Hi beauties!

Finally… my first water marble video. Yay! Yes, I cheated a bit because I only did an accent nail but I’m very pleased with the final result. First of all… the magenta polish (Mermaid’s Secret by Essence) is fantastic! It is gorgeous! Both polishes used for this design are part of their new Aquatix Collection. Stay tuned for the other shades of this collection. They are beautiful!

A step by step guide and a list of which products I’ve used is listed below. Plus there are a few tips and tricks 🙂


How to:

• Apply a base coat to protect your nails and wait for it to dry.
• Apply your base color and let it dry.
• Wrap your fingertips (not the nails obviously :p) with two pieces of tape to protect your skin from getting all messy. This makes the clean up process way easier.
• Get your cup with water (room temperature) and add a drop of the base color followed by the second color, the first color, the second color and so on until you have a nice bulls eye.
• Use a needle to drag the design from the middle to the bottom and make sure it sticks to the cup. Now start again at the middle, dragging towards the top.
• Create the design by dragging from the left to the right and leave some space in between them.
• Pick the part of the design which you want to transfer onto the nail and dip your nail in the water (directly above the design).
• Keep your finger under water while cleaning up the polish residue with a q-tip.
• Once you’ve cleaned up the area slowly pull your finger out of the water.
• Remove the tape and clean up your cuticles with for example a small (angled) brush and some nail polish remover or acetone. Note: I forgot to turn the camera on while cleaning up, sorry!
• Once your design is dry, add a coat of your favorite top coat and you’re done!

Tips ‘nd Tricks:

• Make sure the water you’re using is room temperature. When it is too warm or too cold it might be that the polish doesn’t spread easily or dries too fast.
• Add the drops of polish by holding the brush just above the water. Otherwise the drops might sink to the bottom of the cup. When the drop refuses to let go of the brush you can gently touch the water with the brush to help it come off.
• Clean up the needle in between dragging by using a lint free wipe or a piece of kitchen paper. I prefer a lint free wipe over a cotton pad because cotton pads might make your needle all hairy :p
• Make sure that two (or four) outer sides of the bulls eye stick to the cup. This makes sure that your design doesn’t move around while you’re dragging with the needle.
• Start the design from the second or third outer ring of the bulls eye, not the first (outer) one.
• When you’re ready to dip you’re finger(s) in the cup, make sure to do it right above the design holding your nail straight above it, not angled. When you dip your finger in the cup with an angle, the design might not transfer as desired. For example, when you’re doing multiple nails at once, make sure that all your nails hit the water at exactly the same time. I hope this makes sense.
• You can use a q-tip soaked in nail polish remover or acetone to clean up underneath your nails, in case that part got marbled. Just ‘roll’ the q-tip underneath your nails.
• Lastly, a good preparation is a must. You don’t want to need to search for a needle while you’re bulls eye is already done 😉

Products used:

• Yellow Stopper (as a peel off base coat)
• Essence: Mermaid’s Secret – Aquatix Collection (magenta);
• Essence: Finding Dori – Aquatix Collection (teal duo chrome);
• Sally Hansen: Insta Dri (top coat)
• Cuticle Oil

If you have any questions, feel free to ask them in the comments below! Ideas and requests for upcoming tutorials are very welcome! 😉

Note that I added the tips and tricks just because I feel like they might be useful, not saying that it is the right way to do things. This is just my way and I like to share 😀

I hope you enjoyed this video! :*