Welcome to Sylvia and Katie's super delicious, awesome,
sparklelicious, yummy-in-my-tummy, mega fantastic informational site
for NAIL POLISH!!!
METALLIC VS. PASTEL: THE ETERNAL DICHOTOMY
Metallic nail polish is your straight-from-the-bottle, wet looking,
everyday nail polish. Pastel nail polish is romantic, matte, warm and
fuzzy cotton candy-like nail polish.
Metallic and the Extreme Possibilities
'I wrapped my hand in plastic just to try to look good.' -REM
Well, if you want to do it the easy way, you can just buy metallic nail
polish as is. If you're a spineless, imaginationless, right-brain-using loser
you can apply it straight from the bottle and support the nail polish
establishment's evil plan to control nail color everywhere. Oh, yes, Big
Brother is watching! But if you understand the true spirit of nail polish,
you'll want to make your own. Here's how:
~~~~~For that extra shiny sheer look, mix bottled nail polish with clear.
Extravagent, yet classy, this look of tinted celophane is slightly daring,
but not risque enough to offend any adults/bosses who may control your
life.
~~~~~For those whose weekly budget is devoted to nail polish (the true
believers) splurge on cool irridescent nail polish that changes color in
different lights (in the bottle it looks white with a blue or pink sheen).
This confuses morons who will spend hours pretending not to be staring
at your nails, all the while trying to figure out what color they really are.
~~~~~For something really great, combine the two. Put on a couple of
layers of a bright/dark metallic colour (blue and purple are good) and put
a thin layer of the irridescent stuff. You'll get a gleaming, shimmering
violet or light blue that changes shades when you tilt your hand in the
light.
Fuzzy Bunny Pastel Nailpolish
While many among us believe that pastel nailpolish is for wimps, it
does have its place in the greater scheme of things. These colours are
softer and less shiny, and thus better suited for the workplace, or any
situation where you may have to conform to the expectations of the less-enlightenned among us. If you wore Barbie-pink nail-polish your entire life and are trying to ease your way into the late twentieth century, pastel might be the way to go.
~~~~~You can buy pastel nail-polish in stores, in fact the powers that be
are hyping it as the cool new look for Summer, if you want to trust
*them*. They seem to be marketting it towards the thirtyish crowd,
which means that it's hideously expensive (3 dollars or more a
bottle) and the colours tend to be subdued, not to mention ugly. If you
don't want to be gouged and used as a corporate puppet, make your own.
~~~~~The way to get pastel is to take a bright or dark metallic colour
and mix it with white. Blue will give you baby-blue, purple will give you
lilac, green will give you mint. You can't just layer the white over the
colour, like you would if you were going for the irridescent look, because
the white is opaque. BEWARE of buying white nailpolish; many bottles
that look white might actually be irridescent or shiny pearl. What you
want is a nice, solid white, as un-shiny as possible. DON'T buy French-
tip white by mistake, it's the right colour but its globby and impossible to
use. See the section on buying nailpolish.
~~~~~Unless you’re going for a really bright, gum-ball-like pastell shade, Add the colour to the white, not the other way around. Start with a bottle of white nail-polish about two-thirds full- you'll probably have to dump the rest of the white down the drain unless you can find something to do with it, because the nail-polish companies have yet to do what they should do and sell empty nail-polish bottles for mixing. And if you've found a way to conveniently store excess nail-polish e-mail me now.
~~~~~The coloured nailpolish will pour into the white in a thin line and
the two won't mix on their own, so you have to pour a little colour and
then vigorously shake it until it's mixed enough that you can get an idea
of the colour you've created. If your hand doesn't start to hurt you're not
doing it right. When you think you're getting close to the desired
colour shake it up very thoroughly, very often, and test the colour on
your nails, not on paper or on the side of a bottle of nailpolish remover.
~~~~~After you've been staring at this same slowly-changing bottle of
nailpolish for twenty minutes or so it's hard to objectively tell if the
colour is right or not- and don't forget that you've been inhaling those
fumes for quite awhile now. It's good to have someone around
with similar tastes in nail-polish to yours to help you decide when to stop.
~~~~~Beware of Crazed Nailpolish Syndrome. It's something to do with
inhaling all those fumes, and the sense of power one gets from watching
their colour develop, the giddy rush of creation- suddenly you just want
to keep adding more and more. You can't stop. You just sit there, watching the thin line of colour pour into the virgin white, and you come out of it after a few minutes and realise that your nail-polish has become this gross murky colour because you went too far. Take a deep breath every few minutes and remind yourself that it's only nail-polish.
SPARKLES
What are sparkles?!?
You can buy sparkle nail polish; it'll look like normal nail polish, but
it's sparkly. It may come in clear nail polish or colored nail polish. You
can put it over some other color, or use it on it's own. If you put on five
or six layers of clear sparkly nail polish on, your fingers will look like
disco balls and will reflect enough light to signal the *MOTHER SHIP*
with! Beware: some people (stupid testosterone-overflowing, growth
retarted, X-chromosome challenged cro-magnons; ie. boys) can't deal
with this level of luminescense and will look at you weird, but just ignore
them, it's not like they know anything.
Buying Sparkle Nailpolish
A lot of boutiques sell really gorgeous sparkly nailpolish for five or six
dollars a bottle, but if you look around hard you might be able to find the
same stuff a lot cheaper. Here in Winnipeg I've found two brands called
Ethnique and Misslyn that make some truly awesome sparkle colours that you can get for a dollar a bottle. The only place I've been able to find them is the Dollar Store, and they're usually sold out of the good colours.
Types of Sparkles
There are two types of sparkles: fine and chunky. Chunky is definitely
better. Fine is for everyday use; it refracts just enough light to make you
feel special and to remind you that life is worth living every time you look
at your nails. Chunky, on the other hand, is for those extra special
occasions like grad dinner & dance, dumping your boyfriend and coming
out of the closet, or watching the X-Files. One thin layer will leave your
nails with iridescent metallic flecs. Four to six layers, and standing in the
right position relative to the sun (or any light source) can burn hole in
ANY material.
Do's and Don't's
Do roll the nail polish bottle in a horizontal position between your
palms as sparkles tend to settle. Don't shake or massive air bubbles will
form which will pop and spray all over your face and eyes, permanently
blinding you and preventing you from watching Scully and Mulder's
tension-filled autopsies.
Do apply a layer of clear top coat to your glitter-ball-like nails. If you
don't sparkles will rub off all over you (and whoever may be close to
you); and we do mean ALL over. And people will look at you like
you're a freak - I mean, more so than usual.
Do apply firm pressure with non-acetone nail polish remover and a
non-cotton make-up remover pad, as sparkles are stubborn little suckers
that don't wanna come off (kind of like the Flukeman).
Don't apply more than one coat of chunky sparkly clear nail polish
over some other base color, as that color will be totally obscured.
Don't buy a vial of sparkles from the craft store and mix them with
clear nail polish, expecting that $5 a bottle look. Oh, no my naive little
apprentices, the paint on the sparkles dissolves in the nail-polish. You will end up with a vile oatmeal colored rubbery blob, which appart from being visually unappealing will slowly eat away at bottle in which it was mixed.
MISCELLANEOUS NAIL-POLISH NOTES
Mixing Colours- Do's and Don't's
~~~~~Do add the darker colour to the lighter colour, not the other way
around. You'll need a lot more of the lighter than the darker.
~~~~~Do try it out on a palette (use any piece of disposable plastic)
before you waste a whole bottle of nail-polish on a colour that comes out
crappy. This will also help you get an idea of what ratio of colours you
need.
~~~~~Don't mix metallic with pastel, ever ever ever.
~~~~~Don't try to mix them in a container other than a nailpolish bottle.
You'll lose 90 percent of the nail-polish pouring it back into the bottle.
~~~~~Don't try to store your mixed colour in a container other than a
nail-polish bottle. You think it's air-tight, but it's not.
Clear Nailpolish
This is the one item that you apsolutely can't live without. It's a good
idea to put a layer of clear over any nail-polish, because this will help it
stay on longer. Definitely use clear nail-polish if you put on just a thin
coat of nailpoish (because this will chip off easily if left unprotected) or if
you're wearing sparkles.
~~~~~Clear nail-polish can also make your nails just a little bit shinier.
Not all clear polishes are equally shiny, and sometimes the cheaper ones
are better.
~~~~~Clear nail-polish is always good to have on hand for mixing- if
your pastel colour is coming out a little *too* solid-looking, if you want
to dilute your colour a bit, add some clear.
~~~~~More Extreme Possibilities: draw on your fingernail with a nice
shade on magic marker, or put on a sticker (like those little shiny hearts
or stars). Slap on a coat of clear and you have the most avant-garde nail
job on the planet.
~~~~~It also has a variety of non-nail-related uses; is the paint chipping
off of something? Give it a coat of clear. Need to stick something to
something else? Use clear. It's better than duct tape.
