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Saturday, July 28, 2012

Purple Water Marble Tutorial

For all of you who don't know what a water marble manicure is, it's a cool way of creating designs using water with your nail polish.

I've made water marble tutorials in the past, but I've never been able to go into too much detail. So I hope this tutorial leaves everyone with all of their questions answered! haha (but of course, feel free to comment below if you do have a question on anything!)

Here are a few examples of water marble manicures..

 
 
These all have the flower water marble design.. there are many other designs that you can use, but the flower is my favorite. If you're interested in learning how to make the flower water marble, keep reading.



Step 1: Grab a shot glass and fill it with room temperature water. You don't want it too hot, or too cold.

Step 2: Grab some polishes that you'd like to make a design with. From left to right: China Glaze- Coconut Kiss, OPI- Pamplona Purple, OPI- Pompeii Purple and OPI- Lucky Lucky Lavender.


Step 3: Paint your nails one of the colors that you chose (choose the lightest shade for best results) This is OPI- Lucky Lucky Lavender.


Step 4: This is the fun part! Take your darkest shade and drop a small amount of paint into the water. It will create a circular film on the top of the water.


Step 5: Take your second darkest shade and do the same thing. Let the paint drip off of the brush and into the water.



Step 6: Repeat the same steps with every color. Once you've reached the lightest shade, start over and begin with your darkest shade until you have about 2 rings of every color.

Step 7: You'll know that you're doing it right when your polish drips start to form a bulls-eye effect in the water. Once you get your perfect bulls-eye, you can start designing.

Step 8: Here I'm using a tack to create the design, but you can use anything from a needle to a tooth pick. Anything with a fine tip. Gently glide the tack from the top of your bulls-eye towards the center.

Step 9: Repeat the same movement but this time start from the bottom of your bulls-eye and glide toward the center where your 2 lines will meet.


Step 10: Do the same steps as 8 & 9 except start from each side of your bulls-eye and gently drag inward.


Step 11: Glide your tack through the center of each petal in Step 10's picture. This will give you 8 petals (they won't always be equal width petals, anything that resembles this is great!)


Step 12: Decide where you want the center of the flower to be on your nail. Line your nail up parallel with the water and your desired design and slowly push into the water.
Step 13: It's VERY important to leave your nail submerged until the extra polish floating on the top is cleaned up. If you look at Step 12, you'll see that the film is still there. If you pull your nail up while the extra polish is at the top, it can ruin your design. To clean the film, stick your toothpick into the water and swirl around. The polish will latch onto the toothpick. Once the water is clean, slowly remove your finger from the water.


Step 14: Once you pull your nail out of the water, it'll look something like this. I opted for the center of the flower to be more towards the left side of this nail.


Step 15: Take a cotton swab dipped in acetone and clean up! Once it's clean you can move on to your next nail. When you've finished all of your nails, apply a fast drying top coat to protect your design and add a pretty shine!


This is a final result picture of my purple water marble flowers. It's a lot of fun to make! And once you get the hang of it, they don't take long at all.


I hope you all enjoyed this tutorial, and as I stated earlier, if you have any questions feel free to leave them below and I'll answer them the best I can!

Happy polishing!
Aubrey

12 comments:

  1. Hi! Visiting from Instagram! I think i got the steps down but i keep getting these bubbles and how come some ppl say use tape? for me the tape is just diffeicult to remove then I end up ruining the design in the process! Also when dripping the paint into the water, does it have to be done fast so that it doesnt dry? and when you drap the pin to make the art, are you just glding on the surface or do you slice through it touching water?

    Thank you so much!

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    1. Bubbles will happen no matter how hard you try to avoid them, unfortunately. One thing I can recommend is to try filtered water. Tap water may be causing the bubbles.

      I normally use tape but I ran out in the middle of this tutorial! haha the only purpose for tape is to help you with clean up, if you don't mind cleaning the load of mess with a cotton swab then there's no need for tape!

      Yes, when you're dripping the polish into the water it has to be done somewhat fast. You don't have to go at the speed of light haha but what I normally do is unscrew all of the polishes that I'm using, so when it's time to use a polish, I don't have to unscrew the cap then screw it back on.. I'll have them all lined up and unscrewed.

      When you glide the pin into the design, you can dip it into the water, just not too deep into the water. If you stay close to the surface then your design will come out cleaner and won't goop up so easily.

      Hope this helped! Let me know if you have any more questions!

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  2. I love your watermarbles! Lol I was about to say "no tape?!"

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    1. thanks girly! how do i follow blogs on here? i want to follow yours but i'm not used to this yet haha

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  3. Thanks for the water marble tutorial! :) I've tried it once before but it turned out horribly! Your beautiful water marbles make me want to try again!

    -Elissa

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    1. aw you're too sweet! and I hope you do try again! it's one of my favorite things to do as far as nail art! :)

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  4. Amazing!!!!!! This is so perfect!

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  5. I tried doing this and failed miserably. When I drip the color into the water, it breaks up. :^( all my naiil polishes are fairly new. Don't know why it's doing that. Any tips?

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    Replies
    1. How does it break up? It's supposed to spread in the water if that's what you mean. the more drips that you make, the more it'll resemble a bulls eye.

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  6. Beautiful designs.! (: I think one of these days I am going to try it. But i do have a question.. do your nails have to be long or can you do it with short nails as well.??

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  7. what colors and brand did you use for the first water marble? (as pictured above) thanks

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