Dark cherry

There are colours that contain other colours inside them. This ombré is one of those. The deep wine-cherry at the tip looks, at first, like something dark and simple — but look at it in different light and it reveals burgundy, then plum, then a deep rose that exists only at the precise point where the dark begins to change. That change was blended by hand — not pressed, not sprayed, not machined — worked slowly from the dark tip toward the base, deepening and lightening in a gradient that has no visible line, no obvious moment of transition, no place where one colour stops and another begins. Because the best blends never do. The nude-blush at the base was chosen specifically for how it receives the cherry — warm enough not to look cold against the deep wine, pale enough to create contrast that reads across a room. Every nail was done separately. Every nail required the blending process to be started again from the beginning. Because consistency at this level of gradient cannot be achieved by memory or habit — only by attention. These nails will photograph differently in morning light than in candlelight. Both versions are beautiful. Both were considered. This is what it means to make something completely.