Mermaid Glitter Gradient Using Sheer Polishes

Hey, everyone!

This was the first time I've attempted mermaid glitter gradient nails, but I did it in a little bit of an unorthodox way! Keep reading to find out more!

When most people do mermaid glitter gradients (like the Queen of Sparkle, Laura, of Polish All the Nails!), they use multiple colors of glitter that they place on their nail. Not me. I have more silver holo hex glitter than I will ever use in a lifetime, so I decided to use my DIY sheer polishes to color the glitter after I placed it! Also, I've decided to name all of my DIY sheers into a little The Nail Smith collection. It pleases me.

To start off, I painted all of my nails with two thin coats of a DIY base coat, for easy removal when the time came. I followed that with two coats of Sally Hansen Celeb City, which is my go-to glitzy silver polish. Then on my thumb, middle, and ring fingers, I started placing my glitter according to the usual method that Laura uses (my glitter is Twinkled T Forgot About Gray, 0.08" - but they don't sell individual glitter stuffs anymore, sorry!). On my index and pinky fingers I did two coats of my blue sheer, Clear Skies. Then I stamped with my new Bundle Monster Sunkissed collection using BM-501 and black polish. I then used my green tint, Garden Addict, to do some leadlighting on the seaweed images. After all of my glitter was placed, I used all of my sheer colors to make them whatever color I wanted! Aren't I resourceful? Also, check out below for a quick sparkle video!

Materials Used

Sally Hansen Celeb City

The Nail Smith Sunburn (red sheer)

The Nail Smith Creamsicle (orange sheer)

The Nail Smith Sunshine (yellow sheer)

The Nail Smith Garden Addict (green sheer)

The Nail Smith Clear Skies (blue sheer)

The Nail Smith Bloom (magenta sheer)

Twinkled T Forgot About Gray hex glitter, 0.08"

Stamping plate BM-501

DIY peel-off base coat

EDIT (5/21/15): Apparently Twinkled T DOES still sell individual glitters, and the closest they have to Forgot About Grey is Silver Holo in the size Maxi, which corresponds to 0.08" (you can find the product page here).

So what do you think? I absolutely love that I can now have holo hex glitter in ANY color! Thanks for stopping by!