Swirly Whirly

I have recently become obsessed with painting my nails regularly in an effort to let them grow out and maybe stop biting my nails! I have been reading All Lacquered Up since this obsession started. Recently she had attempted water marbling and I had to try it for myself! (I apologize in advance for my heinous fingers.)

I have now done two of these, and below are some helpful tips! I highly advise checking out some YouTube videos on this because they really are helpful.


As with any manicure, start with clean nails, and a base coat of clear. I use Sally Hansen Hard as Nails for extra strength. I also recommend a base coat of the lightest color in your manicure color selections or white. This makes it pop and if there are any tears or holes in the color, its not as noticeable. I did this on my first manicure but with You Don't Know Jacques!, a dark gray, and it was not as nice as if I had used a light color.



I also taped my nails as opposed to using oil. It is cleaner, and while not as accurate and there is still clean up needed, I think this was a lot easier to work with.



Choose two to five colors. Five may be a bit much. For this one, I chose three. OPI Dating a Royal, OPI Yodel Me on My Cell, and Essie Lapis of Luxury. I like having a mix of flat and glittery colors. I have seen this done with lots of nail polish brands, from cheap to expensive. I will be investing in some cheaper ones, but just as a side note, I feel like the OPI worked better for this than Essie. Apparently some colors are too "heavy" and fall to the bottom, or do not spread out well.



I used room temperature filtered water from my Brita as recommended, and I think it worked as it should. I made the "bulls-eye" as shown. Some people made very large ones, and only used one per nail, but I was able to do two per nail in most cases since I have tiny nails.


I then drug a flower pattern in the wet paint surface. This was my prettiest one, I was not going for anything specific on this manicure, but this one was extra pretty!


Then I dipped my thumb in the water and voila! Make sure you add a clear top coat to make sure this doesn't chip!

This color combination was extra pretty, and I encourage you to try it when you have some time! All in all, it took me maybe an hour. It was lots of fun too!