Water Marbling with Color Club Halo Hues 2013!

Ever since I found the new Color Club Halo Hues 2013 collection at a nearby Winners, I keep using them but then being unable to fully capture how amazingly holographic they are.  This is the third time I've used the collection and the third time I'm actually angry at my photo setup for eating the rainbows.  This is why these pictures look weird; I was so desperate to get the holo going I shoved an ikea lamp sideways into my lightbox and it was still not that holo-y.  Just pretend there are twice the rainbows, k?

I had great success water marbling the first Halo Hues collection and my only criticism would have been that the colours just kinda look the same. The 2013 collection is really all I could have hoped for.  So holo-y, so bright and so good to watermarble.  I started with two coats of black then alternated five of the colours (leaving out the black) with China Glaze Liquid Leather.  I've found that brand doesn't really make a difference in the marbling effect, it's more how new the polish is.  Anyway, you have to work fast as the holos dry quickly but look how pretty they come out!  I even cheated a bit and did two fingers at once in the middle but I did do my other hand to match, which I don't normally do.  

The Verdict:  Pretend I did these nails in full sunshine, not late at night, and that the rainbows were even stronger.  I love you forever holos!

China Glaze Texture Polishes: Will it Watermarble?

You know what?  From this point on I'm going to designate myself the "Will It Blend" lady of the nail polish watermarbling world.  Cos I have no idea why else it would have occurred to me to try to watermarble the new China Glaze Texture polishes, other than that I'm cray.  I'm pretty sure it's not that one.  Seriously, how on earth is this a thing you can do?

Since it's so hit and miss as to what will watermarble, when I'm stuck for ideas I just plop the odd polish in water and see if it's a good candidate for marbling.  Turns out that the new China Glaze textures work AWESOME.  To start this mani, I applied two coats of OPI My Boyfriend Scales Walls, still my go-to white polish.  I then just watermarbled away with Bump and Grind, Toe-tally Textured, In The Rough, Of Coarse! and Unrefined.  The texture doesn't get in the way at all.  I was able to make the patterns super easily.  The cleanup wasn't the most fun, mostly because it got all gritty and gross with acetone but it's work working through it.  This is it straight out of the water, top coat covers the textured finish.  You have no idea how hard it was not to slather it in Seche Vite!

The Verdict:  Love the colours, LOVE how the marbling turned out even though it has no business working this well.  I just don't know how I'm going to cope wearing these polishes without top coat.  If I do this again or just generally wear these polishes I'll go for the top coat sandwich approach: base coat, one coat matte/textured/whatever polish, one coat top coat, final coat polish.  Lets you keep the texture while still getting decent wear of out it.

Watermarble all the things!

Retro 70's Watermarble Nails with Sparkly Lizards!

No matter how many times it kicks me in the face, I can't give up on watermarbling.  It works just often enough that I blame myself for any errors and my faith in it working one day lives on.  I got it to work though the other day and to celebrate I slapped on teeny sparkly lizards.  Only the best celebrations for me!

To start, I applied two coats of that pale yellow pastel from the recent Maybelline Color Show line.  If I were a good blogger I would list the color here but I can't remember so if you know that would great, etc.  Once dry, I taped off all my nails and got to work with China Glaze Liquid Leather and four of the other Color Show pastels.  There are many videos out there on watermarbling done by people much more talented than me, so if you're curious, go look.  Once done, I cleaned up, applied my coat of Seche Vite and used my Nailene Brush-On Nail Glue to stick my Sparkly Shop Gold Rhinestone Lizards on.  LOOK HOW CUTE THESE GUYS ARE.  I LOVE THEM SO MUCH.  I'm not just biased cos I co-run the shop, they are that cute. 

The Verdict: Love my unexpectedly retro watermarble, love my lizards more.  Yay for sparkly lizards!