THIS POST IS IN PARTNERSHIP WITH PUEEN COSMETICS.

While I'm not generally one for following trends when it comes to my nail art, I am also not entirely immune. Even though I think cherry red nails are a total classic and always in style at least to some degree, they've really been having a moment trendwise this fall and I've really been wanting to do a mani in red. When I saw someone do their version of this trend in an aura style, I knew that I wanted to do my own spin on that style and that's really what drove me to do this mani. 

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Aura nails have definitely been having a moment this year, I must say. There are several different techniques that you can use to create this style of mani, but my preferred technique is definitely the sponged gradient one. For me, this is just the technique that I'm personally most comfortable with.

For this gradient, I went with a bolder, more classic cherry red along with a deeper, vampier red. I started by applying one coat of the darker shade to all of my nails and then letting that dry down completely. Next, I applied a cuticle barrier as close to the edge of my base polish as possible, just to make the clean up as easy as possible. This is particularly important with this type of mani since the darkest shade is the one that will be touching the cuticle and is most likely to stain. 

To build the gradient on the sponge, I started by applying a dot on the brighter red shade to the center of my sponge and then applying the darker shade around the edges. This creates that brighter spot in the center while leaving the edges darker. For this mani, I did three passes of sponging to get to the desired opacity and blend. In person, I actually found that the impact of the aura design on this mani was much more pronouced.

For the stamping, I really wanted to create a sort of, for lack of a better term, trippy look. I went with this sort of psychadelic image from the Pueen 120 Stamping Plate (from the 24M Collection). This image, for me, gives the vibe I was looking for while also feeling really simple and graphic. I applied this image using black stamping polish, alternating the direction of placement just for added visual interest.

Once I was happy with the design, I sealed everything in with a nail art top coat and then finished with a generous layer of glossy top coat for shine and volume. And voila!

I love how these turned out! I actually really wish that the pictures were doing more justice to just how cool that aura effect really looks. It's such a cool look and one that I definitely will be recreating again! I also really, really love how this stamping image plays with the vibe of the mani. Me and my partner have been watching Twin Peaks recently (we'd never seen it!) and I feel like this vibe really fits with the vibe of that show as well.

If you're interested in any of the Pueen products I used for this mani, they're all available from Amazon!

Thanks for reading!