From the Vault: Needle Marble

I still have a couple of (really) old manis in my picture folder and today, I thought, I'm going to remove one of them from the folder by finally posting it.

I'm not exactly proud of this manicure. It was an experiment that somehow failed, but still somehow worked. I did this mani sometime in July or August, I think. Back then, I had seen a couple of really pretty needle marble manis and after seeing a tutorial on youtube, I wanted to give it a try myself. Well, I chose a couple of colors from my untried stash, but I only remember one of the shades. The shade, I dislike the most in this mani.

Right hand. The better in this case.

The concept of needle marbling is pretty easy. Much easier than water marbling and so much less messy. Basically, you just apply your base color and let it dry. Then, you just apply little drops of the polishes you want to marble directly onto the nail and, using a fine brush or a needle, you start swirling them. Sounds pretty easy, right?

Left hand. Not so pretty.

I chose OPI Tickle my France-y as my base color. I find it a pretty nude color in the bottle. But it doesn't go with my skintone at all! Not sure what to do with this polish. The white is my usual Color Club white, but I don't remember the other two.

Hm, this marbling requires some practice, too, of course. But what troubled me the most was the different drying time of each of my marble polishes. That made it hard to marble in a pretty manner. I remember the violet to be quite runny. Once you touched the drop and started marbling, it would start flowing everywhere. On the other hand, the white dried really quickly.

So next time, I give this technique a try, I'll test the marbling characteristics of each polish. Just to make sure.

Have you tried this techniques? Do you have any tips?