DIY Nail Polish

Okay so I'm going through etsy, drooling through all of these indie polishes. Has anyone made their own? Can you recommend any sites or have any tips/tricks of your own? I'd love to try to just make some for mostly myself & friends & family. Anything I can DIY, I'm there!

I've seen a few different ways to do this:

#1:  take a cheap bottle of clear nail polish, dump some loose eyeshadow pigment in, and stir (most tutorials say to stir with a toothpick or something skinny that can get into the corners).  This makes a polish you can seal and keep, so it's better for a color you know you'll wear again and again.  I would try experimenting with some of the NYX pigments, as they're pretty inexpensive.

#2:  Paint your nails with clear polish.  Load up an eyeshadow blending brush with pigment, hold it over your nails, and tap til the entire surface is covered, picking up more pigment on the brush if you need to.  Allow it to dry for a few minutes, then gently brush/tap/blow the extra pigment off.  Seal it in with another coat of clear polish.  Once that's dry, you just have to wash your hands to get rid of the extra pigment on your nail beds.

#3:  Kind of the same as #2 only instead of a clear polish, paint on a color (say, black).  While it's still tacky/drying, place a tiny pile of pigment at the base of your nail (in another color.  We'll pretend it's silver).  Then, gently blow the pigment towards the tip of your nail, stopping wherever you want.  Wait a few minutes to let the polish dry, dust off the remaining pigment, and seal in with a clear coat.  

You can find a lot of tutorials by googling "nail polish eyeshadow pigment diy", and every single one of them had some variation in directions, so go out there and find the one that works for you!

FYI the #1 method makes a very matte nail polish color, a few coats of clear polish (not the one you mixed up) will make the color shiny again!  Good luck!  Post pics if you decide to do any of these!

Hey! I actually make my own nail polish.

I would not suggest using clear nail polish and eyeshadow only because some of the pigment might sink to the bottom. To get the best results, you should buy a nail suspension base, solvent resistant glitter (Don't buy the dollarstore stuff - they will sink/bleed/curl), and you can use eye shadow pigments then. You should also make sure you buy stainless steel balls so you can shake the bottle! /emoticons/[email protected] 2x" width="20" height="20" />

(removed shop link per TOS -magicalmom)

Sounds fiddly but I really want to try it. Will post pics if i'm successful /emoticons/[email protected] 2x" width="20" height="20" />

I have seen a blog somewhere I cant remember the site but it was a diy and not at the same time. They did recipes of mixing polishes to get a certain color. So you could always buy some dollar store polish dump out a cheap polish clean out the bottle and mix away. 

Thanks everyone for all of the ideas!

Someday soon when I have the money I am going to start making my own but I am planning on going pretty hard core into it buying the suspension base, pigments, glitters, the whole nine yards.  I tried making my own teal blue jelly which turned out decent, more of a Franken than actually making it.  I have been researching the possibility of doing my own individual polishes using glitters and pigments from Michaels but the problem is the glitters aren't solvent resistant so they will fade or dissolve.  Where I live there is nowhere to buy anything locally to try so I just have to save up the funds (and stop buying those Etsy treasures) and order all the supplies online.

Wasn't sure where to post this, but I thought it was brilliant! Glitter nail polish should be used as a 'tamper evident' seal on screws and ports - because the glitter is a random pattern that is very difficult to replicate if it's been tampered with. Awesome!

http://lifehacker.com/use-glitter-nail-polish-to-make-your-laptop-tamper-proo-1493599646