Friday, January 11, 2013

Spotted Rainbow Gradient

I recently learned a fun new water marbling sort of technique and couldn't wait to try it out over my rainbow gradient nails!

The original look calls for black polish on top, but I could not get any of mine to cooperate, plus I'd left purple out of my gradient, so I opted to use SXY's Violet Vixen instead!

You can tell I got better with progression, because the pinkie was the last nail I did, and it looks the best. I definitely need more practice with this technique, but I love how you can pretty much make any color look similar to OPI's Spotted with it!


Paint your nails however you'd like, then drop a few drops of a black (or any) polish in a cup of water as you would with marbling, but instead, spray it with hand sanitizer. I just put regular sanitizer in an old body mist bottle and it worked just fine. This creates the holes in the polish. Dip your finger in and you're done!

Here is the video tutorial from cutepolish on YouTube that I followed to get this look:

Comments (49)

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This is so awesome! I've seen a few people recreate the cutepolish tutorial, so I think I might have to try it myself!
1 reply · active 638 weeks ago
Thanks! It takes a little getting used to, but I love how it looks!
wow, thanks for sharing, this is so awesome :D
1 reply · active 638 weeks ago
Thanks! I love the look!
I LOVE it with the purple!! It looks so cool! :)
1 reply · active 638 weeks ago
Thanks! It is a pretty awesome one!
Thanks! It's the last nail I did, so I definitely improved as a went. It does take a little getting used to.
Thanks! I actually couldn't get any of my blacks to work, but I really like it with the purple instead anyway!
It's such a fun idea - and a beautiful outcome!!
1 reply · active 638 weeks ago
Thank you! I definitely want to try it with other colors!
Such a cool look! I love the colors you used. The dark purple is a nice, different offset.
1 reply · active 638 weeks ago
Thanks! I really like it with the purple on top! ^.^
Honestly, I really like the chunky spots better than the pinky and I just love that you did a rainbow gradient underneath. It looks amazing.
1 reply · active 638 weeks ago
Thank you! I kind of like the bigger spots too. I just wish I'd been able to get more smaller holes in between them! =P
i JUST saw this video yesterday and I am planning on trying it soon! i think its awesome ,yours came out great! i love the colors
1 reply · active 635 weeks ago
I saw this vid the other day - love your take on it though - lovely colour combo :)
And can I just say I adore the owls on this page! lol
1 reply · active 635 weeks ago
Simply Beauty.'s avatar

Simply Beauty. · 638 weeks ago

ahhhhhhh i LOVE this!
1 reply · active 635 weeks ago
This turned out really cool! :-)

~ Yun
1 reply · active 635 weeks ago
that is genius! must try....*must pick up a spray bottle*
1 reply · active 635 weeks ago
Thanks! It's tons of fun!
I've seen this technique too and I'd love to try it as soon as I've got an empty spray bottle of anything and as soon as I've got some sanitizer :D
1 reply · active 637 weeks ago
I love how it looks! It's so neat!
Vera Vanity's avatar

Vera Vanity · 638 weeks ago

Wow, great post dear... I have to try it. I have to say that I see it 1st on your blog, but the true is that I was a little bit off-line ;o). Have a great day. Xoxo V.V.
1 reply · active 637 weeks ago
Heather @ PLP's avatar

Heather @ PLP · 638 weeks ago

I love this! It's so creative and the purple on top brings the whole rainbow together :)
1 reply · active 637 weeks ago
Thanks! I love this technique!
Beautyshades's avatar

Beautyshades · 638 weeks ago

Tha'ts really cool :) will check the video out :)
1 reply · active 637 weeks ago
It's such a fun look to wear!
This is way fun! I'm going to have to try it ASAP!
1 reply · active 638 weeks ago
Thanks! It takes a bit of practice, but it is pretty fun!
I so need to try this!
1 reply · active 637 weeks ago
I love how it looks! There are so many other colors I want to try it in!
They're tons of fun to do! I love this technique!
It looks really nice. :)
1 reply · active 635 weeks ago
I can not wait to try this technique--it looks so amazing! I *love* how you did it with the plum polish. Looks awesome over your pretty rainbows! ;)
1 reply · active 635 weeks ago
Thanks! It's such a fun look, I love it!
I've tried this technique before but my "holes" kept being too big! It would be fine when I first sprayed it but then they would kind of expand and take over and end up looking more like a web than oil spots. I was using hair spray though because I couldn't find the spray hand sanitizer so maybe that was my problem? or maybe I'll try using another polish as you suggest :) I like how the purple you used isn't completely opaque. It's a nice effect and very different from all the other water spotted manis I've been seeing around!
1 reply · active 634 weeks ago
Thanks!! ^.^ I kept having issues with the holes being too big too. I ended up putting regular sanitizer plus a tiny bit of rubbing alcohol in an old spray bottle and held it almost an entire arms length away from the cup! I definitely want to try out this look in all different colors though!

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