Friday, September 30, 2011

Franken 1: Rumpelstiltskin




I really wanted a pastel-neon green nail polish (I was really lusting after this polish), but I couldn't find one...so I decided to try to make it myself.




The name came from the short story by the Brothers Grimm. You know the end of the story, where Rumpelstitskin is jumping up and down is consternation from being found out? I thought this color described that emotion well - bright and green (since green seems to always equal envy with nail polish naming...how many green polishes have you seen with the name Green With Envy?).



Another great use for acetone besides removing nail polish? When removing sticky labels, the left-over gunk stuck to the bottle can be removed with acetone. This is a method I used to clean up the old nail polish bottle I was using for this franken. It worked out quite well.

I added the labels to the bottle using blank adhesive mailing labels that I sent through the printer and then cut out to fit the bottle.



For this franken, I emptied an old Top Coat bottle and filled it with about 20 drops of Island Girl Neon Green, one third of the bottle of SinfulColors Neon Melon, one sixth of the bottle of Nailene's French Manicure White (what was left of the bottle), about 20 drops of Santee Neon Green, and 15 drops of Wet and Wild White.



This is two coats with a top coat. It was opaque in two coats, but a little thick.



This green shade will work quite well for the coming Halloween, or even in Spring for St. Patrick's Day.



So what do you think? Would you wear this color?

If you haven't tried frankening yet (the mixing of old/bought nail polish to make a new nail polish shade), I definitely recommend it! For my first frankening experiment, this was quite easy.

A few helpful tips for frankening:

A clean space is helpful for setting up to mix your franken. I simply opened the empty bottle and the polish bottle I was pouring from and would put the lip of one against the other to combine them. Also, you can reuse those tiny ball bearings from old nail polish by pouring out what is left of the nail polish onto foil or a paper plate (something disposable), until the balls in the old bottle fall out. Then you can rinse them off with a little acetone, wait for them to dry, and add them to your franken for mixing!

I hope you enjoyed this post on my first frankenpolish. I'd love to hear your thoughts on frankening, or if you have any tips or tricks you found helpful when making your own frankenpolish!