Water Marble with Clear Nail Polish!

We’ve made it to the halfway mark of Short And Sweet in Texas‘ nail art challenge!  Day 15 is all about water marble..if you don’t know what it is here’s a good youtube video by DearNatural62.    If you’ve ever water marbled before then you know how fun it is to pick out a bunch of cool colors for your swirly design!  But have you ever thrown a clear polish in the mix???  That’s what I’m experimenting with today- water marbling with clear polish!

I started by painting my nails with a cool combo of 3 neon colors.  It looked awesome so I took some pics which I may share on day 22/neon day of the challenge 🙂    Then I did the water marbling technique using only 2 polishes- clear and black.  So basically I dripped drops of black, then clear, black then clear, etc into the cup… and when I swirled it around with a toothpick I got this cool black design with clear ‘spaces’ in between.  The spaces allow the bright neon to show through from underneath.  Pretty neat!  Then I made a few polka dots using my black polish and a dotting tool just to spice it up (and fill in the gaps).

And in case you are wondering how clear polish works for marbling…. other bloggers have said that topcoat or clear polishes don’t spread well in the water.  I actually experienced the opposite- I found that my Sally Hansen Nail Shine Miracle actually spread better than all of my other pigmented polishes!  This is great news for me since I thought I hated my Nail Shine Miracle- I never use it as a topcoat since it bubbles and takes forever to dry.  But now that I know it works for marbling- it has a new purpose in my stash!

I like how bright this design is in real life- it’s kinda crazy lookin!  I went outside during sunset and my polish was so neon it nearly jumped right off of my fingers!  Too bad I didn’t get that cool ‘signature’ swirly marble design though- I wound up with these black and clear stripes instead.  No matter what I did I just couldn’t get my polish to drag properly with the toothpick.  So no swirls for this girl…. but my black and clear stripes still look cool!   Water marbling… why you so tricky?

Orange Holo Tiger Tips

Today is day 2 of Short And Sweet in Texas’ April Nail Challenge and the theme is ORANGE.  It was perfect timing for orange since I just picked up this awesome L.A. Girl 3D Effects Holographic Nail Polish at Rite Aid over the weekend!  This holographic shade is called Electric Coral and I’m crazy about it!  In fact, I went back today during my lunch break to grab another bottle!  The display was completely ransacked so I ended up with the last solitary bottle they had- an awesome royal blue called Brilliant Blue.  Mine!

If you prefer linear holographics that burn rainbows into your cornia- then this polish may be a disappointment for you.  Instead, these ‘3D Effects’ polishes would be considered scattered holos.  I’m still in love with them!  Electric Coral is super glittery and eye-catching, almost like a glitter polish but without all the fuss of the nightmarish removal!  The formula was thick and jelly-like and went on smooth.  It was surprisingly opaque- one coat was a teeny bit thin, but two was perfect.  I love this stuff!  This polish is so glitzy and glam-not bad for $4.80!

To finish off my look I hand-painted some wild tiger stripes on my tips.  I used my new Angled Eyeliner Brush by e.l.f. studio (which I found at Target)… and my NYC Nail Enamel in Black Lace.  Then I topped it with some seche.

The tiger stripes were a little difficult for me so I’m on a quest to find a good brush for detailing.  Please let me know if you have a favorite!

Butterfly Wings

I had a lot of free time last night and sat down with my box of very old polishes that I never use.  I rummaged through them and tried out all my spring-iest colors.  The AVON Retro Rose floored me!  In the bottle it looked matronly, but once applied it morphed into this stunning peachy pink with gold shimmer!  I sponged on some Sinful Colors Lagoon which is a sheer orange shimmer.  This polish must be very old- check out the retro bottle in my bottom pic!  The peach and orange looked great together and then it hit me- MONARCH WINGS!  Yes!  Time for me to try out butterfly nails!

Butterfly wing nails have been one of my favorite looks ever since I got interested in nail art.  They’re breathtaking and have been on my to-do list for a while.  I’m so glad I finally tackled this project last nite.  I guess I just needed the perfect base color to inspire me!

I used some black wet n wild polish and a sephora nail art brush to freehand the black wing outline.  The design was very forgiving… I didn’t even have to wipe it off and start all over again –  you girls know what I’m talking about, right?  Here’s the list of polishes and tools that I used….

I love it.  It will break my heart to have to take it off once it starts chipping!  And in case you are wondering… yes, that IS snow in the background of my pics.  We got another bad storm last night in NY.  Will it ever be spring?  Probably not.

I LOVE NY nails!

I ♥ NY!  is the theme of my nails today.  Ya see lately I’ve had an urge to ‘buy local’.  So I searched Etsy for some cool polish made right here in New York and I think I scored big!  Just check out this glitter!  I am wearing Borough Babe Made nail color called LIC Queen.

I got a lot of glitter coverage in just two coats!  Pictured here is one coat of Orly Ridge Filler, two coats of LIC Queen, and no topcoat.  Looks beautiful even without a topcoat!  I didn’t have any application issues.  The base polish is relatively thick so the glitter suspends nicely.  It dried pretty quick and I love the peachy nude base color.  I tried three coats but that was overkill.  No reason to go overboard when surprisingly, two coats is just perfect to give you plenty of the yellow, blue and orange hex glitter.

This polish is part of Borough Babe’s ‘NY Hoods” collection and is ode to Long Island City. I would like to add that I hope everyone in LIC is recovering from Hurricane Sandy.  The devastation from that storm was unparalleled and I hope that the NYC and Long Island area is rebuilding and regaining normalcy.  The news barely even mentions it anymore, but your neighbors have not forgotten!

Borough Babe nail color can be found here on Etsy.  The seller has a promotion right now…get a free gift with international orders and free shipping in the US!