To create a marble nail effect using water, start by filling a cup with room temperature water and dripping 1 drop of nail polish onto the surface. Once the polish spreads out into a circle, place a drop of polish in another color on top, and swirl a toothpick through the circle to create the marble.
To create a “Dry Water Marble” nail art design, you don’t need to use a cup and water. Follow these tips from nail artist Queenie Nguyen and inspo pics to screenshot.
To water marble your nails, plunge your finger or toe into the clear part of the water and lift it up at an angle from underneath the polish. Swirl the nail polish and dip your nail in the water. Fill the cup with room temperature water to keep the nail polish together without setting too quickly. Allow the finger to drip dry for a moment, and be sure to only touch the water and let it pull right off your nail design.
In today’s nail art tutorial, Hannah will show you her tips and tricks on how to perfectly do the water marble nai. Lou used five shades from our new collection to create a water marble base for her tribal nails design.
📹 Nail Art For Beginners: Basic Water Marbling
Hey y’all! In this rather short video, I’m going to show you how to do basic nail water marbling. It’s an old technique, but I still love it …
📹 How to:Tape Off Your Nails (For Water Marbling & More)
This will prevent getting polish all over your skin =) Marbling is more fun when there’s less mess! ▻Products used◅ -Tape: …
It’s been on my to-do list for a while now to do a comparison between taping & lotion or vaseline/chapstick etc, but I haven’t gotten around to it yet. Aside from the fact that it seems like it would be very messy, several viewers have told me that they can leave a residue in the water that makes it harder to do the next designs, which is why I’ve stuck with tape so far =)
Hi! just wanted to say I have used vaseline and although it stops the polish from sticking to your finger it is incredibly messy, and i find i have to change the water after a couple of nails too, after viewing this and trying the taping method it is my opnion a much neater and cleaner method, thanks for the great tutorials! =D
@SimpleLittlePleasues i tried using lotion, and as you said, it does leave a residue in the water. it takes a while to clear out the water, but it makes the clean up on your fingers a lot easier and faster so that you normally don’t to use remover on your hands when you’re done. i found that if you use lotion, you could use get a napkin or something, and wipe the nail polish on your skin and it comes off easily without leaving bits of nail polish on your skin. i hope this helped ^^
taping is easy for me … It’s been on my to-do list for a while now to do a comparison between taping & lotion or vaseline/chapstick etc, but I haven’t gotten around to it yet. Aside from the fact that it seems like it would be very messy, several viewers have told me that they can leave a residue in the water that makes it harder to do the next designs, which is why I’ve stuck with tape so far =)
I have been using the Vaseline and it’s not messy at all. Nor does it leave any residue in the water after. I’ve been doing water marble nails for 15 yrs now. When you do the vaseline, let the polish dry, then all you do is wash your hands, it comes off and goes right down the drain. I have used it to do a french manicure (just the tips of some nails) using the vaseline and again, created a perfect line, no mess.
My main tips to prevent bubbles would be: make sure there are none in the polish before you dip you nail (you can pop those), dip in & out slowly, and make sure to get rid of any water drops on your nail – if they won’t drip or shake off, you can use the corner of a paper towel to absorb them =) if there are still any once the polish dries you can press them flat before adding top coat
@glittergirl637 well, I really don’t have any tips other than what I show in my normal tutorials. The hardest part is choosing the right polish, not every one works – each color is different in the water & it just takes a lot of trial & error to find the ones that work well. You want one with good pigmentation, maybe a little on the thick side but thin enough to drip & above all slow-drying. HTH =)
@SimpleLittlePleasues I tried again yesterday and this time I was being extra careful when taping and made sure I did it exactly the way you do.. and now it worked perfectly! 😀 I’m not sure what I did wrong before but I’m really happy it worked now. Thank you for all your tutorials, I’m a big fan 🙂
I tried both. Masking tape (no good 4 me) & an oil painted around my skin. Only oil I had in the house was cooking oil. I had more trouble with the dang tape than with the actual marbling! It was sticking to two or more fingers…sticking to the paint bottle…knocking the paint bottle over….LOL…I’m a dork. I ended up pretty much just dunking my finger in there (with some oil on my skin) and cleaning it up afterwards. Q-tips and remover are your friends when trying this technique!
@bubba1biss I always use room temperature filtered water from a Brita pitcher because most tap water is too hard & the polish will not spread as well. Bottled is also usually OK as long as there are no additives. You can check out my water comparison under the Tips & Tricks playlist in the information box to see the difference =)
@balloonship I’ve never tried using vaseline – I’ve also read lotion can work – because it just seemed very messy to me, also easy to accidentally get on the nail & then have a spot the design would not stick. But it would be interesting to do a comparison. I procrastinate too much to promise anything but I’ll put it on my to-do list =)
@KarmaCherryJewel It’s on my to-do list to do a comparison between taping & lotion or vaseline/chapstick, but I haven’t gotten around to it yet. A few viewers have told me though that they can leave a residue in the water that makes it harder to do the next designs, which is why I’ve stuck with tape so far =)
getting the best part of the design just takes practice learning how to dip your nail – and every polish dries at a different speed & those that dry fast just aren’t very good for marbling – if you can’t work any quicker then you have to find colors that dry slower. also make sure there’s not a fan or anything creating a draft on the water as that can make the polish dry faster =)
@DeeDeewv if you get a hole, you should be able to shrink it by dipping the orange stick down & pulling up again – kind of like in my Star of Bethlehem marble. My 3 main tips to prevent bubbles would be: make sure there are none in the polish before you dip you nail (you can pop those), dip in & out slowly, and make sure to get rid of any water drops on your nail – if they won’t drip off, you can use the corner of a paper towel to absorb them. HTH =)
While you are dipping your nails in the water (when you are cleaning the water to get the polish out of the way), shake your nails while your nails are still in the water for a few seconds to try to shake away the bubbles in the water. this might not work 100% of the time, but it does help to get the bubbles removed.
@DeeDeesx3 I try to keep my nails moisturized, lots of lotion & cuticle oil & I also take a biotin supplement – you can check out my Nail Maintenance vid in the Tips & Trick playlist for my full routine. I do occasionally get a tear or break but you can check out my tutorial on silk wrap patching for how I save those nails =) I do “Naked Nails” posts on my blog every month or so where I talk more about like all the specific products I’m currently using.
@LaDyHaHaXD It’s on my to-do list to do a comparison between taping & lotion or vaseline/chapstick, but I haven’t gotten around to it yet. A few viewers have told me though that they can leave a residue in the water that makes it harder to do the next designs, which is why I’ve stuck with tape so far =)
@BluRaindropz It’s been on my to-do list for a while to do a comparison between taping & lotion or vaseline/chapstick etc, but I haven’t gotten around to it yet. Aside from the fact that it seems like it would be very messy, several viewers have told me that they can leave a residue in the water that makes it harder to do the next designs, which is why I’ve stuck with tape so far =)
@2000jasmin It’s been on my to-do list for a while now to do a comparison between taping & lotion or vaseline/chapstick etc, but I haven’t gotten around to it yet. Aside from the fact that it seems like it would be very messy, several viewers have told me that they can leave a residue in the water that makes it harder to do the next designs, which is why I’ve stuck with tape so far =)
@ilovemiddleschoolyah It’s been on my to-do list for a while now to do a comparison between taping & lotion or vaseline/chapstick etc, but I haven’t gotten around to it yet. Aside from the fact that it seems like it would be very messy, several viewers have told me that they can leave a residue in the water that makes it harder to do the next designs, which is why I’ve stuck with tape so far =)
@ssecretsvc It’s on my to-do list to do a comparison between taping & lotion or vaseline/chapstick, but I haven’t gotten around to it yet. A few viewers have told me though that they can leave a residue in the water that makes it harder to do the next designs, which is why I’ve stuck with tape so far =)
tehe kind of happy you replied but chapstick O.o lolz never thought off that and taping is a great technique don’t get me wrong lol. but mostly I just dip my finger without anything on and use nail polish remover :p but not I tried the vasaline lotion with the blue top and it worked for me and keep up the great articles. <3 them
I have short nails and yesterday I tried doing the marbling on them. It didn’t turn out so great. 🙁 The polish went outside of my nail and everywhere on my skin. I also used a big cup and a small one and on both when I tried to make a design on them the nail polish just lifted up with the toothpick I was using. What did I do wrong? I worked fast to get the polish on the water, which was filtered and room temperater. Anyway,gonna try doing it today again, I think i have the solution this time 🙂
@hammel132 It’s on my to-do list to do a comparison between taping & lotion or vaseline/chapstick etc, but I haven’t gotten around to it yet. Aside from the fact that it seems like it would be very messy, several viewers have told me that they can leave a residue in the water that makes it harder to do the next designs, which is why I’ve stuck with tape so far =)
thanks for the info. =D im actually in my teens now,so i guess its normal for me to fret over something like this. but even if girls get interested in nail polish and nail art mostly in there teens,i love nail polish ever since i was very young,like i was not even in elementary yet. thats why im taking this very seriously. =D im glad you help me out. your awesome. i’ll do some research for methods on getting bigger nail beds to ensure their growth. again,thanks for your help. =D
@redvansandasummertan It’s been on my to-do list for a while now to do a comparison between taping & lotion or vaseline/chapstick etc, but I haven’t gotten around to it yet. Aside from the fact that it seems like it would be very messy, several viewers have told me that they can leave a residue in the water that makes it harder to do the next designs, which is why I’ve stuck with tape so far =)
Are you using room temperature filtered water? Also keep in mind that not all polish works – the brand doesn’t really matter but every color is different in the water & it just takes a lot of trial & error to find the ones that work well. You want one with good pigmentation, maybe a little on the thick side but thin enough to drip & above all slow-drying =)
@chinggay90 It’s been on my to-do list for a while now to do a comparison between taping & lotion or vaseline/chapstick etc, but I haven’t gotten around to it yet. Aside from the fact that it seems like it would be very messy, several viewers have told me that they can leave a residue in the water that makes it harder to do the next designs, which is why I’ve stuck with tape so far =) but if you have no tape it couldn’t hurt to try
i love nail art,and of course i enjoy doing it on my nails,but problem is,even if i grow the white part long,it still looks wierd. because i have small nail beds(the pink part) also,my nail corners are slant,so even the white part looks slant,wierd and uneven,like uneven slopes of mountains. is there any way i can make them look good with and without polish?
hi girl! Your nails are gorege! Love the articles! especially the poolside water marble! Tie Dye nails! LOVE! Just a note to say there’s a spelling error in the article description above. kinda funny actually. “to prevent getting polish all over your sin.” LOL. I know you don’t want polish all over YOUR sin! xD lol. k. sorry! Just had to say that! But LOVE! thanks! 😉
ok insted of doing all that work to cover your nails with tape just rub your finger with vaseline lotion and when you dip your finger the degisine gets on your nail and everything elce spred away from your finger and you can use the other side of the degisn to do another nail you dont even need that pokey stick thing 🙂 lolz Try it I did and I was so happy it worked andif any nail polish get on the skin whype it off with a papertowel and it comes right off! 😀 your welcome lolz