Dry Marbling with Neons

I've said it before and I'll say it again, I am a DISASTER at water marbling. I have literally tried it a hundred times and each and every time has been a gigantic FAIL. It really annoys me because I think it is an amazing technique with so much potential and I feel like I should rock at it, but it doesn't matter what I do, I cannot get my polish to spread in the water, it just sinks in a lump straight to the bottom of the glass. I have tried everything, tap water, bottled spring water, salt water, (water from 3 different countries!) hot and cold water, boiled and freezing water, plastic cups, glasses, mugs, old and new polishes, thick and thin polishes, expensive and cheap polishes, I've even tried adding polish thinner and polish remover to the water, once I even tried oil! You name it I've tried it, but the result is always exactly the same - a lump of polish at the bottom of the cup. I have long since given up on water marbling as each attempt is more disappointing than the last, and I just can't take it anymore! My last attempt resulted in anguished screams, a temper tantrum and a cup of water thrown across the room, followed by a 3 hour sulk. I am DONE with water marbling.

I may have finally found the answer though! Ive seen a few nail designs floating around online tagged ''dry marbling'' and thought I would have a look into it. It involves the trusty freezer bag DIY transfer technique which has become a favourite of mine, but it does not involve cups, water or sinking polish! So I thought f*ck it I'll give it a try! The technique is basically to paint some lines of different colours however you feel like it onto a freezer bag, then run a dotting tool through the wet polish to create pretty patterns, let it dry, peel and stick.

So I gave it a go, rather half heartedly I admit as I was expecting more failure, I wasn't trying for any specific pattern and it was all done a bit randomly. I basically added dots of polish to the freezer bag and made swirly patterns mixing all the colours together, adding more dots as I went to get a big enough area to cover my nails. I have to say I was quite impressed with the result, and rather wish I had made a bit more effort. But hey, we all have to start somewhere and at least I know what I'm doing for next time, so now I can experiment properly! Once I realised that it actually looked quite nice despite the lack of effort on my part, I decided I should try to do something fancy in the application on the nail, and this is the result!

The purple corners are my marbling attempt, I cut these shapes from the piece I peeled off my freezer bag, and the pieces were cut free hand so are not all exactly the same. For my base I used BC & Co shade 16 layered over Sinful Colours 'Snow me White' to make it pop.

I used the same BC & Co colour for the marbling together with Sinful Colours 'Daddy's Girl' and a bright pink polish that doesn't have any brand name or colour on it! As you can see there is no specific pattern, just a few random swirls, so next time I will try to make a nice pattern too.

It has to be said though, for random swirls this is quite pretty and I really love the colour combination. Most of all I am just happy that there is a marbling technique out there that will actually work for me! Now I have figured out how to do it I have a few ideas to play around with, and you can can guarantee it won't be long before I have this shit down, and marbling will finally be my bitch!





I would love to hear from some of you lovely ladies about your own experiences with water marbling, and any useful tips for this new dry marbling technique!