In this tutorial, I will show you from a side angle how to hold and move the brush for the acrylic gradient technique

For the acrylic technique, we use a thin foundation layer. This is the lightest or most difficult colour to cover in our gradient. Here’s how to choose it:

An exercise to understand the blending of two colours and creating shades between them. We will make the most complicated gradient – black and white. Most nail techs will tell you that it is impossible and you should stay away from a pigmented black colour, but I will show you how not to be afraid to use this shade.

Statistically speaking, a single nail gradient should take you 3 minutes, or in other words 30 minutes for all fingers. The application of a simple one-coloured manicure (2 layers of colour) takes 20 minutes. Therefore if we do a gradient design instead of a one-coloured manicure we are only adding 10 minutes to the usual gel polish manicure service. See in action how I make a gradient from dark to light red on a nail in less than 3 minutes:

Colours that are opposite on the colour wheel do not blend beautifully. If you mix yellow and purple directly, you will get a dirty brown colour and your gradient design will not look good. To fix this we need to go around the wheel and add more colours. Here’s an example with green and red:

How you move the brush and at what speed is very important. In this lesson, I will show you how movement affects the final result and when to use which technique. I will use the acrylic technique with 2 times powder

How to quickly go from a dark to a light shade

In this lesson I will show you a gradient from dark purple to orange. I will use the acrylic technique with 2 times powder.

In this lesson, I’ll show you an acrylic technique for going from a rich colour or pastel gel polish to white

In this video, I will show you how to use the acrylic technique (but with 1 times powder) to create a gradient of pastel colours.

Demo for a gradient with 6 different colours – acrylic technique with 2 times powder

In this video, I will demonstrate how to use the acrylic technique on a client. It is important to add a flexible base before the top coat.

In this video I will show you from a side angle how to hold the brush and move it for the sticky technique

When you want to do a gradient with 2 colours that are very similar, you can use the wet-in-wet technique or the stickiness technique. Here’s how to go green and yellow with the sticky technique.

Gradient with loose glitter from a jar or with a gel consistency

Demonstration of the sticky technique on a hand. Yellow to milky white and pink to milky white.

How to quickly and easily blend two very similar colours with the wet-on-wet technique. I named it wet in wet, but it is actually a variant of the stickiness technique. It is important that the layer underneath is sticky to get the gradient without leaving holes in the colour. The difference is that in the sticky technique I cure the first colour and then add the second other. In wet-on-wet I apply all the colours at the same time and mix them before I cure them in the lamp.

With the wet-on-wet technique, you can also use 3 colors, as long as they are very close on the colour wheel and are easy to mix. Here’s a demo

In this lesson I’ll show you how to make a vertical gradient on a hand

What difference does it make if your light colour is at the free edge of the nail or next to the cuticle? Video demonstration

Two gradient designs on one nail. Here’s how to do it:

Gradient towards the middle in a diagonal

In this video, I’ll show you how to make a half-moon gradient shape. I will use the acrylic technique with 1 coat of powder.

How to make a gradient starting from the centre

In this tutorial I’ll show you how to achieve a clean gradient with perfect lines. This can be heart-shaped, square, geometric, etc. I will demonstrate to you with a French manicure shape.

Baby boomer with translucent nude and milky white colour. This is the softest version of ombre.

In this tutorial I’ll show you how to mix pigmented nude and pigmented white + milky white to create a very soft yet rich baby boomer

In this tutorial, I’ll show you a baby boomer technique with pigmented colours. This will give you the brightest result.

The translucent nude to pigmented white combination is the most difficult, and mistakes such as visible brush strokes are most often noticed. Here’s a technique to fix that

Another gradient technique between translucent nude and pigmented white. This time the result will be more gentle than the previous video, but it also depends on exactly how transparent your nude colour is and how saturated you want it to be.

Which technique to use for gradient based on the colours you have chosen?

I see complaints from many colleagues on social media that the gradient with acrylic does not last for them. This happened to me until I realized what I was doing wrong. In this video you will find out why some manicurists encounter this problem and how you can prevent it:

What are the most common mistakes and how to fix them?

If you are in a hurry or you just can’t get a smooth gradient, you can also cover up your mistakes. Should you use a matte or glossy top coat?

How to be profitable from gradients?

How to specialize in gradient design and sell it successfully to clients. How to attract customers who are looking for this particular design? How can they pay more to get it from you than another nail technician?

How to clean your brushes after a client? It is important to clean them before the gel polish has started to harden. I do this as soon as I’m done with the client and then put them away in a dark cabinet away from sunlight.

How to make a gradient with cat eye gel polishes and keep the cat-eye effect

A gradient between pink, yellow, green and milky white.

In this tutorial I will show you a very popular design among clients. I often see ‘a client sent me this photo but I don’t know how to do it’ questions in Facebook groups so I decided to include it as a bonus in this course.

When you know you will have some nail art on top, you can afford to work faster. You don’t need a perfect blend because a large part of it will be covered with nail art on top. Example – landscapes, sea, sky, etc. Here’s how I make a gradient between orange and yellow in 2 minutes

This design was very trendy last summer and is still a hit. We choose two colours and between them, we have milky white. We’re going to do a mix between acrylic and wet on wet. This is how:

This design is quick, easy to make and very popular. Here’s how to achieve it with the stickiness technique and milky white colour

In this tutorial, I’m going to fade dark to light red in 4 ways. I will show you how with different techniques you can achieve a similar result. In most cases, which technique you use depends entirely on you and on which one you do the fastest and find the easiest. There is no right or wrong when it comes to the outcome. Try to achieve the same result with a variety of techniques. Set a timer and see which one you can do the fastest.