Tattered Monochromatic Spray Marble

I never look forward to the water marble day of the 31 Day Challenge. This year, instead of putting myself through all of the pain, I went straight to a technique that I do have fun with: the spray marble! This technique is a sister to the water marble, and I actually prefer the edgy, tattered outcome.

Nail polishes used:
Polish My Life Birthday Suit
Polish My Life Storm Clouds
Jessica Cosmetics NY State of Mind
China Glaze Ghoulish Glow
Formula X Dark Matter

I started out by using a triangle makeup sponge to do a gradient of cream, grey, and dark grey. Then, I painted on a coat of glow in the dark topcoat, because why not?

The spray marble began with filling a plastic cup with room temperature filtered water and taping off the area surrounding my fingers to minimize mess. I gently dropped one drop of black polish on the surface of the water, and then used a spray bottle to mist a 50/50 mixture of water and apple cider vinegar on the polish. I've seen other people use hairspray, perfume, all sorts of other mixtures to break up the polish on the water, but @madamluck was the first one I saw that used the vinegar mix. It worked great!

I dipped one finger in at a time, removed excess polish from the surface of the water, and pulled my finger out. Remove the tape, clean up, and topcoat; you're done!

The glow was stronger where it was layered over light polish. Looks kinda like alien eggs, doesn't it?

Previous water marble work:

• Turquoise water marble
• Starburst candy water marble
• Soft flower marble

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Spray Marble and Studs - DIOSA Nail Art

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Hey folks! Just a quick note before we get into today's nail art. Per the updated FTC guidelines, I will now be including buttons at the top of every post that detail any disclosures I need to make. You can learn more about what they mean by clicking the buttons. Thanks for your patience with any growing pains I may experience with this new system.

Okay! I am really excited about today's nail art. Not only did I try a new technique, but I also tried a new brand, and let me just say that I am enamored with the results of both!

DIOSA Nails is a polish brand whose mission is to honor women and to help tell their stories. DIOSA encourages women to be themselves and inspire their peers. I love that manifesto! For this particular look I used two DIOSA polishes -- Dime Piece and I Sea You. Read on to learn more about the techniques and polishes.

The marbled look was achieved when I tried to do the water spotted effect but sort of half-failed at it. If you're unfamiliar with the technique, it begins much like a water marble would! You place drops of polish on the surface of your water, and then spray it with some alcohol-based fluid like hand sanitizer or perfume. It makes little holes in the polish and when you dip your nails in it, it transfers the spotted effect.

That's all fine and pretty easy to understand, right? Well, when I went to try it, I grabbed an old perfume for the first nail. It worked fantastically! But then, when I went to do my second nail, I found there was some oily residue sitting on top of the water and my next drops of polish wouldn't fully spread out because of it. I guess the perfume I was using must have had some sort of oil in the base? I dumped it out and tried some hairspray next, but it didn't create an even spotted effect, either.

Despite the unexpected spotting patterns, I dunked my nails anyway. I then manipulated the resulting patterns with a little bit of acetone to tailor them to my liking.

The studs and rhinestones in this manicure came from my Nails Inc Bling It On: Rebel set. I'm sure you can find equivalent studs and rhinestones from almost any online nail art supplier, too.

The grey polish I used is DIOSA Dime Piece. I really love this particular shade of grey, it's light and clean and slightly blue-leaning, I think. Almost like a breaking storm. It requires two coats for opacity and the formula was easy to work with.

DIOSA I Sea You is a highly pigmented blue beauty, and provided perfect coverage in just one single coat. But that's not all -- this one coater had a creamy, buttery formula, too. This means it's fantastic for nail art enthusiasts and plain polish lovers alike!

DIOSA polish is available at www.diosanails.com. You can also keep up with the brand on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram.

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