A Squeeze of Citrus…

So with summer arriving, I decided to make some bright and zingy topper polishes to welcome it in. Say hello to WonderfulWolf’s newest collection – ‘A Squeeze of Citrus’! (p.s if the bottles are looking a little empty it’s because I’d already been using them before I photographed them, whoops)

I used polish making supplies from Cosmic Glows, Conni is very helpful and friendly and shipping is fast. With my last order I received a free sample of yellow tint, yaay. With this I was able to create two new colours by mixing it with the red and blue tints I had already purchased. So let me introduce them individually.

First up we have ‘Lemon Juice’. It’s sparkly and flaky, and I don’t know if it’s because it’s sitting on lemons but it looks sour and refreshing! Now obviously I’m not going to give you the exact formulas, but it’s made by mixing yellow tint and a (secret) colour of ‘Iridescent Dusk Flakes’, with the suspension base.

Secondly we have ‘Lime Twist’. This is a really fun and playful topper, it’s look ready for a party! I made this one by mixing blue tint, yellow tint, square glitter and suspension base. (The square glitter is available on Cosmic Glow’s Etsy store.)

Lastly here’s ‘Orange Peel’. It’s looks pretty thirst-quenching and is a little more mature compared to ‘Lime twist’ and ‘Lemon juice’. I created it by mixing red tint and yellow tint, and adding a hex glitter mix.

So which one is your favourite so far?

Next up, I’m going to show you how the actually look on top of polishes that match their tint. ‘Lemon Juice’ is pretty subtle (or rather boring?), but that’s due to the iridescence flakes meaning it displays either nothing, or some amazing colours – it all depends on the light and angle!

Here’s ‘Lime Twist’. I found it rather intersting that in the bottle the suspension base does look green but when applied to a bare nail it looks sort of orangey/yellow? Weird!

‘Orange Peel’ actually applies quite solidly. I reckon you could get away with wearing a few coats over no base colour. 
So have the swatches changed your mind? I think out of the three, I like ‘Lime Twist’ the best as it’s fun and fresh. Stay tuned, as on Wednesday I’ll be publishing a post featuring the polishes with matching nail art!

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A Mermaid’s Life swatches…

So I got a little impatient waiting on my nails to grow (I managed to break two so they’re a little stumpy), and decided to ‘swatch’ my handmade polishes today. I write swatch with the inverted commas because I’ve never really swatched before, and to be honest I didn’t nail it. Most swatch photos I’ve seen are photographed really well; the products look lush, the persons nails are long and there’s loads of shots at different angles. Unfortunately you’re getting my 2-dimensional, stumpy nails to look at.

(For those of you who don’t know, ‘A Mermaid’s Life‘ is my first trio set of handmade polishes. I wanted it to tell the life story of a Mermaid so it includes her tales, tears and dreams.)

First up we have ‘A Mermaid’s Tale’. This is a creme polish, made from mica powder; it dries super quick and has a sort of matte finish. On the left we have two coats and the right is one coat. I felt you could really get away with only one coat of this polish as it has a pretty good coverage. It’s super smooth and displays gold/green tones depending on the light and has a beautiful, natural shimmer. Even though the polishes can all be worn individually, I created this one with the idea of it being the base colour.

Secondly is the ‘A Mermaid’s Tears’. Some of her tales are a little sad I’m afraid. It’s made from  ‘ultra fine’ (0.008) hex glitters, it’s the glitter topper of the trio. But it can be worn by itself – it gives your nails a little bit of glittery interest without being overwhelming. It dries a little ‘gritty’ so does need top-coating and due to the glitter being in the iridescent category it can be pink/blue/green/purple/and so on which is okay for me, but could be misleading as in the bottle it looks true blue! (I got too carried away and painted all my nails with a second coat, so had to do a weird mashed together photo for a fair comparison. )

Finally, it’s the jelly of the trio – ‘A Mermaid’s Dream’, full of glittery goodness. I used a blue tint, teal stars and silver square glitter for this creation and personally it’s my favourite. One coat looks a little rubbish, but two coats is certainly wearable if you’re wanting to wear it as a solo polish. Even though this one does dry smooth (and relatively quickly actually) I would still recommend a top coat due to potential pokey-outy star points that could catch *shudders*. I felt my brush loaded fine with the square glitter but I did have to fish around for the stars, I suppose that could be due to their shape and size though – I’ve never used a polish with stars in it to compare it to though!

Can I just add how cool it looks with a matte top coat applied! This is two coats ‘A Mermaid’s Dream’ and one matte top-coat. You can really see the glitter and I much prefer it to the glossy look.

Still with me? You’ve probably just been looking at the picture right. As I previously said, they were designed as a trio for the option to layer together. In the following picture, I have layered the dreams on top of her tale on the left, just her tale in the middle, and then tears and tale to the right. I LOVE how the dreams and tale look together. What’s your favourite out the trio then?

I played with them further, but what I came up with will be revealed on Friday, mwahahaha. I will give you a slight peek though, what a tease… This is tale, tears, and then dream painted as an ombre effect.

A Mermaids Life…

So I can only now reveal what I’ve had up my sleeve for a few months – ‘A Mermaids Life’ giftbox set by WonderfulWolf. I made it as a Christmas gift for my boyfriends sister, hence why I had to keep it quite for a while as I didn’t want the surprise to be ruined.

I bought my polish making supplies from Connii at Cosmic Glows. She was super helpful at advising me what I needed and recommending products to use as I did feel a bit like a ‘deer caught in the headlights’. There are so many pretty glitters and tints in the shop that my mind went wild, but after a few days of looking through them, I decided to go for a blue/teal theme. That seems to be my default colour unfortunately.

So after a little bit of mixing and pottering about (glitter was everywhere for a while, don’t get me wrong Connii packages them up really well – it’s more to do with me being careless), I managed to come up with three polishes that look and work like a trio. The idea is that they can be layered, or worn individually – there is a jelly, a mica creme and a glitter topper.

For a while they were nameless, then I visited a shop in Edinburgh and found some beautiful shell purses which is when the idea struck me – they were going to be about a mermaid! When I came home and looked at them a little more, I thought the title for the trio should be ‘A Mermaids Life’ – her dreams, tales and tears, as well as her treasures which is where the little shell purse came in! I filled it with little ocean charms (from BornPrettyStore) to wear with the polishes. I think it’s so cute and feel that it all works so well together don’t you think?

Now that I had the polishes named and the treasures secured it was time to put the set together. I used a little gift-box that are also in the Cosmic Glows shop for holding the polishes. Up until now it totally hadn’t crossed my mind how I was going to label the bottles, and my end result is not the greatest (by this I really mean it ended up looking rather amateurish). I went for a pretty standard look – my logo on the front and the name of the polish on the bottom. Then I wrote a little piece for the back of the box explaining the nice bits; handmade, 5 free, cruelty free and vegan! I just wish my handwriting was neater or that I had the time to print the labels out…

I’d love to make this set again to firstly improve the package design and secondly to actually have a play with the polishes myself! I was only allowed to play about with the test mixes that I created on some tinfoil, so to have a go with the whole set would be really cool. Anyone else dabbled in polish making?

‘Drakon Pitanios’…

So ‘Drakon Pitanious’ was (according to wikipedia) a dragon-serpent who was turned to stone by the gods. Which made it the perfect name for my next Ciate Nail Lab creation, a concrete granite-esque mixture.

This is one coat of my ‘Drakon Pitanios’ over two coats of OPI ‘French Quarter for Your Thoughts’ and I think it looks great! It’s unlike any polish I already own so I’m really happy with it. It was created using the loose glitter ‘Nightfall’, some suspension base, and a few drops of Ciate ‘Pillowfight’. It’s been a while since I last created a polish and I had forgotten how exciting it was!

‘Kuraokami’…

So continuing the creations using my Ciate Nail Lab, the next polish is called ‘Kuraokami’. Of course the name of this polish has continued with my theme of being dragon related: ‘Kuraokami’ according to Wikipedia “is a legendary Japanese dragon and Shinto deity of rain and snow”. Hence why this polish is glittery and cool in temperature! (It was actually really hard to find a dragon for snow – plenty for sea, air, earth, etc but no snow?!)

The photo shows three coats of ‘Kuraokami’ over no base colour, as you can see it’s not quite opaque but I didn’t dare put on any more layers as it might have taken forever to dry.

‘Kuraokami’ was created by mixing two polishes – ‘Amazing Gracie’, a pinky white, and ‘Ferris Wheel’, a cool blue. As well as the bar glitter named ‘Galactic’ and a white glitter named ‘Daydream’.

‘Kuraokami’ Nail Polish

‘Kuraokami’ Components

‘Dragon Fire’…

So this is my third hand-made polish! It’s a fiery blend of reds and golds so of course had to be named ‘Dragon Fire’. I used ‘Mistress’ for the coloured base (red), the red glitter is ‘Ignite’, the gold glitter is ‘Pirouette’ and the gold hexagons are named ‘Bombshell’. This is only one coat, it’s rather dense and with such a strong red tint it doesn’t actually even need a base colour! It’s a shame because the photos just don’t show up how glitzy and rich this mix actually is!

‘Dragon Fire’

‘The Hydra’ Enhanced…

So earlier today I posted my second hand-made polish ‘The Hydra’ and I just wasn’t impressed with it – it felt a bit flat, bland and boring. So after sitting looking at it on my nails for a few hours it clicked to me how to make it maybe a little bit better. I added some ‘Crowd Surf’ a green glitter and boy has that changed the whole look! I actually like it now! So much better right? This is only two coats of ‘The Hydra’ over nude nails, compared to the old polishes three coats, and it doesn’t look as patchy either. However, it’s now super thirsty for top coat – probably because of so much glitter now, so it feels rough after one top coat but would probably be fine after two?….

The new ‘The Hydra’

‘The Hydra’…

So this is my second creation using the Ciate Nail Lab. I was a bit stuck as to what to do next if I’m being honest, I was so happy with ‘Dragon Scales’ I didn’t want the next one to be a fail. I don’t think I’ve quite nailed it this time (ha, how many times do nail bloggers hear that one). I don’t think it’s a very exciting mix, I have however cracked the mixing;

In one of the the empty bottles, intended for loose glitter mixes, I poured in the glitter first (no sticking to the sides, no clogging, etc) and then poured the suspension top coat in. This worked so much better – not as messy nor as frustrating as adding glitter to suspension. BUT! I think I can improve on it still…

At first I was going to name this one ‘Poseidon’ but I kind of liked the idea of sticking with a dragon theme (I love a theme, can’t resist it) and of course a ‘Hydra’ is “a serpent-like water monster with many heads”*. The polish consists of lots of ‘Splash’, the blue glitter, and ‘Prism’, the dark blue bar glitter, and then a teeny tiny pinch of ‘Nightfall’, a black glitter. Then to add a little colour to the suspension I put in more than a few drops of  ‘Power Dressing’. The photograph shows two coats of ‘The Hydra’ with no base colour – you can just see the blue tint. What do yous think of this one?
*According to Wikipedia.

 

The Hydra

The Hydra Mixing Components

The Hydra Pre-mixing