How to paint ombre gradient nails

Start off with a clean base. A plain base coat is fine, however white will really help your colours pop.

On your clean make up sponge, paint stripes of your chosen colours horizontally along. Make sure you start at the base of the sponge so you can line it up with the base of your nail.

The lines do not have to be neat and straight, as this is where most of the colour merging will happen.

Line up the sponge with your nail, with the base of the sponge at the nail bed. Blot the colour on in a fluid, rolling motion. At this stage it's never neat!

The first blot. Continue the same process on the nail until all of the base coat is covered.

Continue this process on every nail, then add more layers of this technique until you have your ideal coverage. This is about 3 layers for me.

The gradient effect can be managed by altering where you start the stamp: 5mm above and below the nail bed works for me. Remember you're gonna make mess, so just focus on the opacity an gradient.

Here I have a good opacity and gradient effect. Don't worry if the nails gain some texture from the sponge, this will disappear with the top coat.

Clean up time! Use a combination of cotton pads, buds and a nail art brush (if you have one) dipped in nail varnish remover. Get into those cuticles!

Heres after clean up...

The finished ombre gradient nail, after a top coat and moisturising!