Tutorial: Pink Watermarble

Hey everyone,

so I attempted some water marble nail art and I'm pretty pleased with how it came out! :) Let me tell you, I am the worst at marbling, but after lots of trial and error and reading through loads of other blogposts and watching tutorials, I decided to give it another try. And it was worth it!

I'm putting it out there now, I am no expert (obviously) but I thought I'd share everything I learnt about watermarbling and maybe help some of you :) Here we go!

For the look I went with you will need:

• three different nail polish colors, I used Essie Romper Room and Boom Boom Room as well as OPI Alpine Snow
• some tissues
• toothpicks
• small glass/cup 
• some distilled/filtered water
• scotch tape
• Q-Tips
• Nailpolish corrector pen or brush
• nailpolish remover

I start by painting my nails one coat of white. This will make the colors pop and give them a good base. For this I used white, but you could also use one of the colors you are marbling with. Then I tape around my nail to prevent having to do too much clean-up. Your nail should look something like this ;)

Then I prepare the marbling pattern i want to create on my nails. Put some filtered or distilled water in your glass, fill it up until it's pretty much full, this makes it easier to dip in your nails because you won't have to dip down too far. I use water that collects in a portable air filter that we have in our cellar and it works perfectly. I've put some in an old water bottle to use when I need some. The water should be room temperature, marbling won't work if it's too warm or too cold (believe me, I've tried both..)! Just let it sit for a day or two and it will be ok to use.

If you do this, remember to label the bottle with what's inside and keep it away safe, so no one drinks from it!! 

First I do the bullseye by putting drops of polish in the water, alternating between my two pink shades. When I feel I've made enough rings (about 10-12 drops all in all) I have my bullseye:

I used to get really cross because my bullseye never spread properly but always gravitated to one side (like this one) but I learnt it doesn't matter, because you can pull it in the direction you want it with your toothpicks. 

Now I stick a toothpick in the middle of the bullseye and pull it to one side, then I do the same and pull it to the other side, separating the bullseye in the middle. It doesn't matter if this is not perfect!

Then I pull a toothpick through the pattern from the other side, like so:

Then I pull the toothpick through from the other side:

I do this a few times, alternating the sides. In the previous picture, I left a bit much space between the both drags, normally I try to make them thinner, like in this pic:

Thinner spaces in between gives the pattern the thin stripy look you see in the end result picture. When you have done this a few times, your marble should look like this:

Now it's time to put that marble on your nail! Try and dip your nail in level with the water, so the design doesn't change shape. Dip your nail horizontally in the spot where you want it:

Now keep your finger underwater and clean up the rest of the polish on the surface, by dipping the toothpick in and collecting all the excess color. If the polish hasn't dried at the surface, you can speed up the process by blowing onto it so it dries quicker. When you have collected all the polish off the surface, you can carefully pull your nail out of the water. If there are any airbubbles around your nail, carefully pop them when you pull them out of the water. Do this slowly, so they don't ruin your design.

Your nail should now look like this :)

Carefully take off the tape, then carefully pat around your finger to dry off the water. Be careful not to come too close to you nail though! Then clean up around your nail with a Q-Tip dipped in nail polish remover or acetone. Then clean the edges with a brush dipped in acetone or like me, use a nail polish corrector pen.

Now repeat this step on all your nails and it should look something like this :)

One thing that really used to bug me, is that after doing one nail, there always seemed to be some flakes of residue floating about on the surface of the water. These would prevent the polish from spreading properly when I tried to create the next bullseye for the next nail. To take these flakes out of the water, I quickly run a cotton pad through the water to collect them. Sometimes I need to repeat this step but then the water is all clear to create another bullseye :)

I hope this was helpful to some of you! Please tag me on Instagram using the hashtag #heyglittr if you try this kind of watermarble after reading through my blogpost and are pleased with your result, I would love to hear if this was useful :) If you have any further questions, leave them in the comments below and I will try my best to answer them!

Thank you to everyone who helped me on my way to creating a lovely watermarble!! 

Down below are a few more pics of my pink water marble, I hope you like it as much as I do, I am really happy with them :)

Lots of love,
Glittr

 Color in the bottle shown above: Essie Romper Room

Color in the bottle shown above: Essie Boom Boom Room