Wednesday 27 July 2011

Mermaidy Water Marbling Nail Tutorial!

Hey mermaids
Today I made a little photo tutorial on how to water marble your nails!
Everytime I do this I always get lots of compliments and questions so here is a tutorial. Please ask me any questions! I hope you like it!
(note: Ive posted a photo of each step with an explanation underneath. Hope its not confusing!)
Heres what youll need!
1.) A bowl or container of some sort that you dont mind getting dirty
2.) Water
3.) Nail polish in at least 2 colours
4.) Nail varnish remover
5.) Cotton pads ( for any mistakes and cleaning fingers) and cotton buds/q tips
6.) Sticky tape
7.) Cocktail sticks

Firstly choose your colours! I stuck with two but you can use as many as you like really. I think that these colours are quite mermaidy and I might add some sparkle as an overcoat later to make it even more so!
Also pour water into your bowl. Some people argue that different temperatures of water and tap vs filter water works best, Ive tried testing different types in the past and not noticed any groundbreaking differences, I just use filter water from the jug in the fridge.

Next give your nails one quick coat of a light shade, this isnt essential but I find it makes the colours stand out a lot better.

Put tape around the edge of your nails. This will ensure you dont get into too much of a mess when applying the water marble to the nail. Once again not essential, but I find it extremely helpful! (ps... check my awesome tinkerbell tape!!)

The fun part! take your first nail varnish colour and let a drop fall into the water. It will spread and form a sort of "skin" on the top. Then take your second colour and do the same in the centre of the first. Continue this until you create this sort of bulls eye effect.

When youre happy with the amount of nail varnish in the water, take a cocktail stick and draw! Make a pattern by pulling and manipulating the colours however you like.

You can make it as simple or edgy as you like!

Then place your nail flat onto the water surface. Do not touch the bottom of the bowl. Hold your nail here for a few seconds and use the cocktail stick to detach any other nail varnish around your nail. (picture of this later on!)

It should look a little like this! (now you see why the tape is handy in removing mess ^^)

Swish your cocktail stick over the surface of the water to remove any remaining nail varnish that hasnt been used. If there are too many smaller bits of nail varnish floating on the surface, change the water.

After youve done a whole hand, you should have this! Leave to dry for a couple of minutes before removing your tape to avoid accidents ^^ Then you should have this:


And onto the next hand!
Tape up your fingers again

Repeat this nail varnish bullseye and draw your pattern

Here Ive done three fingers at the same time as there was enough nail varnish in the bowl for three nails to hve a nice effect. You can do it this way or one at a time depending on your preference! Here you can see how I am pulling away unused nail varnish before removing the nails from the water. This is an important (and hard to photograph!) step!

Another finished hand! After removing the tape, remove any excess nail varnish on your skin using a cotton bud dipped in nail varnish remover.

and there you have it!

I hope you enjoyed my tutorial! Please let me know if you give it a go!

5 comments:

  1. This is amazing! Great tutorial, and fabulous end result. I really need to try this! :D

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  2. Cool! I would never think of this! Thanks for showing us :D

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  3. That's so awesome! If only my nail varnishes weren't all half-solid...

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  4. yeah they need to be quite liquidy! best thing to do is add a drop of nail vanish remover to he bottle and shake it up :)

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  5. oh cool, I've always wanted to know how to do this!! yay totally gonna try, Thanks :)

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