MANI MONDAY: Purple Gradient Braided Nails

by - April 09, 2018


I don't know what it is this spring, but I've been leaning pretty hard towards pastel gradient nails. I have a feeling that I'll shift to something else soon enough, but for now I hope you guys are into the gradients. With a theme of Braided nails to work with this week, I decided to sort of do the gradient two ways and I used striping tape to try and get crisp lines in the mani - since my hand painting skills are less than impressive and I knew that if I tried a hand painted braid it probably wouldn't go so well.

For a closer look and to see how to get this look, keep reading!


To get the braided nails, I started with a base of Billie French White, which is from the dollarstore and is basically my favorite white creme polish because it's so opaque. I applied Cutex Quick Dry Top Coat over it and let it dry completely before I applied little strips of striping tape in the braid pattern, starting at the base of the nail and moving outwards to the tip. I then alternated between Pure Ice Sweet Serenity, Color Club Everything's Peachy, and a purple Tivoli polish that I can't find the name of that I picked up at the dollarstore. I finished with a thin coat of Julep Desiree, which is a really fine holographic shimmer topper, and another coat of Cutex Quick Dry Top Coat and voila!

(If you want to see a review of dollarstore polishes, let me know!)


For the standard gradient nails, I applied a coat of the Pure Ice Sweet Serenity and let it dry completely before sponging on the gradient of all three purple polishes using a triangle makeup sponge. I finished with a thin coat of Julep Desiree, which I think helps to smooth out the transition between and give a much more seamless look, and sealed everything with Cutex Quick Dry Top Coat.


My takeaway from this mani is that as much as I enjoy the look, I just really, really don't love using striping tape and I'm far too much of a perfectionist when it comes to wobbles and stuff on my nails. But still, I've always wanted to try braided nails and I'm pretty happy with how these ones turned out.

Make sure to head over to see the braided manicures that Jayne (Cosmetic Proof) and Renee (See The World In Pink) did this week as well and look for more themed Mani Monday posts from the three of us to come!

Thanks for reading!

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