Clean Beauty // Look Fantastic January 2019 Beauty Box Nails

The Look Fantastic January box is finally here! It's quite funny, last years LF January box was also spectacularly late with many on social media getting a bit 'angry' shall we say. Back then I still had my beauty blog and dubbed it "LF January Gate". However, this year I wasn't particularly bothered as I don't have the blog anymore and I actually really love this months contents as just about everything will get used. Well perhaps not the baking powder as I don't really wear make-up anymore but I can give it go!

On to the nails though! For this months I decided when I first saw the box design that I would attempt my very first reciprocal gradient....yep we're going into 'real' nail art territory here. If you're not familiar with a reciprocal gradient (I wasn't a few months ago), it's a gradient design with striping tape applied on top and then the same gradient sponged in the other direction so when you peel off the tape you get this neat effect.

For my first attempt; I'm quite happy as it turned out much better than I thought it would. However, I used a stamping polish as one of the shades and it dried far too quickly and when I was removing the tape, the lines became a little jagged. Also, to save time I did two fingers at a time which gave the polish to much time to dry. You really do need to remove the tape as soon as you've finished stamping or the lines don't blend into each other well.

Also, when adding the silver detail; I messed up big time. It kind of makes me cringe a little, but the show must go on. I'd definitely attempt this again though as it was quite fun. I kept going back and forth between this and my programming assignment so I wasn't just waiting around for everything to dry. In the end, it took me a good two hours and that was just one hand....people who do both are actually crazy.

But anyway, here's a nice gradient* shot to finish.

Polishes/Tools Used:-
- Ciaté // Ferris Wheel (pale light blue)

- MoYou London // Snowflake (off white)

- Artistic Colour Revolution // Heart of Chrome (metallic silver shimmer)

- Revlon // Quick Dry Top Coat

- MoYou London Stamping Plate // Tropical 09 & Typography 04

*I learnt through researching how to do this that blending colours together is actually called a gradient and an ombre is block colours on each nail but from the same colour family....I'll be a pro one day...