Friday, January 27, 2012

My First Successful Water Marble... featuring China Glaze Electropop colors

 China Glaze polishes in Dance Baby, Gothic Lolita, Electric Beat, and Fuchsia Fanatic

Hello everyone!!  I am super excited to share this mani with you!  It is my first successful water marbling.  I have tried the technique before but wasn't very happy with how it turned out.  With my previous attempt I had trouble getting the polishes I used to spread well in my cup of water, and they didn't show up like I imagined on my nail.  The colors I used this time worked great though!

I used 4 colors from the China Glaze Electropop collection to marble with, including Dance Baby, Gothic Lolita, Electric Beat, and Fuchsia Fanatic.  To prep my nail for marbling I used my base coat (trying out Zoya Anchor right now), 2 coats of OPI Funny Bunny (a white jelly), and a quick dry top coat (I like Essie Good to Go).

I won't give you a full run down of how to do water marbling, since there are lots of tutorials out there already.  A couple good ones are from Chloe's Nails and Keiko Lynn.  I will share some things that I found helpful though:
  • Use filtered or bottled water.  I don't know why this helps exactly, but it does!
  • Use room temperature water.
  • "Anchor" your bulls-eye by using your orange wood stick to pull a few areas of the outside ring so they are stuck to the walls of your cup or whatever container you choose.  This will keep everything stationary when you drag your pattern in.
  • Make sure you don't have an overhead fan on!  The polishes will dry too fast on top of the water and you won't be able to get them to spread or to swirl your design in.
  • Try to dip your nail in at an angle rather than flat to the water surface.  This will help prevent air bubbles.  I did get a few bubbles under my design.
So, I hope those tips help some people!  And if it doesn't work out again, revisit another time with different polishes.  I'm so glad I did, because this has now become one of my favorite nail designs.





If you have any tips or tricks that make water marbling easier, please share them with me in the comments!

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Labels: blue, China Glaze, Electropop, pink, purple, water marble

12 comments:

  1. January 27, 2012 at 2:09 AM

    I love this!!!!

    Reply
  2. January 27, 2012 at 6:14 AM

    This is a very successful and clean water marble! One day I'll give it a shot, so thank you for those tips.

    Reply
  3. January 27, 2012 at 7:21 AM

    These colors work so well together! I'm in love.

    Reply
  4. January 27, 2012 at 9:06 AM

    Very artistic! Beautiful! Such a hard choice but I think this is my fave!

    Reply
  5. January 27, 2012 at 4:44 PM

    Ah-mazing! Pure art. And so perfect. And this was your first? Wooooow!

    Reply
  6. January 28, 2012 at 8:15 PM

    Ash, this looks really good!! I love the colors!

    Reply
  7. AnonymousJanuary 29, 2012 at 4:49 PM

    Your artwork on these is spectacular! I think I would cry if they were to chip or break when they look this good. Nice work! You go girl.

    Reply
  8. February 5, 2012 at 6:18 AM

    WOW! This looks amazing!

    Reply
  9. February 5, 2012 at 6:44 AM

    this is really pretty!!! AMAZING!

    Reply
  10. February 5, 2012 at 9:04 AM

    This is so awesome!! I'm still working up the courage to try water marbling, but yours came out fantastic! I really like it!

    Reply
  11. February 5, 2012 at 5:36 PM

    Thanks to everyone!

    Reply
  12. February 6, 2012 at 8:12 AM

    This is stunning! I've always wanted to try this but I feel like it would be too messy...but yours looks so good.

    Reply

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