Ombre Glitter Nails for NYE

While red, gold and green have always sat firmly in the camp of ‘Christmas colours’ to me, New Year’s Eve has always been silver. I have no idea why. Perhaps the fashion mags must all have been toting futuristic silver as the look to be seen in at the turn of the millenium, and that somehow imprinted on my impressionable 17 year old brain as fashion law or something. Who knows. Either way a bit of glitz and sparkle is a given, but when picking a party outfit for NYE, it’s always been a colour I feel an inexplicable urge to wear.

This year I didn’t really have a fancy party to go to – just a casual get together of a few friends at my sister’s house for much drinking and merriment – so my outfit (stay tuned for tomorrow’s post) was more low key than usual. True to form though, silver still featured heavily and I couldn’t go completely glitter free, so I added a bit of extra sparkle with this rather fetching ombre look on my nails!

Now, unusually for me, I actually do know how to get an ombre effect on your nails properly, but it involves painting onto a sponge which sounds incredibly messy and, well, just far too much like hard work to be honest. But I realised that if you use shades that are similar enough and a coarse grade of glitter, you can actually obscure any hard lines and create a similar effect in a much simpler way!

After applying my trusty Essence Gel Base Coat, I first applied the darker of the two colours, this rather lovely sparkly pewter shade called There’s No Place Like Home, also by Essence. Despite the low price these polishes are a nice quality with very good coverage so only one coat was needed. Once that was dry I painted the tips with the lighter silver shade, a metallic polish called Kings Cross Road by Nails Inc. This one requires a few more coats due to it’s mirrored finish, so I made sure each coat was a little shorter than the last to help create that graduated look. Lastly I slicked on a layer of No7 Glitter Effects Nail Polish in Glitter Ball (sadly no longer available, though Essie do a great substitute called Set in Stone) and topped with Essence Gel Top Coat for a shiny, smooth finish.

All in all I’m really pleased with the end result, though it is quite subtle. I might explore using three shades next time for a more dramatic fade. Either way, I’ve really been enjoying all this festive glitz recently – I’m not sure I’m ready to give it up yet! Let’s start a movement! GLITTER IS FOR LIFE, NOT JUST FOR CHRISTMAS!

Who’s with me??

Love,