DIY Ombré Nails!

Ombré has been THE trend this summer. Everything from leggings to hair has been sporting the design and to be honest I can't decide how I feel about it! Whilst I really like the pattern, as a child who was forced to spend most of my childhood in hand-me-down tie dye, I do take slight umbrage with it suddenly being the super cool hipster pattern!
But ignoring my personal issue with ombré, I do think it looks good on nails so here's my DIY

You'll need the two colours of nail varnish that you want to Ombré with, a top coat (this is technically optional) and a sponge. I used Misstify by Missguided and a top and base coat from Primark (their nail varnishes are suspiciously cheap and surprisingly good)

Firstly, paint a base coat of the colour you want to be at the bottom of the nail. You want the colour to be pretty opaque and provide a smooth base so it may be worth doing a couple coats of this. I did two...

Ok this step is optional but I think it makes the overall look better. Paint a thin strip of your other colour across the top of your nails. This can be as messy as you want because you're going to cover it anyway (and if you get any on the sides you can always take that off with nail varnish remover) 

Take your sponge and paint a thick section of each colour onto it. It doesn't matter which way round you put the colours as long as you line them up right on the actual nail. You want to put quite a lot of nail varnish on but not so much that you lose the texture of the sponge because that's what makes it look Ombré.

Press the sponge against the nails to get the pattern you want. Don't worry if they don't look perfect straight away - just keep adding until you get the look you like. I found it easiest to cover the whole nail with the white sponge and then move it down to use the pink...

It should look something like this... (although I'm sure yours will look much better) Take off any messy bits round the edge using a cotton bud and some nail varnish remover

Then apply a liberal top coat. You want to make sure this is nice and smooth because this is the bit that protects the nail and the design...

Et Voila! The must have pattern right at your fingertips!!