Gradient with Illamasqua Collide, Obsess and Stance and Nail Laquer UK Grape Juice

Nail Lacquer UK Grape Juice over gradient with Illamasqua bright pinks

A lot of polishes to get here, lol! Nail Lacquer UK's Grape Juice is mix of bright magenta and holographic glitters, all circular, in a jelly base that looks like red grape juice. There's been a few swatches of it already - Cazzy at Special Girl Nails wore it alone to show of its super-juicy beauty and Debbie at Knitty Nails chose a lovely rich dark plum to pair it with. I decided I wanted to try it over a bright pink but couldn't narrow my choice down beyond three Illamasquas - Collide, Obsess and Stance. So in the end I went for a gradient - when in doubt, use all the colours!

Collide is a true neon pink, Stance is an almost-neon magenta and Obsess is a bright pink somewhere between the two. All the colours are on the sheer side, so not the easiest to work with for a gradient, but I was so pleased with the end results I think it was well worth the effort. I painted my nails with Collide first, then applied the gradient with a damp makeup sponge. For this mani I painted the colours directly onto the sponge, overlapping each colour a bit and then use a 'smooshing' action with the sponge on my nail to get them to blend. Sometimes I put the colours on a bit of plastic sheet and press the sponge into the colour - I'm not sure it makes a much difference which method I use. Two things that I've found that do make a great deal of difference to whether a gradient works or not are making the sure the sponge is quite damp - if it gets dry the polish starts to somehow break down the structure of the sponge and then you get bits of sponge stuck all over your nails - and allowing the base colour to dry completely before starting the gradient.

Illamasqua Collide, Obsess and Stance

OK, lets just forget these are nails for a minute and enjoy the colour in an abstract shot - I love hot pink!

Illamasqua Collide, Obsess and Stance

Back to the polish I was meant to be reviewing, Nail Lacquer UK Grape Juice is a mix of magenta and holographic circular glitters in quite a dark pink jelly base:

Nail Lacquer UK Grape Juice

There's a lot of glitter in the polish, but the big glitters are quite hard to get out without a bit of fishing. This might be because the base is light and sheer - whatever, not a problem for me as I only wanted a few glitters and quite a bit of base. Yes, you can see printing over the bottle shot - this is because I did something stupid with my bottle of Grape Juice and had to transfer it into another bottle; the only empty bottle I had to hand was a Nubar one which has printing on!

I applied two thin coats of UK Nail Lacquer Grape Juice over my gradient, letting the base of Grape Juice act like a colour wash to darken and further blend the colours in the gradient. The gradient toned down a lot, but that was what I wanted, so that the glitters could take centre stage.

Nail Lacquer UK Grape Juice over gradient with Illamasqua bright pinks

I can just about handle circular glitters this big on my nails. I have a high c-curve so I do need to make sure that they are off to the sides of my nails, where they will lay flat, rather than right down the middle on the most curvy part. It must be so nice to have flat nail beds :(

Nail Lacquer UK very kindly sent me a mini bottle of Grape Juice as an extra with my last order from her Etsy Shop. I bought Illamasqua Collide and Stance from the Illamasqua website and Obsess was a gift from a friend.