Thank you Lacquerheads of Oz for this inspiration! I stumbled upon their
pigment nails tutorial, and realized that I had actually tried a version of this before.
Years ago my coworker and I were strolling through the mall, possibly on our break but more likely we were "shopping on the clock". I know, I was such a rebel. We were checking out some eye shadows at a NS Minerals kiosk, not seriously intent on buying anything. That changed when the sales girl told us you could use the shadow to make your own nail polish. Oooooo, now that caught my attention. Suddenly I was looking at the colors in a whole new way. Lacking any actual instruction, I tried to apply the nail polish with just a clear coat, and it looked awful. There just wasn't enough color. That was probably over six years ago and I hadn't tried it again until now. I don't even like to use these as shadows. It's a good thing I have such an aversion to throwing anything away!
I started with a base color of Sephora by OPI Havana Dreams. I wanted to show it here so you could see the difference between the polish and the loose eye shadow pigments I used over it.
After three coats (I probably could have just done two), I applied my Out the Door top coat. While it was still wet I used my eye shadow brush to tap some of the medium blue over the nail. I let it dry, brushed off the excess, and repeated the process again with the white/blue color. I repeated the process for a third time with a little of the dark black/green color.
Unfortunately none of these eye shadows came with labels so I can't tell you what they're called! They were sold in stack-able sets of three.
I am so happy that I found how to make this technique work. This was loads of fun for me to do, because seriously it's so easy! Now, after all these years, the once "useless" eye shadows are no longer collecting dust.
You all should try this! Even if you don't like the look, do it just for the fun of it. Let me know if you do, I want to see pictures!
