Dry Marble Vertical Stripes

Hi Lovelies! This week's Nail Art Nation prompt is Dry Marble. To be honest, I am very intimidated by this technique. I have failed at it several times in the past, and am probably more comfortable with actual watermarble (which I'm no good at, at all). After many attempts I came up with something I thought was presentable:

Polishes and tools;

Base coat: IACCC "Cement"

Sally Hansen X-treme Wear "White On"

Sweet & Sour Lacquer "¡Ay Caramba!" & "Hey-Diddlly-Ho!"

Medium brush

Uber Mat

Topcoat: Glisten & Glow "HK Girl"

Originally, I tried doing a drag on my nails. After many failed attempts I finally decided to try and create decals instead. Using my Uber Mat, I painted three stripes next to each other. Using a medium sized brush, I pulled the polishes in a zigzag pattern across the stripes, as if I was watermarbling. I choose to use a brush, but a pin, tiny dotting tool, toothpick, or watermarbling tool could also be used. I then set this aside to dry. 

While my decals were drying I applied one coat of white polish. As you can se it's a bit sloppy because it will all ended up covered. 

Once, my drag decals were dry, I carefully peeled them off the mat. Some people recommend applying a quick drying topcoat over the decals while they're still on the mat to help them dry quicker and give them so rigidity. I opted not to apply the topcoat because I don't like the rigidity, I feel it makes the decals more challenging to apply. If you opt to not use a quick drying topcoat give the decals extra time to dry, and take a bit more extra caution whe removing them from the mat.  Next apply another thin coat of white polish, and gently press the decal to the wet nail polish. Use a orange stick, cuticle scissors, or like me a cuticle pusher to trim off the excess decal. Then use gentle acetone and a brush to give a good cleanup and help seal the decal to the nail. 

For this nail art design. I applied to drag marble decals on my ring and mid finger. I painted the remaining nails with coordinating colors. Lastly, I finished off with a high gloss quick drying topcoat. 

Even though this took me a few tries I'm excited about how these turned out. Just like any new technique it takes some practice to perfect it. 

The nice thing about dry marbling is that you can use absolutely any polish you want. You don't have to worry about how it spreads in the water. 

I hope you enjoyed this bright faux watermarble design. Thanks for stopping by, see you next time. 

Your Fellow Plebe,

        

Freehand Neon Stripes

Hello Lovelies!  I was doing really well keeping up on the Freehand Challenge on Instagram for the last couple of months, but this month I have fallen a week behind.  I had initially created a neon flakie rainbow gradient that I was going to use as the base for this prompt, but couldn't bear to cover it up with any of my not so perfect freehand stripes.  (If you are on Instagram checkout my feed to find the gorgeous gradient I created.)  I spent the weekend wearing and enjoying my gradient nails,  so that is how I ended up falling an entire week behind on the Freehand Challenge.  This is what I ended up creating for the Neon Stripes prompt for last week...

Materials I used:
Base coat - INM Ridge Free
Black base polish - Sinful Colors 'Black on Black'
White and black nail art stripers
Neon Polishes - Essie 'Too Taboo,' 'Serial Shopper,' 'Vices Versa,' 'I'm Addicted,' & 'Sittin' Pretty'
Top Coat - Rica 'Glossy Glam'

I often use white as a base color this time of year because its summer and warmer weather calls for brighter colors.  However, I decided to go with a black base this time around just to change it up a little bit.  I started off with two coats of black polish.

Using a white nail art striper I drew three horizontal lines across each nail.  I started with white stripes so that the neon colors would be brighter and more visible over the black.  Freehand stripers are so difficult to draw perfectly, so these end up very uneven and messy.

With a black nail art striper I fixed up some of my mistakes and evened out the widths of the stripes.  There still not perfect but much better.

Using a thin brush and my neon polishes, I filled in the white stripes.  I used Essie's neon collection from 2014, its not a very good neon collection so a white base is vital to make the colors look neon, which makes them perfect for this nail art design.

I finished up by correcting minor mistakes with my black nail art striper, then performed a bit of clean up with acetone and a brush, and topped it all off with a glossy top coat.

I'm really glad I decided against skipping this prompt and went ahead and created this manicure.  Even though this was not my first intended design for neon stripes, I'm still very please with how it turned out.  It may not be perfect but it still is pretty good.

I may end up recreating this design using tapes to achieve that perfect straight line mani that I so love, but it was good to practice freehand.  Someday, with enough practice I might just be able to paint a straight line without making a big mess.

I hope you enjoyed this freehand design, stay tuned because I have many more posts planned this week.  I will finally get around to testing out some squishy nail art stampers, I also have some new stamping polishes arriving this week, I will be swatching the lovely Gothic Gala Lacquer's Science is Beautiful Collection, and I have this week's Freehand Challenge Ikat nail art design.  All in all, it's a busy nail week.  Thanks for stopping by, see you next time.

Your Fellow Plebe,