Swirly Nail Art

A couple weeks ago I introduced you to the white Bunny nail polish by Julep and mentioned that I was interested in using it as a base for marble nail art — having tried the process I am more inclined to call it Swirly Nail Art, hence the title. If you are feeling brave here is a how-to video by Colette from Simple Little Pleasures to get you started:

As you can see from Colette’s video, she was able to put in a lot of bull’s eye layers into her cup. I found it really hard to do this. Firstly, I could not get the polish to spread to the edges like she did so I was working with smaller targets.
Secondly, I found if I waited too long the surface layer of the polish would begin to dry too quickly and would buckle on itself when I got to the drawing process. I also did not draw as many petals as she did. It took a few tries to get a target I could actually dip my nails into. It is very important to have a LOT of toothpicks for surface cleaning and drawing.

Lots of Q-tips are handy too. Instead of tape, I used Vaseline gelly and after dipping I removed the polish from my fingers with a Q-tip. It sloughed right off — I only needed to use polish remover for a couple tiny spots after I washed my hands. I am not a good taper (you can tell from any wall I have painted in my house) which is why I went with the gelly.
Here is my final look:

As I mentioned in the beginning I used Bunny as the white background, after a good basecoat. My marble/swirly target was made with Julep’s Char (navy), Nan (red), and Bess (pale blue).
It is kind of a long process that requires patience so make sure you are in a good mood when you try this. I put the background color on a few days prior so as not to have to do everything in one sitting. When I do this again, and I know I will because it was fun, I will practice making targets ahead of time with the colors I want to use to get a feel for how the polish reacts to the water etc.
Let me know if you try it!