How to: marbleized manicure

Lucy Dwyer

Are you bored of the same old nail polish colors? Do you want to impress your friends with a unique new look? Well, search no further than this tie-dye inspired marble manicure. It could very well be the prettiest nail art you have ever seen.

What you’ll need

– Different shades of nail polish (here I used five but you could use as little as two and as many as ten)
– White nail polish
– A clear top coat
– A cup of water, 90% full
– Toothpicks
– Scotch Tape
– Nail Polish Remover and an angled makeup brush (for clean-up)

Steps
1. Start with clean, dry nails.

2. Paint your nails with one coat of white nail polish to ensure your colors turn out as bright as possible. Wait for it to dry. Here I used Essie’s “Blanc”.

3. Unscrew the caps of your nail polishes. Since you need to quickly use the polish this will save a lot of time during the process. It is also pretty difficult to open nail polishes when your hands are covered in tape. I used Butter London’s “Pillar Box Red”, N.Y.C.’s “Times Square tangerine creme”, Orly’s “Lemonade”, Essie’s “Mojito Madness”, Butter London’s “Slapper” and Essie’s “Aruba Blue”, but feel free to experiment with other color combinations.

picisto-20121009195047-413791 — Click images to enlarge

4. Using two to three 1 ½ inch strips of tape, cover the skin on the top, bottom and sides of each nail with tape. Only do this to one hand at a time.

5. Take the brush out of your first nail polish, and make sure it has as much polish on it as possible. Touch the tip of your polish brush, where a drop of nail polish has now formed, onto the top of the water. The nail polish that you just placed will now spread out into a thin circle on the surface.

6. Repeat step #5 with the rest of your polishes, making sure to place each new drop of polish into the circle created by the previous one, so when you are finished it will look like a bullseye. Do this quickly, as you don’t want the nail polish to dry out.

7. Take a toothpick and draw designs in the polish. Start with your toothpick in the middle of the smallest circle and slowly drag it to the outside of the biggest circle. Continue doing this until you are content with the design.

8. Hold one nail over the design so that it is parallel to the water. Find a spot in the design that you like, and push your nail through the layer of nail polish and into the water, continually keeping your nail parallel to the surface. Slowly bring your nail up out of the water.

9. Repeat step #8. Usually you can do two to three nails per each design, but you can also make a new design for each nail.

10. Once you have used up all the nail polish you can, take another clean toothpick and swirl it around the surface of the water. The excess nail polish laying on the water will gather on the toothpick.

11. Repeat steps #5-8 until all the nails on your hand are complete.

12. Once your nails are dry, peel off tape and apply a top coat so the polish does not chip. I used Orly’s topcoat “Nail Defense”.

13. Repeat steps #4-12 on your other hand.

14. Clean up nails by dipping an angled, semi-stiff eyeliner brush into nail polish remover and running along areas where your nails are messy.

15. Enjoy your unique new manicure.