Sometimes I forget how much I love the smoosh technique for nail art, but it's one that I always inevitably come back to because it's actually pretty easy when you get the hang of it and it's also super versatile. As I was looking at the Sally Hansen Miracle Gel Rainbow Lights Collection*, I was immediately inspired to pair three of the shades together for a really soft, muted spring smoosh mani. The weather has been so stunning here the past month or so that I have to admit that my brain is already starting to transition into summer vibes, so I definitely needed to get some more muted pastel manis in here before I go full neon and brights in the brainhole.

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When I'm choosing colors for a smoosh, I find that 3-4 is the sweet spot to get a good amount of texture without being overwhelming or getting muddy. For this mani, I knew I wanted to use the shades Crying Out Cloud* a soft lavender purple, and Sweet Pea*, a pale sage green because purple and green are my favorite color pairing of all time, but I decided to also add Sun-Shower*, which is a buttery pale yellow shade, to add some dimension and a little bit more contrast to the overall smoosh. 

When I do a smoosh, I always apply a latex cuticle barrier to make cleanup easier, since this is a bit of a messy process, but you could also use tape around your nails if you don't have a latex barrier. I applied a fair amount of polish in sort of randomly scattered dots over the head of a stamper and then pounced it onto the nail a few times to get the coverage and blend that I was looking for. 

For the stamping design, I knew that I wanted to do a white full coverage floral and when I was looking through my plates for some inspiration I landed on this plate that had two images that I thought would work well together for a sort of vintage/hippie sort of vibe. I ended up alternating the images on the nails and I think it ended up looking pretty cohesive even though they are distinctly different images.

Once I was happy with my stamping, I sealed in the design with a water based top coat and then finished with a generous layer of glossy top coat for shine. And voila!

I really love how soft the overall look of this came out. There's something really, really soothing to me about these tones and I think they worked really, really well together - which I will admit wasn't entirely a given in my head even if I knew exactly what I wanted to do with this mani.

The Sally Hansen Miracle Gel Rainbow Lights Collection* contains 5 really pretty spring shades and is available now!

Don't forget to head over to Cosmetic Proof and See The World In PINK for more floral themed nail art for #CBBxManiMonday!

Thanks for reading!