Ombre Tiger Gel Mani Tutorial

I got a little bored the other day and wanted to try the tiger mani with the gel polish. I've done it before with regular polish. You can see those pictures here. That one had white and orange. This time I decided to use neon orange and neon yellow.

What you will need:

• Black polish
• Orange polish
• Yellow polish 
• Glitter accent (I used gold glitter)
• Realllllllly thin nail brush

Step 1: Start by prepping your nails as normal (cut, file cuticles etc). Then put on your base coat (cure base coat if your are doing gel)

Step 2: Now, paint the orange polish 3/4 of the way up your nail starting at the cuticle and going up. **Do not cure yet**

Step 3: Now, using your yellow polish, paint the tip you left uncolored by the yellow, and paint down and just a little over the orange. The gel polish because it doesn't dry by air, will kind of run together. This is why you do not want to cure after you paint the orange on.

Step 4: Now once you have done this to all of your fingers, cure the polish. Repeat step 3. You want two coats to give you that ombre. And again, with the gel, it will blend together mixing, but be careful not to use too much polish.

Step 5: With your nail brush paint black stripes over the nail. Make them thicker on the sides and go outward thinner to look more like tiger stripes. If using the gel, cure the black stripes in the UV lamp.

Step 6: Add glitter over some of the black tiger stripes to accent. Cure if using gel.

Step 7: Top coat (if using gel... you guessed it, cure!) 

Step 8: Go out and show off your cute DIY mani! Go ahead brag that you did it yourself. I give you permission!

Heart and Design Mani

Fun and cute but I smeared the heart! 

I had fun playing with some designs. I got the idea for this manicure from a picture I saw on Pinterest. It didn't turn out perfect but it was a lot of fun.

I didn't take pictures to do a tutorial but it was actually quite simple.

Thumb: Paint nail with the two colors. Don't worry about making the line even because you will just put the gems over it. Once colors are mostly dry place the gems in a line down the nail. See easiest way to apply gems in this post.

Index Finger: Paint all over with the lighter color. With the darker color add a heart. See how to do the hearts in the heart mani tutorial.

Middle Finger: Paint the entire nail with the dark color. Once nail is mostly dry but still a little tacky, apple the gem towards the cuticle of the nail.

Ring Finger: Paint all over with light color. Once light color is dry, paint stripes in different directions. There is no rhyme or reason to this one, just so it looks good.

Pinky: Just like the middle finger, paint the entire nail with the lighter color. Once nail is mostly dry but still a little tacky, apple the gem towards the cuticle of the nail.

Top coat, let dry, and you are done!

**Make sure when you top coat, do two coats on the nails that have the gems.

Another angle, the last pic didn't have the ring finger! Whoops...

How To: Remove Gel Nail Polish

Got shiny new gel nails? Rocking those bad girls for a few weeks and ready for them to come off? Do not despair, you do not have to go to the salon to get these off. I will walk you through how to do this at home without ruining your nails.

Before I start - let me say, DO NOT peel the gel nail off. If you do, you will ruin your nail!!! If you peel the gel nail polish off as it starts to come up, you will remove the top layer of your nail and it will make your nail weak and brittle.

OK, now that I got that out I will proceed with the instructions.

This is medium grit file

Step 1: Get yourself a nice thick grit nail file. I picked mine up at Sally's for about a buck! File the top layer of your gel nail polish.

Step 2: Tear off pieces of foil that you will wrap your nails with. I like to do longer thinner pieces. You will wrap your finger and the cotton ball inside the foil so you want long pieces that can wrap around a few times.

Tear foil pieces

Step 3: Take a piece of cotton ball and tear it in half. I have the large cotton balls so I like to save $ and polish remove by using a smaller piece of cotton ball.

If you have the larger cotton balls, tear them in half

Step 4: Now dip your cotton ball piece in acetone. You have to use acetone nail polish remover, regular nail polish remover will not work.

Use acetone nail polish remover

Step 5: Place the dipped cotton ball on top of your nail and place your nail on a foil piece. Now wrap the foil piece with the cotton ball in place around your finger. I recommend doing your dominant had first. If you are right handed, wrap your right hand first, then your left. Once you have multiple fingers wrapped it gets a little

tough to wrap the other hand so make it easier on yourself by wrapping your dominant hand first.

Wrap the rest of your fingers. Make sure you place a towel under the surface you are working on. Acetone can ruin furniture and even melt plastic! I am sure you are wondering if it's safe for your fingers. It is, just make sure to hydrate your hand and nail once you remove the polish.

Wait 10-15 minutes once your nails are wrapped until you take off the foil. I sometimes will pour a little more acetone into the foil pieces (at the knuckle of my finger where they are wrapped) if I feel the polish is being stubborn. Just be careful not to spill!

Step 6: Now go ahead and pull each foil piece off. Have your cuticle pusher reader or a similar tool to help scrape the rest of the polish off. When you take the foil off, most of the polish will have lifted up at the ends. If there is still some polish on the nail, that't OK. Use your scraper to remove the excess. Once you are done scraping each nail, there still may be some residue on your nails. Just dip a cotton ball into the acetone and remove the rest with a cotton ball.

You can also do the "easier" route and dip your hand in a bowl of acetone nail polish. I don't like doing this because you expose your hand and nails to SO much acetone and it can really dry it out. Also this way, you can still move around without being tied down to a bowl of polish remover.

If anyone has any suggestions to add that have worked well for them please leave them in the comment box. I would love to try them out!