Simply Nailogical's Reciprocal Scaled Gradient nails tutorial

We are going to go extreme for this one. Today we're amping up the nail art game. My original plan was to do a tutorial for scaled gradients and another for reciprocal gradients but my stream met up the incentive to do a nail art tutorial live on stream, and it was going to do Cristine's (in)famous look. Even though I can nitpick it, here it is in all its glory:

 The inspiration is none other than this video from the artist herself: 

Notice something lacking in that thumbnail? Oh I do. It's green. She did it in different shades for each nail and casually omitted green, so I took offense to that and did it myself. I also documented doing it in my own youtube channel so if you want to hear me yap while I'm doing it in a worse camera quality, I will also drop the link to my own VOD:

 Your prerequisite for this is basically mastering the gradient technique, as this tutorial is basically four tutorials on a specific order. Also a good understanding of nail vinyls will be necessary for this final result.

Let's review the products I've used for this particular nail:

 To honor Cristine, I used polishes from her brand, Holo Taco. And to cry a little bit about discontinued shades, I used two of the retired greens because I wanted to make it very much saturated and bright like the original:

• Holo Taco's Not Milky White
• Holo Taco's Here for the Payday
• Holo Taco's Green Screen

I also included in the picture striping tape and a make up sponge. With the help of these tools, we're gonna be working towards this look. Our first step is simple: apply a coat of white. I would probably have skipped this and gone for the lighter shade of the gradient, but I understand that in the original video she went for five different combinations and applying a coat of white would help it. Also as I explained in the gradient post, a white background can make colours pop more over it:

 

Time for your first gradient. If you're doing this on your actual nails, be sure to wear protection, like liquid latex or glue, and change it for each step. You want a diagonal gradient, coming from the cuticle but not centered, riding up to half of your nail, so if you divide your nail, the fade would be arounf half of the half, a quart of the nail. Following the tutorial, we're gonna do the lighter shade in the cuticle. Do as many thin layers as you need to reach the opacity and blend you desire:

Don't worry about your corner not being covered. You're going to do another scale there anyways, so focus on the first half of your nail. It's gonna turn out fine. Now, apply a quick dry glossy top coat and be patient. Wait 15 to 20 minutes. It's worth it to avoid all risks of peeling off this work. I actually started to work on other things on my stream to not make people watch paint dry!

Prepare your striping tape. I cut several pieces and put them on top of a nail polish bottle brush. Then I arranged them in a bursting pattern, with the center of it in the top right corner of the nail. Secure them. Let's go for our reciprocal gradient. This means doing the same gradient that it's below, but with the opposite order, so this time will place the darker green near the cuticle. Build your gradient to opacity and after your final coat, peel off the striping tape. Use tweezers if you find it more convenient! I'd suggest remembering the order you placed them and peel them in the opposite order, as they'll layer on top of each other and you might not like the results of moving other stripes ever so slightly.

Top coat and waiting time. Now let's explain the scaled part. We're gonna work on the second half of the nail, so just think that this will be your final result for that half of the nail. You have time to rectify your mistakes with a clean up brush and a minuscule amount of acetone before this top coat if you so desire.

You will want to cover this half of the nail later when and only when your top coat is dry, and do a gradient with the light colour near the vinyl and the dark colour on the free edge, so in the direction of your first gradient. Again, when you are satisfied, peel off, admire your results:

My fade wasn't the best because honestly I was focusing on the stream and it was difficult to actually see what I was doing, I probably should have done one more refining coat. Top coat and wait, what else can I say. Last step is basically a combination of gradient 2 and 3, so you will want to create a reciprocal gradient while respecting the scaled gradient. Sounds harder than it is, bear with me. Apply striping tape to the line of your scale, then apply striping tape on your existing lanes, continuing them onto the second scale. You want that to make sure the lines look continuous. After that, you can use a bigger nail vinyl to cover your lower half of the nail, and when everything is secure, apply your gradient coats. It looks ridiculous at this point with all the protection but it's completely needed.

As soon as you reach the fade you want, peel up everything in the reverse order you applied it, being extra careful as the bigger vinyl might peel up the rest of the striping tape so just be ready to adjust your peel if needed be. You'll reach your final result, so be proud, nitpick everything you need to with your clean up brush, and apply your top coat. You did it.

 

This is my final result and you don't want to read this from the guy making a tutorial, but I'm impressed that this turned out this well. Complicated illusions like this can be very satisfying to make and to admire when you know the work that goes behind them, so I hope you believe in yourself and attempt this. Of course, again, credits to Simply Nailogical for this design, I just did what I needed to do to make it appropiate for me, green.

Thanks a lot for reading, next week I'm almost positive we're gonna do nail art inspired by a Spanish festivity, so I'm quite excited to show you!