Water marbling, take two

I don't even bother with spending bans, because I know I have NO willpower. I should do though, I accidentally took advantage of the Superdrug 3 for 2 thang at the weekend - but I showed remarkable restraint (for me at least) and only got six items, the best of which was probably the Sleek Sunset palette - first time I've been able to find the bugger since it came out! But of course I wasn't too worried as it's part of the permanent line - thank fawk I got my hands on Graphite when I did, hey?

I also picked up a GOSH Velvet Touch liner (just the black one) after my good friend Charlotte raved about them so much and I have real trouble finding liners that show up in my waterline - this is performing well so far and I may have to grab a few more colours before Superdrug stop their 3 for 2... Also from GOSH I picked up Wild Lilac nail polish 'cause I don't think I have enough purples ;P Theeen I got a Collection 2000 pressed powder and blush, because why not?! Last thing I grabbed wasn't intended - I was looking on the Maybelline stand for Dream Mousse Blush (brilliant Maybelline product IMO) but they didn't have any. What I did spot was an amazingly pretty polish.. it's called Flash Cosmic and is part of the Express Finish line. It's a very iridescent blue glitter suspended in clear polish so it's more or less a top coat, and what's so cool about it is that the glitter only shows up when the light catches it from certain angles and you see this awesome blue flash out the corner of your eye.. stunning. BUT, it was absolutely IMPOSSIBLE to photograph. When you photograph it, it looks like there's dirt stuck to your nails or something.. so weird.

ANYWAY! Yeah I got sidetracked again. This evening I thought I'd give water marbling another go after my disheartening and disastrous first attempt. I do think this was a significant improvement, but I've still got a long way to go! You nail bloggers make it look so easy D<

This time, I used a base colour (Collection 2000 Dynasty) which seems to have helped a LOT. I marbled with GOSH Wild Lilac and Color Club Alabaster. There's too much white going on with my index finger, and my ring finger just looks smudgy. I think the middle finger looks best. I'm gonna keep at this, I think - I'll try several different colour combinations throughout the week :) I've also found that room temperature to lukewarm water seems to work a lot better - I used cold water the first time I tried because I had no idea what temperature the water should be!

Oh, and I used China Glaze Wireless Holographic topcoat here. It doesn't give quite the result I'd hoped for (which would be to make any polish look like it had come straight out of the OMG collection) but it's still very pretty - it's more or less a really really fine holographic glitter.

And lastly, sorry for the lack of proper clean-up in the pics! Haha <3