Gradient Mani - White to Black

I was recently inspired by a post I saw on Chloe's Nails for an "Ombre Mani". Basically, an Ombre Mani is where you go from the lightest of a color to the darkest. Here, Erika went from White to Black, with gray in between. Since I already owned 3 out of the 5 colors she used, I thought this would be a fun mani to try to duplicate. The only differences are that she used a Franken she made for the gray closest to the black nail. Since I had never made a Franken before, I used my Zoya "Kelly" (although, it's a little more purple than I had wanted). I never realized until yesterday how hard gray polishes can be to find! I went to 4 stores in search of a color similar to her Franken, but came home with nothing. I was, however, able to find the Pure Ice polish at Wal-Mart; it was their last bottle, and was not even in it's correct spot! Score!


I had another reason for wanting to do this mani. I am on a kickball league here in St. Louis, and our first 2 games are today. Our team color is charcoal, so I thought it would be fun to wear all of these colors today. I guarantee no one else on the team will have a mani as hot as this! :-)

I used 3 coats for each finger, plus a coat of China Glaze Fast Forward Top Coat.

I'd love to have nails like Erika (yes, hers are real!), but I don't, so I guess I just have to work with what I have. The mani isn't perfect, but for my first try, I think it turned out nice. I might try looking through my polish stash to see what other Ombre Mani's I can do!