(Updated!) Before & After: Never Say Never

Hello!

You've heard me say on this blog that I don't think I'll ever do a water marble manicure. They're incredibly pretty but...Messy. And time consuming. And messy. And tricksey. And messy.

Well...this is why you should never say never. I've recently seen several manicures done using an alcohol water-marble technique, where you only put one drop of polish in the water at a time, and it doesn't matter if it goes in a wonky shape, cause you're gonna spray it with alcohol and make it go all splotchy anyway. I figured that any technique that looks better the more you FAIL is a technique I have to try.

Because my Nail Challenge Collaborative theme this month is neon, and I also have a neon prompt for my Hobby Polish Bloggers group, I decided to do a neon alcohol mani. I started with a base of China Glaze Sun-Kissed, a green-tinged yellow neon:

China Glaze Sun-Kissed

China Glaze Sun-Kissed

Then for my 'marble' colors, I chose three no-name neons I found at Rite-Aid clearance after Halloween--they came in a set and have no name or brand:

For each color, I dropped a couple of drops into the water, tried to get it to spread out, and then sprayed it with alcohol to get a spotted/degraded effect. There was a learning curve, and I got better as I went along...Here is the final result:

Spotted Alcohol mani

It's kind of like someone gagged the 80s with a spoon, and they blew chunks on my nails...but in a good way!

I tried to get my camera to capture the full...glory?...of these colors, but they freaked it out, lol. Still, you get the idea, and you see how the technique works. Isn't it cool? So much easier to execute than a regular water marble, although still messy to clean up. But, no more messy than a splatter mani...in fact, I think it was honestly a little bit less messy to clean up that the dreaded splatter mani, lol.

UPDATE: In fact, one of my polish buddies (Michelle of the AMAZING Break Rules Not Nails--seriously, you have got to check out her freehand work, it is beyond superb) just shared with me a trick for easy clean-up with this technique. What she does is put chapstick on her skin and cuticles before dunking! She says clean-up this way is a breeze. I have to try this!

So what do you think? Do you like this technique? It's sort of like OPI spotted on crack...Would you like to see it again with different colors? I could see some really cool stuff with red on a nude color for a halloween mani, or gold and silver over red or green for Christmas...

Thanks for reading, and please don't forget to check out the other manicures linked below!

Peace, love and marbled manis,
M.