Tuesday 10 April 2012

Water marble Easter manicure (late, I know!)

Hi friends, I hope you've had a nice Easter (if you celebrate it).

This is what I wore over Easter - yes, I water marbled for real this time! I also included a step-by-step for those who aren't familiar with the technique.



Before I go on, I am NO expert on this technique. Quite frankly, I can't water marble without a bit of foul language thrown in.  You may notice the air bubbles...can you imagine the vocabulary those invoked?!


I used: Barry M's 'Matte White' (it's not matte by the way), Beauty UK's blue, scotch tape, a beaker of filtered water at room temperature, a cotton bud and a cocktail stick.

Start with white nails. Your base doesn't have to be perfect.

Put some scotch tape on the skin around your nail - this will reduce the amount of cleaning up you'll have to do. I wouldn't skip this step if I were you...

One drop of white....

One drop of blue - yes, that's blue polish. The pigment spread so well.

Another drop of white. Continue until you have a nice 'bullseye'. I reckon that 15 drops of polish may be enough, but you can put in more if you wish.

Ta daaa!

Take your cocktail stick and draw it through your bulls eye. You can go for random patterns or try to make neat, precise patterns.
Draw the stick through the opposite side of the bulls eye.

Make some vertical lines in the polish.

Position your nails over the part of the pattern you like the most, then place them nail surface down, onto the pattern. The excess polish on the surface of the water can be removed with the cotton bud. This step is not pictured because I don't have three hands!

Give those fingers a wiggle to reduce the likelihood of air bubbles. You'll note that it didn't work for me though!
The next step is to remove the tape gently, add some glitter (or not) and that's it!

I hope you like the design.

Have you mastered the art of marbling yet? Do you even want to? Perhaps your polish collection is too precious to waste on such a technique. Let me know either way and thank you, as always, for reading.

xx

25 comments:

  1. That is soo pretty!! I can't water marble to save my life. But then again, I haven't tried in many months!!

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  2. Love the look. Tried it twice. Both were failures. I wish I could take a class.

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    1. Don't give up Sue. It really does take a lot of practice...I'm still not there yet.

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  3. Very pretty, love the glitter :)

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  4. Very pretty Liane!! Love the addition of the glitter. I know what you mean about the foul language. While I may not actually curse, my stress level definitely rises anytime I'm doing watermarbling.

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    1. Thany you ;) Admittedly, most of the swearing was in my head and under my breath and out of earshot from my daughter, who was wandering in and out. I don't know how people do it so often, lol!

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  5. Oh this is so pretty! Ive never thought of jazzing things up with a little glitter before. Must try soon!

    Also I'm always amazed people can get so many drops in. For me, I get to about 6-8 total drops and then it stops spreading. If i do try waiting for it to spread, instead I get the film of polish harden on the water...maybe I'm just not going fast enough. Or maybe the polish?

    If you have any idea pleas lemme know:D And thanks for sharing! <3

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    1. Ohhh, there are so many variables! The water temperature should be room temp, sometimes the polish is the problem, but you also need to drip quickly. If your first drops spread quickly, your polish will be workable, but it's initially slow to spread, I'd choose another. Purely trial and error for me (and wastage too *rolls eyes*)

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  6. Beautiful!!
    I really love it!

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  7. Really helpful tutorial, and I like how you added glitter at the end. I haven't seen that before. Pinning it!

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  8. So pretty....i think i may give this marbling thing another try...all i can think of was the last time i failed miserably LOL

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    1. Cheers Winnie, try again... I always condemn it and come back for more torture. They look better each time though, lol!

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  9. I tried it twice... Once it was a total fail, the second time it actually worked (kinda). Since then I haven't had enough time to try it again. It's on my list to do when I have days off work! :)

    I love yours, btw! I love how you spruced things up with glitter. Have to keep that in mind. :)

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    1. Trust me, sometimes a bit of glitter makes all the difference!

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  10. Wow! I am sooo not ready to try this yet ;-)

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  11. Looks great! I have not mastered the art of watermarbling; and I wouldn't mind mastering it, but I don't want to fail again hehe.

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