Water marble

This is my first successful water marble. That is to say I’d tried it once before but didn’t follow the instructions and ended up only doing one nail (badly). So learn from my fail and follow instructions, such as those of the Queen of water marbling: Colette. I ended up with a bit of the white base coat showing through by my cuticles, but overall I was happy with it. I used Orly White Out for the base, and marbled with China Glaze For Audrey (‘Tiffany blue’) and Foie Gras, and NYX Girls Girly. Followed by a top coat of Poshe.

Outside in sunlight.

Some tips: make sure your water really is room temperature (or body temperature, which seems to work better when it’s humid). Water comes out of our tap very cold; my fail was because I used it straight from the tap. I now microwave it for around 10 seconds. I’ve heard of people from countries where the water is cloudy with sediment having more luck with filtered water. And tape the hell out of your fingers. Wrap tape right up past the second knuckle! You’ll be happy you did when it comes time to clean up, and you can always snip the tape off with nail scissors. Snipping also avoids messing up your nails by picking at the tape edges. And practice, basically. Work out what you like. Some people want a very symmetrical look, some people like a random marble effect. I’m going to try to do this at least every couple of weeks so I get better at it.

Left (dominant) hand.

Right thumb.

Minced mermaids!

Back when I was getting acrylics (which I wore for 3+ years!) OPI’s Catch Me In Your Net was my favourite shade in my nail tech’s collection. The first time I wore it I excitedly told her it looked like minced up mermaids, and the name stuck. So a few months ago I decided to try to buy this shade that was so pivotal in beginning my polish obsession. It’s a teal blue jelly base packed full of blue and green micro-glitter and gold foil flakes. Super glittery and eye-catching. I wore this mani about a month ago (am playing catch-up).

The problem was that Catch Me In Your Net is a limited edition and near impossible to buy. Occasionally you can find it for $$ on ebay. Yeah nah. So I did some searching and discovered that it is but one of many dupes (a then-unknown term to me). There is OPI Catch Me In Your Net, Zoya Charla (the original I believe), Orly Halley’s Comet, Essence Choose Me!, Jesse’s Girl Glee, Accessorize Mermaid, NYX Girls Sea of Cortez, and a near-dupe in Wet n Wild Teal of Fortune. So, lots of choices and a lesson in looking for dupes if you have your eye on a hard to get or expensive shade made by one particular brand. I ended up buying NYX Girls Sea of Cortez from BeautyJoint.com (misnamed here as Sea of Glitter, but the polish code is NGP200).

Two of many... (Sea of Cortez is on the left and the right.) Image source.

I was very chuffed! One of my original favourite shades, for a fraction of the limited OPI price! They’re identical and the NYX Girls formula is just as easy to work with. And the price difference? Well let’s just say Sea of Cortez set me back US$1.99 (excluding shipping with other polishes). I layered 2 coats of it over China Glaze Liquid Leather (black) to give it a slightly darker background flash at the edges of the nail than it usually has. It works great as a layering polish in general as well as becoming fully opaque in 2 to 3 coats. The finish is very foil-like and is easily smoothed out with a couple of layers of top coat. I fell in love with it all over again!

Bright indoor halogen lighting.

Deliberately blurred to show the glitter flashes.