Ocean Gradient Nails

Arden here!  Today's manicure is in honor of the summer.  My family isn't going to the beach together until October, but I found myself thinking about the beach the other day and decided to try out some ocean gradient nails. 

I started with two coats of Sally Hansen Barracuda (as you can tell from the sticker on it in one of the pictures below, I snapped up this polish when it was recently clearanced at Target).  I then sponged on a 3-color gradient using Barracuda, Nicole by OPI Khloe Had a Little Lam-Lam (guess that one must've been part of some Kardashian collection), and a navy blue from the 3 piece Trendsetter Chic set by Physician's Formula Endless Color (unfortunately each individual polish in this set doesn't have its own name).

I finished by dabbing on some NYC Starry Silver Glitter on the two darker colors (leaving the lighter tips without glitter) and adding a top coat.

Colorful Feathery Striped Nails

Arden: When I saw The Nailasaurus' striped manicure technique last Friday, I instantly knew I wanted to try it out!  I initially was just going to use a couple of colors (greens, blues, and purples), but before I knew it I'd ended up using nearly every shade of the rainbow, and I loved it!  Though I wasn't thinking about it going in, the end result really reminded me of some kind of multicolored furry creature that might be in a Dr. Seuss book.  What do you think?

I started by painting my nails with two coats of L'Oreal Creme Puffs.

I thought that looked a little too yellow for the neutral base color I was going for, so I ended up adding two coats of OPI Don't Touch My Tutu and it worked perfectly to transform the color into a little creme shade:

Next, I started adding color!  Using one of the striping brushes from our MASH nail art brush set, I striped on lines of each color.  I tried to alternate between long brush strokes and shorter ones, as well as between darker colors and lighter ones.  I didn't want all of the darker colors to get covered up by the lighter colors, or vice versa.