did one of them surprise me! I love Searsucker, the light turquoise blue with a bit of purple shimmer in it. It wasn't easy to capture on camera, but it is definitely really bright. I combined it in a design together with Blue Crush which I cannot recommend as much, since it stained my cuticles quite a bit. I was amazed at how awesome these look with a coat of Essie - Matte About you on top! For the design I chose my new favorite technique again, the scaled gradient. Learn how to do this over at Simply Nailogical. And find out more about Sally Hansen on their Facebook page. 

Scaled Gradient Nails

So I stumbled upon this beautiful design by Cristine from Simply Nailogical the other day and I immediately wanted to try it on my own nails. She calls it a scaled gradient and has already done some awesome variations, so you should definitely check out her blog! Cristine used nail vinyls as a guide for the gradient and I decided to make my own vinyls for this. As my base color I used three coats of Essie - Go Ginza and I actually prepared it the day before, since for this technique the nail polish needs to be completely dry. Then I did two gradients using Essie - Fiji and Bottle Service, letting them dry in between. On top is one coat of Essence - BTGN High Gloss. I love this technique and there are so many possibilities! The only downside is the drying time. If the nail polish isn't completely dry, the tape will ruin the first gradient. I'm still thinking of a faster way to do this! Any ideas? :)

It's also a little bit messy...

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