This post is a total departure from my usual but was fun, so I wanted to share.I love to learn something new every year. Or more often than that. Alright to be totally honest I love to learn new things basically whenever I can.My most recent 'experiment' was making nailpolish.Now the ultra strange thing about this is I rarely wear nailpolish. In fact this past year has been the only time I have ever gone for a manicure pedicure outside of my wedding day. I went through a nailpolish phase in high school and that was it. Today I prefer my nails to be free of any polish and to be able to 'breathe'. But there was just something super exciting to me about making my own that I had to try it!My boys were truly unimpressed. My 14 year old announced he would not tolerate me making lipstick, so if I had any ideas for that in the future (which I did! I think he was reading my mind!) to forget about it. When I asked him why he was so 'against' my fun he replied that I was making our house too 'girly'.I have 3 boys. I have and always will be outnumbered. I have a girl dog but seeing as she loves to roll in mud and swamp, that does not count. My house smells like goats. I'm on my own here and am not much of a girly-girl. I use my blow drier to heat seal shrink wrap on my lip balm tubes and usually dry my hair via the vents in my car on the way to work. I can get my makeup on and out the door in 10 minutes. Because confession is good for the soul ~ I usually sleep on wet hair to avoid the whole drier vent blow dry conundrum. I have tried to take more time to look 'better' but honestly I'd rather be doing other things. I blowdry my hair when I'm going to a wedding. That's it. Most of my friends are paired up now, so that essentially means bad hair for me for a while. O.k. I'm getting off topic and sharing way too much.Back to nail polish!
To ease into the new-ness of this I started by trying Frankening.What the heck is Frankening? Believe me, I asked the same thing, and this is what I found out.'Frankening' is the art of taking existing nailpolish and in essence mixing the colours to create a brand new 'one of a kind' colour.As you know, nail polish comes in a wide array of colours. I don't know about all of you but in the past I have been deeply disappointed when the shade in the bottle does not create that exact shade on my nails. Or it does and it just does not go with my skin tone. So I have a bunch of nailpolish rejects-that I never wear-but (thankfully) never threw out either. Frankening came about by a few young girls mainly wanting to be different and not wear the same shade as their friends. When choosing polishes to mix, cheaper is better. If your polish is too thick (likely from being too old) put a couple of drops of nail polish remover in the bottle and shake it up to thin it out a bit.
Indie Polish is the art of making your own nail polish from scratch. Involving a base and micas, colorants glitters etc.Yesterday I did both.I had ordered supplies a few weeks ago to make 'new' nail polishes and my plan was (if all went well), I would eventually add a line of nailpolish to Soap Planet.Everything went well. It went really well. But I realized in my 'mad scientist' glory, my joy comes in experimentation, in creating unique 'one-of-a-kind' blends. When purchasing a product, most people want the option to re-order what they love at a later date. I have no trouble doing that with my soap products but I realized I would not enjoy doing that with the nail polish...not the coloured polish anyways.I may make up clear top coat glitter and shape embeds to sell but as for the rest of it, I am going to be making up kits to sell so people can create their own polish. I already have all of the supplies! I will also be offering a workshop in the future where you can learn to Franken with your existing polishes as well as learn how to create brand new ones. If you are interested in that leave a note in the comments section. I hope to do this at the centre in the new space and possible beforehand. It can get messy though, and we are working with chemicals to a degree, so depending on demand I may just teach it out of my house.
Here is a polish I made yesterday. Blue base and glitter topping. My photos are not the best(I used my phone) The wonderful thing about the glitter toppings are they look amazing on any base coat. This glitter topping has blue, silver, and a bit of black glitter.