We love new products, trends and tips but ever wondered about wearing them in real life? Each week we’ll take on a test drive, from the newest nail colour, to playing with perfume or seeing how long that hairstyle actually takes and share what we find (sweet, not-so-sweet and everything in between).
The inspiration: We spotted this cool and creative manicure on Beauty & the Blog, and had to test it (and its surprise factor finish) for ourselves.
The products: A collection of Joe Fresh, Essie, LA Splash, OPI and Sally Hansen polishes.
Before we get started, please learn from our mistakes: Tape will save you hours of cleaning time, starting fresh with a new cup of water and polish for your second hand will ensure it looks just as cool as the first, and have lots of nail polish remover on hand. You'll see why...
a) Select three colours. We recommend using a white, dark and colour polish. Using white will really help the colours pop, so have a full bottle on hand. Open all the bottles and remove the brushes so you can move quickly.
b) Tape your fingers. Wrap a piece under the base of your nail, and another piece around the sides and top of your nail. Trust us, the few sweetspotters who failed to do this spent 30 minutes removing excess polish from their skin.
c) Pour the polishes. In a plastic cup filled with water at room temperature, pour in your first polish (we started off with white and liked the results—remember, the more white the better!). You'll want enough to fill the surface of the water, and try to let it pool all together. Sometimes the polish formed little bubbles and dropped to the bottom of the cup—this is not ideal.It needs to pool on thesurface for the manicure to work.Next, pour in your second polish into the centre of your first. Again, let it pool in one solid circle. Follow with your third polish to make a bulls-eye of your three colours.
d) Using a toothpick, swirl the colours together. Don't blend the colours too much, the pattern in the cup will be similar to what transfers to your finger nail, so you want the colours to be intertwined, but not blended.
e) One by one, dip your nails onto the surface of polish. It's best to dip your finger on an angle, or flat onto the surface of the polish if you can, and coat your entire nail.
f) Let your nails dry and then peel off the tape. Do not attempt to do your second hand with the first mixture of polishes. The polishes all blend together after dipping the first hand, so you won't get the same cool patterns on the second. Once the tape is off, clean up any excess polish on your skin (Q-Tips really came in handy!) and apply a top coat.
Once your hand is dry, start from scratch and repeat the above on your second hand.
The offical consensus: Marble manicures rock! OK, we'll admit, cleaning the excess polish was a bit of a nightmare (Mia needed a sweetspotter on each hand to help her remove it). It definitely requires a couple hours of prep, execution and follow up time, but we all agreed the results were worth it, and we'd do it again on a rainy day or a night in with friends.
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