Turquoise Stone Nails

Blue and Purple Gradient + Water Spotting

3x Water Spotted Mani

Black Water Spotted Splotches/Rorschach over OPI Meet Me on the Star Ferry

Here's my second attempt at a Water Spotted Mani. You can see my first attempt here. I think the pattern is more obvious on this one because there is much more contrast with the base color. 

For this mani I used OPI - Meet Me on the Star Ferry (2 coats), Sally Hansen - Black Heart, and Garnier Fructis Aqua Styler Long Hair hairspray.

I'm pretty happy with the way my right hand turned out. I think my favorite nail is my right pinky nail since I got so many little bubbly looking water spots on it.

I like my pinky on my left hand too. II also like how my ring finger kind of looks like a tree or something. I don't like my middle finger at all though. There's too much black and it reminds me of a ski mask or something haha

The first time I tried to do this nail, I only got a bit of black on it. So I decided to dunk my finger in again before cleaning up. I didn't aim my dip very well though and ended up going over the same spots twice. The end result reminds me of something from a Rorschach test.

I originally watched cutepolish's tutorial before attempting this technique. After my second attempt, I watched Colette's tutorial. I found that while cutepolish gave a good quick overview Colette was more helpful with trouble shooting especially if you aren't able to find the spray hand sanitizer. I have been using Garnier Fructis Aqua Styler Long Hair hairspray but found that the "spots" were more like large splotches. No matter how far away I spray, once those droplets hit the water they expand pretty quickly. If I don't get myself lined up with the water immediately, I'll end up with larger spots (which I like too it's just a different look). I'll try out some other chemicals for spraying next time. Here's Colette's video

First Water Spotted Mani with Evergreen and Unfor-greta-bly Blue

I've been wanting OPI Black Spotted ever since I first saw it... but since it was (is?) available exclusively at Sephora stores in France there was no hope of me ever getting my hands on it. I was really happy when I found this water spotted technique on YouTube! It creates a fairly similar effect, although with more effort than simply painting on a polish. But I'll take it!

I think my right middle finger nail is my favorite! On the rest of my nails, the spots are bigger than I wanted them. I guess I was spraying too close to the water. I also ended up with some large black areas which I wasn't too happy with but this isn't bad for a first try. I think I'll try this soon with other colors!

For this mani, I started off with a base of 2 coats of Evergreen from the Sephora + Pantone Universe collection (see swatch on it's own here). I wanted a gradient so I added OPI Unfor-greta-bly Blue at the tips. I didn't bother using a sponge for the gradient, I just used the polish brush since I figured it would be covered by the water spotting. I used Sally Hansen Black Heart and Garnier Fructis Aqua Styler Long Hair hairspray for the water spotted technique. 

Here is a picture before my nails hit the water:

This technique isn't too hard. If you know how to water marble already you should find this really easy. If you've never water marbled before you may have issues with the polish spreading but you will just need to figure out the right type of water and water temperature that works. Also some polishes won't work with the water.

Basically you start with a cup of room temperature, filtered water. Then drop black polish onto the surface of the water. It should spread out. Immediately spray the surface of the water using either hand sanitizer or hair spray. The spray will break up the black and you should have clear spots. It might take a few tries to figure out how far away to spray. If you spray too close to the water the spots will be too big. From there, it is exactly the same as a water marble. Line up your nail(s) with parts of the pattern that you want on your nail, dip into the water, clean up excess polish from the surface of the water, pull your finger(s) out, clean up. Done!

I followed this tutorial from cutepolish except I used hairspray instead of hand sanitizer spray that she uses