Nude and Gradient Neon French Tip Nail Art

The challenge on Nail Art Nation last week was French tips. I’m not normally a fan of this style, maybe because I find it a bit boring! But I’m not sure if my natural nails are best suited to it anyway. I chose to do a Nude and Neon French Tip with a soft gradient.

Nude and Neon French Tip left hand

Polishes and tools

My favourite base coat and top coat
Orly Porcelain and Passion Fruit
Latex make up sponge
Clear Jelly Stamper Big Bling Brush

I used pretty much the only nude polish that doesn’t look horrible against my skin. I was going to use a purple neon, but I thought the pink worked better with Porcelain.

Nude and Neon Gradient French Tip right hand

I started with two coats of Porcelain and then a top coat.

Once it was dry, I painted a thin stripe of Passion Fruit onto the sponge, and a wider stripe of Porcelain above it.

You have to be a bit patient with creating a gradient this way. You have to wait for one layer to be mostly dry before starting another.

Luckily for me, Passion Fruit is quite opaque and it only took two coats to get the tip like this.

Nude and Neon Gradient French Tip left hand

The last stage is a final layer of top coat, which helps to blend the gradient. If you’re struggling, a top coat layer before the final sponged coat can help make it smoother.

As you can tell, I went a bit overboard with the photos!

Nude and Neon French Tip right hand

Nude and Neon French Tip

If you can’t face the dabbing of many coats of polish, a thermal polish could easily give you the same gradient effect. You will just need a bit of free edge (the white part of the nail) to get the temperature difference you need to see it.

This is very low on tools needed – most people will have an old sponge lying around, and apart from that you just need a couple of polishes.

What do you think? Do you like this twist on a classic design, or do you prefer the original better? Let me know in the comments!