DIY Nail Polish Colors

I am on a nail polish kick this week and wanted to share a really cool trick I learned for making your own nail polish while performing my nightly research. First, I want to thank Afreen at Marafy for posting this. 

There are two methods, so you can choose whichever you like. The first option is for a one-time application and the second will be for those of you who wish to keep the color you have created. 

The best part about this technique is that it will only cost you price of a clear nail polish and an old eye shadow you don't use anymore!

You Will Need:

• Paperclip
• Eye shadow you don't mind destroying
• Clear nail polish (no top coats or base coats)
• OPTIONAL - small case for keeping color
• OPTIONAL - extra nail polish brush so you don't ruin your clear polish brush

Method 1 - One-Time Quick Use

1. While a loose powder would be most advantageous for this method, you can take a paperclip and scrape shadow out into a container or in a small mountain on piece of paper. I have a ton of extra contact cases because I get a new one with each saline purchase or optometrist appointment, so I use those as my containers. 
2. Start by dipping your nail polish brush into your clear nail polish.
3. Dip the nail polish soaked brush into your shadow color.
4. Apply it to your nails.
5. Voila, it is that simple. You may need to add multiple coats to ensure the color is thicker, and a top coat is a necessity. However, it is that easy and you can use any color you wish.

Method 2 - Multi-Use Method

Start by prepping your container. 

1. If you are using a loose powder, decide if you want to add your shadow to the nail polish bottle or you want to add the polish to the loose powder container. The difference here is that if you add the shadow to the polish, you no longer have a clear nail polish color. Also, if you have too much powder, you will run out of space within the bottle. While my choice would be to add my polish to the shadow, I would also highly consider using a separate container so you can keep adding a little powder or a little polish if your ratios are off. If you have a pressed shadow, you will want to use your paperclip to scrape shadow into a container or on a piece of paper to be used as a funnel should you want to add your shadow to your polish bottle.
2. Regardless of whether you are using a powder to polish or polish to powder method, you will want to ensure your polish is at a 4 or 5:1 ratio. In other words, your shadow will go a long way, but it is extremely important to ensure you have a lot more polish in the mix than shadow so that it will not be too gritty when it is applied.
3. Mix the new polish color until all particles are smooth and you can see that the mixture is more glossy than pure color. It will kind of look like the nail polish is floating above the color, but it actually isn't.
4. Then, apply as usual and add a top coat. 

Since I am not great at HTML, I have trouble getting my pictures to line up with steps when I use auto-number. So, here are some pictures of the process along with swatches of how it comes out. 

Sorry the pictures are kind ofdark, but this is what the quad looked like after I scraped out my color.  I used that paperclip to do it. 

This is what the colors looked like after I mixed it with the clear polish. You can see with the purple in the bottom right hand corner that the clear polish kind of has that effect where it looks like it is siting on top of the coor. 

Here is a swatch of all four colors. I put it over my Cottage Cheese NYX pencil for ease in getting it off, but also so you can see it better. If you make colors like my peach or even that light purple next to it, you may wish to add a white coat as a base first to ensure the color is really potent. It is up to you though.