My first successful water marble!

Feeling encouraged by hours upon hours of watching Colette water marble, I decided to give this technique another try. The last time I attempted a water marble, I was in the middle of the 31 Day Challenge, and I got so frustrated trying to make it work that I was practically in tears. As you can see at that link, I got it to work enough for it to qualify for that day in the challenge, but it wasn't mindblowing by any means nor was it even good enough for my picky personal standards.

Thankfully, this time I got it to work!

Last time I attempted this, my polish wouldn't spread out at all, and dried way too quickly. I tried everything -- a million brands, finishes, water sources, water temperatures, even locations at my house. I attribute my success this time to using a water source that I hadn't tried before. I got out our Brita filter and used freshly filtered water to marble. It even worked better than the drinking water I tried last time.

Here's a great comparison by Colette on using different water for marbling.

Here are the colors that I used.

BASE:
OPI Skull and Glossbones

MARBLE:
China Glaze Happy Go Lucky
China Glaze High Hopes
China Glaze Recycle

As you can see, the marbling wasn't very consistent from nail to nail, but I'm really pleased with it anyway. I am still learning the dragging techniques needed to form certain designs. 

I was also surprised that I had hardly any trouble with bubbling! I did get one on my pointer that was sort of gnarly but in the grand scheme of things, who cares? :)

Want to know how marbling works? Check out Colette's YouTube channel. She has a TON of excellent tutorials that really helped me.

Appreciate nail art like this? Read my plea to support NAILgasm, a documentary about the evolution of nail art (only 8 hours left to pledge).

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china glaze, grey, opi, orange, water marble, yellow