Double Gradient Mesh - China Glaze Cirque du Soleil Nail Art

If you've been checking out the nail blogosphere lately, you may have started to see some swatches popping up of the China Glaze Cirque du Soleil Worlds Away Collection. It's really a fun set of polishes and I think it will appeal to many. Today, I'm going to show some nail art I created using four of the pretties in the collection!

Ta-da! Looks pretty neat, huh? Now ask me how long it took. "How long did it take?" Forever! I am not very fast when it comes to placing and cutting striping tape, apparently, but I'll get into the process a bit later into the post.

Despite the effort, I think these nails were worth it! I wore them for a few days and they were just as exciting to look down at... even on the last day I wore them.

Let's talk colors!

That lovely green apple color you see is Def Defying. I love this color and the formula is great, requiring only two thin coats for opacity.

The pink color near my cuticles is Escaping Reality. Again, you only need two coats for this one, & I really like this shade of pink!

The bright blue is Hanging In the Balance. It's gorgeous and opaque at two coats. I also tried wearing this one alone and was able to avoid staining by using two coats of base coat.

Finally, the red shade. It's called Igniting Love. It's normally a very bright and vibrant red.  Unfortunately, this swatch of it is not very accurate because the color was altered a bit when I sponged it on over the green. Still quite pretty, but not as informative for you readers!

For this look, you'll need a few nail art tools in addition to the four colors: a triangle makeup sponge, striping tape (check eBay or Amazon), and loads of patience.

I first sponged a gradient onto my nails using the triangle makeup sponge. I grabbed Def Defying and Escaping Reality for my first combination. Then, I let my nails dry COMPLETELY. You can use a quick dry topcoat at this step to speed up the process.

I grabbed my striping tape and placed pieces of it in a criss-crossed mesh pattern on my nail. Once I had placed them all, I went around and pressed down all the edges to ensure a good seal between the tape and my nail. Using a clean side of my triangle makeup wedge, I sponged on a gradient of Hanging In the Balance and Igniting Love (over the tape). I did two rounds of sponging before slowly removing the pieces of striping tape. All that was left to do was to topcoat!

The China Glaze Cirque du Soleil Worlds Away Collection has a number of other great shades that I hope to be sharing with you soon. These will officially be released the first week of December at salons and beauty retailers like Ulta and Sally Beauty, and each shade retails for $7 each.

Products provided for review.