Practice Makes Perfect. Part II

I've only done three water marbles in my life and this last one was surprisingly satisfying. I'm not saying it was perfect in any way but it gave me enough confidence to keep doing it. This morning I was feeling brave and thought I''d do a marble as I hadn't done since November and I'd read in a few blogs the CoverGirl Outlast range was pretty good for marbling. I had three untried ones so off I went. 

I present to you my two-finger, dry-cuticled matte marble.

If you cover up the cuticles, it doesn't look too bad. : )

I used a coat of Sally Hansen Xtreme Wear in White On as a base for all my fingers to make the colour pop. The other polishes as follow:

Pink:               CG in Everbloom

Orange/Coral:  CG in Coral Silk

Green:            CG in Mint Mojito 

Top coat:        Seche Vite (for durability)

Matte topcoat: Rimmel Pro Matte Finish 

This experiment was originally going to include my ring finger as an accent and the rest of the fingers would be polished with the colours of the marble. When I did the ring finger I ended up with a decent pattern so I thought I'd marble the rest as well. My subsequent attempts were big failures. I left it for half a day and came back later to it but only my middle finger was acceptable.

I used sticky tape to cover my cuticles and fingers from the excess polish that floats in the water. My cuticles were pretty dry to start with and this step made them worse. Hand cream and cuticle oil helped them a little and I thought they were OK until I took the photos. Went back for more oil but winter might be taking its toll on my skin.  

When I started marbling I had my white base on ready but not the sticky tape. I started dropping polish into the water and created the pattern above. I then tried to quickly tape up my finger but wasn't too worried as I figured the thin layer of polish would just dry a little and would still stick to my finger. The polish dried but it got a very thin layer of water on it which got stuck in between the marble and the white polish. Weird, hey? Having water stuck between layers never crossed my mind. You can see the water stains  in the green part of the marble. When I applied Seche Vite the bristles touched a very thin part of the polish and some water spurted out and left the white showing. 

When I tried doing the other fingers, I taped my fingers first before putting the polish in the water but then it would take forever to dry and I would have to leave my finger in the water so it wouldn't mess up. It did anyway. 

If you look at the bottom part of these two nails and ignore the water stains/dried cuticles, it looks pretty and soft. Doesn't it? Haha!

At least I've learnt:

• I might will need some nourishing treatments for my hands and cuticles. Maybe some overnight treatments with cotton gloves?
• To be prepared when covering up your cuticles. Either sticky tape or Vaseline will work but I need to make sure I do it before I start dropping the polish in the water.
• To be patient when I have my fingers in the water. It's water marbling and it is time consuming but the results are worth it!
• To use a thick layer of top coat to avoid bristles touching the polish and draggin/removing it.

I'm hoping to try this again very soon because I really like the look of the marble. I know you either love doing them or hate the whole process? Which one do you do? Do you have any other tips for a good (eventually awesome!) marble?

Till next time, 

Laura