Water Marble Nails

I'm not super into nail art. Well, I was, when I was in middle school. I used to make little flowers on my nails. I am, however, super into nail polish. It just comes in so many beautiful colors. I admit I'm a bit of a nail polish addict. Not totally obsessed, but not far from it. In any case, I came across this YouTube video which shows water marble nail art. It's like the coolest thing ever. There are a number of tutorial videos if you search "water marble nail art," but that one is pretty good. Think of the possibilities: school colors, team colors, holiday colors, whatever colors! Here's what I do:

1. Base coat, then one or two coats of something light (white, pearl, silver, etc.)
2. Fill a Dixie cup with room temperature water (or leave a Dixie cup out with water and let it become room temp ;) I like the Dixie cups because they are small; you don't have to use tons of nail polish and after it's done, just throw away.
3. Get out some nail polishes, toothpicks, and a paper towel.
4. You should wrap tape around your fingers...I didn't, and ultimately it took a few hand washings and lotioning my hands to help the nail polish peel off.
5. Unscrew the nail polishes so they are ready to use, since it dries pretty fast.
6. Drop them on, one at a time, or get crazy and try something new! Some will spread out better than others.
7. Dip 1 (or 2, saves time and effort) nails in face down, then stretch them out under the water. Sometimes the nail polish "skin" will double up on the nail; it's pretty thin, so it's doesn't cause a lot of thickening, but it will look better without any overlap.
8. Gather up the rest of the skin on the water with a toothpick and pull it out, wipe on paper towel...remove fingers and marvel!

Here's some photos from my first water marble try; I went with a cool pastel theme. I experimented a couple times on nails that were losing their polish to check things out, then prepared for the real deal. I used a pearly white as the base color and on top used: China Glaze - Re-Fresh Mint, Hello Kitty - Blueberry, OPI - Luck Lucky Lavender, and Essie - Lilacism.

This is what happens when you don't use tape :(

Still pretty sweet, though!

Most of the extra polish off. You can see a few spots on the side that the nail polish film didn't stick to. Probably from air bubbles.

Pretty much all cleaned up! Love the stripiness on these.

On my thumb you can see where some of the film overlapped near the tip.

Right hand was a bit more abstract-looking.

Love this little wiggle...you can see a small spot that didn't get any film; you can see the pearly white undercoat.



So cute!



Definitely will do again :)