Sheer Beaches

The folks at American Apparel were kind enough to send me free samples of three of their new "Sheer" nail polish line to try out and review here on the blog. I love these - even though they're sheer, they're highly pigmented, so they're very versatile. Especially for things like...say...sponge gradients...

 

The three colors they sent me were "Summerland Beach" - light pale peach/nude, "Manhattan Beach" - snappy dark peach,  and "Moonlight Beach" - a lovely dark purple.

The formula is really nice - not too thick, not too thin, and really nice to work with whether brushing on or sponging. I started with two coats of Summerland for the base:

 

Then I sponged on a layer of Manhattan, staying away from the tips. In retrospect, I wish I'd alternated gradient patterns on each nail just to see how they layer differently in different order. But I'll play with that later.

Next, I sponged on a first layer of Moonlight. You can really see the sheer quality here, as the peach layers come up through the blue/purple. I thought about leaving it like this, but decided I wanted a bit more pop for the top layer.

One more layer of Moonlight made me happier. I just love how these work together - the colors really compliment each other.

A couple coats of Seche Vite top coat, and voila! A simple summer gradient that actually would work quite well on the beach, methinks. 

The only thing I wish I'd done differently is to not brush the base layer so close to the cuticle. I have Summerland sticking out under my Moonlight...and it's bugging me. Ah well. Practice makes...closer to perfect, eh?

Until next time, happy polishing!