Tutorial: Multi-Colored Water Spotted Nails

Hey guys,

So I did a multi-color water spotted mani a week or two ago and when I posted it on Beautylish someone suggested that I do a tutorial for it.  I thought this was a pretty good idea because I haven't seen any out there for using more than one color in a water spotted mani.  If you have never done a water spotted mani or would like to see a video on how it is done then please visit CutePolish on YouTube.  I hope you all find this helpful!


Colors used: Orly Pure Porcelain, Sally Hansen Xtreme Wear Pacific Blue and Twisted Pink, and Wet N Wild On A Trip

Step One:  Paint your nails a base color, I would suggest a white or off-white for this.  Also apply a little Vaseline or some tape around your fingers to help aid in clean up later.

Step Two: Get a cup a fill it to the top with room temperature water, make sure it is a cup you are not going to be drinking out of again. Oh and do not use a Styrofoam cup the nail polish will melt it! Pick three  colors for your water spots.  Now take one of the colors drip a dot of polish onto the surface of the water.  Spray it with some kind of alcohol based spray about 4-5 inches away (you can use body spray, anti-bacterial spray, hairspray).  I usually spray between 1-3 times, it depends on how well the polish start to separate.

Step Three: Repeat step two with your other two colors.  

Step Four:  Remove the tape or wipe the Vaseline and nail polish off your skin and clean up any other polish with a q-tip or brush and some acetone.  Top coat your look and you should be done!

A couple of tips if you have never done water spotted nails before.

1.It can be a bit tricky to do at first, I find that I like to only work with one drop of polish, especially when doing more than one color for the spots.  I also find that when I do more than one drop it seems to not want to separate once I spray the body spray. 

2. And on the topic of body spray I would highly suggest you do not use aerosol hairspray, I have tried it once and the spray was too powerful it pretty much blew the nail polish out of my cup of water.  

3. It is important that the water you use is room temp, if it is too cold the polish dries very quickly and you will have issues with getting it to spot.