Blue Gradient Dotticure - Busy Girl Nails Week 4 Blue / Monday Blues

Is it cheating if I use one mani for 2 challenges? Well I guess Monday Blues isn't really a challenge... more like a theme/prompt... Anyway I didn't want to do 2 blue manis this week... I really wanted to get blue over with so I could get to all the Valentine's Day mani ideas I have saved up! Stay tuned for those later this week/next week :)

For this Blue challenge I decided to do a gradient dotticure. Can you believe I've been nail blogging (on different sites under different names) for 2 years and never posted a mani that involved a dotting tool?! I tried once when I first started painting my nails... and I think I was pressing too hard because I ended up with dents in the middle of my dots and they were more just like wonky circle outlines. Perseverance isn't my strongest trait so I never tried again now. I saw this mani and thought it could probably be copied easily with a dotting tool. So I decided now would be a good time to figure out how to use a dotting tool! 

I got sooo frustrated trying to take pictures of this mani though! My camera was acting like my boyfriend: "These 2 polishes are the same color Steph. You're trying to tell me that they're different colors?! I think you're just messing with me Steph. They're the same color!" lol... I think I spent more time taking pictures of this mani and fiddling around in Photoshop trying to color correct than I did on the actual mani. I give up :p

The bottle shots are color accurate. The pictures of my mani not so much :(

Colors Used:
Color Club - Evolution (base)
Color Club - Bright Night (darker dots)
Color Club - Endless Summer
Sally Hansen - Whirlwind White (not recommended for dotting!)

I had much more luck with a dotting tool this time around. You barely need to touch the dotting tool to the nail! Newbie mistake I guess :p Overall I'm pretty happy with this mani. I think a few nails are a bit too crowded looking (too many dots) but I guess this isn't the type of mani that is supposed to be perfect.

The only major problem I had was that Whirlwind White is a quick dry polish. It dried wayyy too quickly and started getting stringy after only a few dots. Quick drying is good when you're painting your nails with it not for dotting! This polish would probably work well for sugar spun nails though!

What do you think of this mani? Are there any techniques that you've had on your to-do list forever like me?