Homemade nail polish - Yay or Nay?

Hello my lovelies!

Have you ever wondered how hard or not hard it is to make your own polish? Create a colour that suits you and is one of a kind because you made it with the same hands that are now wearing it? Well, I wanted to know. So I found out.

1. Order supplies. You need

• Bottles,

• Suspension base (franken polish is highly recommended, it's free of all the evil chemicals and, most importantly, NOT tested on our furry friends),

• Mixing balls (minimum 1, if possible 2 per bottle - these have to be good quality as well otherwise they'll bleed into your colour),

• Colour and glitter. You need to make sure you use cosmetic grade pigments and non-bleed glitter, don't go for the cheapest, go for the one that comes with reviews and isn't shipped from half way across the world if you know what I mean. Look on etsy and ebay, look for things like nail polish pigments, pigment powder, mica powder, cosmetic grade pigments, non-bleed glitter etc. If you're wondering how much to buy, as a reference, I bought the 5g bags and there's plenty in there for at least 10 bottles, if not more. You don't need that much, honestly.

• If your colour and glitter comes in a little bag, you might want to transfer to a little cosmetics pot. Much easier to handle.

• You will need a small spoon, coffee stirrer, something to scoop up your pigments and put them into your bottles with and I'd also recommend getting a tiny funnel and a colour pallet mixer tray type thing.

Seems a lot, right? Nope, it's all tiny items, except for maybe the suspension base and the bottles, so it won't be as expensive as you think.

2. Get mixing!

You can make loads of polish from a few supplies as you can mix colours so even if you have 4-5 bags of colour and glitter, you can mix them all up and create new colours.

You might, for example, buy some nice bright red and a white and mix into a pink, use the red on it's own, the white can be mixed with other bright colours to make pastels, etc. 

I would also recommend, as with all other polishes, to put on a topcoat of Seche Vite as I find that this homemade stuff dries quite slowly otherwise.

Right. I started with a nice sparkly purple. Purple is my favourite colour so I just had to go with that first. I added some purple pigment, purple microglitter, hexagonal glitter, silver heart glitter and some teal glitter, for a bit of fun. 

The next one I did was an intense teal with silver holographic glitter, hearts and teal glitter. Came out beautifully, I absolutely love this one. 

 

Then I did some lighter options, mixing the purple and teal I bought with a shimmering white that almost made the polish look silver.

3. Shake it.

I have to say, once you figured out a good way to get the pigments/colours into the bottles without making your entire room (and self) look like a unicorn just crapped all over you - remember, funnel, tiny spoon and small pots come in handy as I've learned as I didn't buy them, poor in the suspension base and you're good to go. Don't get discouraged before you shake the polish for a good 2-3 minutes, it will look like the glitter is stuck at the bottom and the base not taking in the colour at first but keep shaking and this will change. Promise. 

4. My verdict: 

Definitely go for it. It's super easy once you figure out where to get the bits, what bits to get and how to get the bits in the bottle. Here are all my creations (so far) in all their glory :)

 
 It makes a fantastic Christmas present for girly friends, just imagine giving someone a one of a kind, homemade nail polish with a colour to match their personality. You'll be super appreciated, I'm sure. And it's not that expensive, the entire equipment (for ten bottles, suspension etc and the colours you see in the picture) cost me about GBP40 including delivery - that's EUR48 or USD65. Just make sure you find the right supplier and you'll be the happiest nailpolishmaker in your house :)

What do you think of my creations? Let me know! Also if you have any questions and would like some tips on where to buy your stuff, comment and I'll be in touch.

x<3

Ruth