I’ve tried water marbling, & it was… not my thing. I’ve tried drag marbling, & it’s usually hit or miss. But I really love marbled nails, so naturally when I picked up a silicone craft mat I knew I needed to try drip marbling recently done by @simplynailogical.
For this mani I used:
- ORLY Decades of Dysfunction
- Sally Hansen Pretty Piggy
- Nicole by OPI We Got Beiber Fever
- Finger Paints Wanna Gogh Dance?
- ACO by Ardene Base Coat
- Cutex Quick Dry Top Coat
To create my decals, I started off by dropping my polished of choice onto the mat, starting with my lightest colour (ORLY Decades of Dysfunction) as my base, then continued with my darker colours, & finished with my metallic shade (Finger Paints Wanna Gogh Dance?). Once all my colours were down, I moved my mat around to create my marbled effect. Once I was happy with one decal, I’d let it sit & dry for a few minutes before starting on the next one. When I was happy with the amount of decals I’d made, I left them to Dry for a few hours (around 2 hours).
I’m not going to lie, trying to apply these wasn’t the easiest. I started off by painting my accent nails with a base colour (again I used ORLY Decades of Dysfunction) and let dry. I then peeled off my decal & figured out which part I wanted on my nail, trimming it down to a more manageable size. When I was ready, I applied a coat of my ACO by Ardene base coat & immediately stuck my decal onto the nail. Using a brush dipped in acetone, I cleaned up around the cuticle. This was probably the least fun part–I wish I had better nail art scissors to trim off the access instead! When the decal was fully cleaned up & my cuticles were clean I sealed everything in with top coat to finish. I also surrounded my cuticles in oil to help after all that remover. No one likes wrecked cuticles.
And how does the final result look?
I’m loving how these look. Each nail ends up looking so different & unique. There is definitely a learning curve to application, but by the 3rd nail it wasn’t so hard anymore (I did end up redoing the pointer finger which was my first nail). Are they perfect? Well no, but for a first attempt I’m pretty happy. & there will definitely be more attempts to come!
Have you tried to make your own decals before using a silicone mat? Do you have any tips or tricks to share to make things easier? Let me know in the comments below!
Coffee & Nail Polish 