My nail polish hiatus is primarily because .... I simply didn't need it. I have more than a generous supply. Reds, pinks, purples, metallics - from the nude to jet black. But with so much inspiration, I couldn't help but break out the colors and get creative.
There have been a fair number of new trends in nail art lately - swirled designs achieved by magnets and special polish, ombre (that you have to create yourself with patience), stickers (including the whole nail) and jewelry appliances. The one that struck my interest was matte nails. Remember back to middle school when you were bored in a certain class and colored on your nails with markers or highlighters Matte polish creates a similar effect.
I wasn't finding any matte polish in the stores so this pin to create your own caught my eye.
This pin on the original web site came from a collection of tips, and this particular tip was found on a different site all together. In order to make your own matte nail polish, you simply mix clear nail polish with powder eye shadow. Just like that - any shade without an extra expense. Talk about coordinating! This tip worked - by mixing eye shadow and clear polish/top coat together the result was a matte polish.
However, I wouldn't recommend it. First, to test it I initially mixed on a paper plate. After I discovered it worked, for my second shade, I used an old eye shadow container lid. Storage is in issue. I suppose if you're doing one color as a one shot deal there's no problem. Come Thursday I had I chip and I wanted to keep the color the same, so I had to remix. I just wasn't properly stocked to store the polish - even enough for re-touches for any length of time.
Second, It takes a lot of clear polish to mix properly and it dries quickly --- and this wasn't even a speedy dry formula! I never really mastered the ratio and I always had excess, wasting both the clear polish and the shadow. I even tried mixing the shadow directly in the bottle of clear polish. This just glopped up the brush and made it hard as cement.
After several tries I gave up, the technique works beautifully, but just wasn't the savvy savings tip I had hoped it could be.
Months later I came across a pin suggesting that I could create matte top coat using cornstarch and clear nail polish. Matte Clear Finish - (Credit: indulgy.com)
This technique, I would argue, did not work as expected. I had all the same problems with rations, gloppy brushes and sticky receptacles. Initially it gave the undercoat a matte finish, but as it dried it gained a slight gloss. I've since bought a matte top coat, which works well, and it leaves nails with a satin finish that is much more matte than the semi-gloss of the cornstarch trick.
My recommendation is if you have patience and don't mind wasting product, go for DIY. Otherwise just buy matte from the bottle and skip the eye shadow, cornstarch and whatever trick they come up with next.
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