Golder’s Green Franken

Here’s a franken from a while back that I wanted to show you. It’s MAC Golder’s Green pigment mixed in with clear nail polish. Not very autumnal, but I’ve been experiementing with pigments lately and this one I liked.

I use pigments from various sources to make frankens, and I’ve warned people before: Don’t use artist’s pigments for frankening! A lot of them are toxic. They look the same as loose eyeshadows or mineral makeup, but are intended to be used as artist’s paints. Cadmium, ultramarine and a lot of other pigments are very toxic.  So be safe, and stick to cosmetic-use pigments. Anything intended for use on the body should be OK on your nails.  You can also mix powder eyeshadow with clear polish- just use an eyeshadow brush to make a little pile of eyeshadow on a palette (I use a silicone mini muffin tin) and add some clear polish little by little until you have the opacity and color you want.

This is a pea sized amount of MAC Golder’s Green with a small teaspoon of clear polish.

You can see the pigment on my hand. The finish was very smooth and nicely opaque after 2 coats.

There are quite a few companies making pigments and I’ll be doing some more with those, but MAC has been very smooth and doesn’t change color. I recommend buying a pigment sample rather than the full-sized jar because it will take a lifetime to finish.  Some third-party companies do sell MAC pigment samples. It’s probably frowned upon by MAC,  but until they sell samples themselves, I think it’s a good alternative to buying the $20 jar.