First Time Water Marbling

I've been wanting to try a water marble forever, but never got around to it! It just seemed like too much effort since it's so messy, so I was absolutely dreading cleanup! I watched so many tutorials on this before I finally worked up enough courage to try it. My favourite video is my Cute Polish. I love all her videos! They're so simple and they're so easy to follow, check her out! 

First I started by taping my nails like in the video so I wouldn't have too much to clean up after. The most important thing is to make sure your water is room temperature, and that your polishes are new, or haven't thickened over time. If the polish doesn't instantly spread out (like in the video) you'll need to try a different one. 

I decided to keep my first water marble simple so I only used two colours. I used Sally Hansen - Barracuda and Orly Passion Fruit. I really had no idea what I was doing when I started to swirl the polish around, and I had no idea how to line up my nails with the patterns. I also think my water was too cold because I originally started with two other polishes but they didn't spread very nicely. When I used Barracuda and Passion Fruit, they spread okay but a couple times I had to let the polish dry because it wasn't spread out at all. 

This is definitely a really cool mani and I really want to give it another try. I love how it dries so fast because it's only a very thin layer of polish. At the same time though it's a bit challenging to get the hang of because since it's so thin, you have to work fairly fast. 

I can't wait to try water marbling again, it's so unique looking compared to any other type of manicure. Let me know if you have any tips or comments about water marbling!

Glitter Me Crazy!

Lately I've been really obsessed with glitter. There's a ton of different kinds of glitter; this can be really confusing. There's a ton of different shapes and sizes too. There's round, square, hex, bar, holographic, shimmer... the list goes on. I'm not really an expert at this in the least, so I'm not going to pretend to be. All I know is I love glitter! 

There's so much you can do with glitter. The most common thing is to just layer it over polish. I really like this if the two colours are similar or if the glitter is very very fine and it just adds a nice sparkle to the mani. You can also create a glitter gradient - a little time consuming, especially on your first try because it takes some practice before you figure out how to spread the glitter out so it makes a nice gradient. You can also use it to create designs, or go under another polish, or even make a jelly sandwich. The possibilities are endless! 

Here are a few of my favourite glitters! 

China Glaze - Nova 

This is a beautiful rainbow glitter polish, it's got two sizes of hex glitters suspended in a clear base. 

NOPI - Gone Wishin'

I love this purple and blue glitter, it adds a little extra dazzle to any polish! Suspended in a clear base. 

Sally Hansen - Rock 'n' Roll

This isn't a glitter as much as it is a translucent pink shimmer. I love adding this over top of any colour, it gives the base colour a whole new look! 

NOPI - Look At Me, Look At Me

I've enjoyed this every time I've used it. Who doesn't love a polish thick with nothing but glitter? It's about 90% silver glitter, 10% pink glitter. Almost opaque in one coat, but I always use two. 

Finger Paints - Art You Wondering?

This is my favourite polish to put on top of China Glaze - Turned Up Turquoise. The colours were meant for each other! Click here to see my blog post about them. Suspended in a clear base. 

Sally Hansen - Diamonds

This is extremely pretty on top of any colour, it just adds an extra bit of glam. Suspended in a clear base. (Sorry this photo looks really weird, didn't realize it until after :/) 

NOPI - Wear Something Spar-Kylie

Similar to Look At Me, Look At Me, this one is a solid pink glitter. Opaque in two coats. 

Sally Hansen - Bling-Tastic

I love the colour of this glitter! It's got tiny blue hex with bigger silver hex, suspended in a clear base. I like using this when doing nail art. 

Orly - Tiara

Silver hex suspended in a clear base. Very pretty when doing glitter gradients. 

Revlon - Sparkling

Large and tiny pink hex suspended in a milky pink base. I also love this one for glitter gradients! 

Deborah Lippmann - Mermaid's Dream

Tiny teal hex suspended in a teal shimmer base, with tiny rainbow hex and bigger blue hex. One of my absolute favourite polishes of all time; definitely makes me feel like a mermaid! 

NOPI - Fabulous Is My Middle Name

Silver, red, purple and black bar glitter, and tiny silver hex suspended in a clear base. What can I say, bar glitter, especially with those four colours mixed together, is stunning! 

China Glaze - It's A Trap-eze!

Small and large blue, green, yellow, silver, pink and orange hex suspended in a milky base. Everyone loves this one, and for good reason! So much colourful glitter packed into one bottle is simply breathtaking. 

Feel free to comment below and tell me some of your favourite glitters! 

Untried Polish: China Glaze - Pink Voltage

I was looking for the non-neon version of this polish for so long before I finally found it. I got it in a 3-pack from Nail Polish Canada. It came with Towel Boy Toy and Nova. It's just a classic bright pink, with a bit of pink shimmer. Although it's not neon, it's extremely hard to photograph, like most neons are. I tried my best with the pictures below, but they still aren't the true colour. I also added a reverse glitter gradient in Orly - Tiara. This is my first reverse glitter gradient, and I do like it, but it was a little difficult around the cuticles - you'll notice a pink area between sparkles and cuticle. 

These are the two colours I used for my simple mani.

China Glaze - Pink Voltage, Orly - Tiara

Application for this polish was fairly good. I used 3 coats to achieve full opacity. As with most CG's, the polish got a bit thicker and a little harder to work with after being open for a bit, but nothing that a cleanup didn't fix. Overall, this polish is very nice. I would love to use it on my toes! I must say though, I really do NOT like CG brushes! My favourites are the wide brushes with rounded ends, and the OPI ProWide brush.