Marbling Nails: How to with Videos

I have to admit upfront -- I've never marbled my nails. I've seen them and find them quite striking on younger women, but I've never been really big on cosmetics for myself.

However, I marble paper and have been fascinated with that process. If marbling works so well on paper, why not on fingernails? 

I thought I'd look into the nail marbling process to see for myself how it is done. Whether I decide to try marbling my own nails or not is still up in the air, but it would be fun and might even shock my granddaughters. Why not? Shake everyone up, at least once a year. We are all entitled to be fancy and stylish once in a while, no?

Come learn about the marbling nails process with me. Maybe we'll try it for the first time together. I promise if I decide to go for it, I'll post pictures of my own marbled nail results. It just might be fun.

The above video is a carefully designed step-by-step tutorial on how to marble your nails. Now, I've watched many of these tutorials and have found this particular one simple enough and thorough enough to give you confidence to try it yourself.

There are several key ideas the narrator introduces that make this tutorial an excellent introduction. First she stresses the need to use scotch tape around your nails to minimize clean-up of excess polish that is inevitable, given the process. There's nothing worse when polishing your nails than to have oodles of polish left on your skin after the process is finished. Not only is it bad for your skin, but it's difficult to remove the excess without disturbing the polish you want to remain there on the nail itself.

Second, she emphasizes that you need to use new nail polish as polish that has been sitting around for a while tends to thicken and will not swirl as well on the surface of the water.

Third, she suggests that you begin and end with clear nail polish in order to protect your nails and to give the final product an attractive sheen. She also recommends covering that first application of clear polish with a couple of coats of white polish as a background on which the colors will really stand out.

If you only watch one of the videos I have posted on this wizzle, watch this one.

From my experience of marbling paper, I've learned that the marbling process is something you can influence but not totally control. Expert marblers actually do develop their technique to the extent that they know what types of actions produce what kinds of results, but even so, there's a certain amount of chance and variation in the marbling process that can affect the final results. This is part of the attraction of marbling in the first place -- you are working with the interaction of water and paint -- or nail polish -- and you, as the artist, are only one of the participants in this exchange. It almost feels like a dance of forms. That's why people who begin to work in the medium get captivated by it and want to do even more.

Nail polish, however, can be tricky even when put on straight. Whenever I've tried to beautify my nails in that way, I have more often than not ended up with clumps and muck that I end up peeling off. I guess I'm no manicure expert. But I'm still fascinated enough to give it a try.

Nail polish comes in such a wide range of colors these days, that it's no wonder that people have taken to becoming nail artists, using fingernails as a canvas and nail polish as a palate. Lots of different types of nail art have become popular of which marbling is just one. And unlike tattoos, nail art can be changed or even removed without a second thought and certainly without pain. A person can express creativity in appearance and know that even if dozens of their friends choose to do the same thing, none of the results will be identical. This is not true of a tattoo.

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So I've done my research and I think I'm going to give it a go. After all, even if they come out awful, all I'd have to do is swish my nails with a little nail polish remover and start again, right?

But maybe instead of looking awful, they'll look awesome.

I've ordered my supplies and when they come, I'll spend a rainy day swirling nail polish on water and dipping my fingers into it. It should be fun.

When I'm done, I'll post the photos here on this page. And I promise I'll show you the results no matter how messy or sparkling they turn out. I'll probably keep trying until I get it right, so I'll show you my mistakes as well as my successes. That way, we'll see how long it takes to get nails as nice as those in the videos.

Please check back and see my results! And please leave a comment below to let me know whether or not you'll join in on my nail marbling adventure.

So, will you try it?