Pigment Tutorial Part 2

This time, I’m going to show you how to fix an overly sheer polish, the power of fuschia pigment, how clumsy I am, and the ugliest baby-poop green polish ever. Yes, we have much to learn in this pigment tutorial.

I’ll start by showing  you how to fix a sheer polish. I used Sally Hansen Hi-Definition color in Blu, which is a lovely color, but required three to four coats to be opaque. (EDITED TO ADD: When I did this post, Sally Hansen was cruelty-free, then got resold to another company that tests on animals. Their testing/not testing status has flip-flopped so many times they’re now out of my polish stash).

So the trick is to use a pigment or eyeshadow that is as close to the color as possible. You’re aiming to add pigment and make the color more dense. You will need a tiny spoon to get the pigment in your silicone baking cup, or if you’re using pressed eyeshadow, you need an eyeshadow brush. I’ll be using pressed eyeshadow for the first couple parts of this tutorial.

I have a giant set of 120 eyeshadows that I bought and will probably never wear. I’m worried that they’re chock full of lead (I bought them from a Chinese website) but so far, so good. I chose a color that was close to the original polish- a frosty medium blue.

Use your eyeshadow brush to loosen the eyeshadow and direct it into your baking cup. Don’t forget to clean off your brush afterwards for next time, otherwise enough color may remain in the bristles to give you a surprise the next time you use it! At the very least it will make your colors muddy over time.

Make sure you have a bottle of clear polish handy. You will use the brush from this bottle to mix up the pigment and polish. You can use it over and over again and replace it when the clear polish gets really dirty.  Also make sure your nails have base coat if you use and they’re ready for polish. The pigment-mixed polishes tend to dry quickly and can be a little hard to handle, so make sure you’re ready to polish quickly.

Drop the polish in the pigment or pour it in, but don’t get the original polish brush in the pigment. It will permanently contaminate your polish. That’s what the brush from the bottle of clear polish is for- mix with that!

A dusting of pigment and the polish puddle. Note how similar the colors look- I just wanted to make the polish less sheer, not change the color.

Mix ’em together and then paint your nails!

The pigment polish is slightly too dark to be a perfect match, but it was opaque in two coats (upper). The original Blu is on the bottom and is a lovely color but took 4 coats to be opaque. If I was really deranged, I could add further pigment (white pearl and a touch of green shimmer)  to the pigmented polish to get the color closer. But I’m happy with the way it turned out.

Let’s see what happens when we add a tiny touch of fuschia pigment to the original Blu. This eyeshadow is really opaque, so it won’t take much to drastically alter the color.

I used this bright fuschia- I am sure this is a color  I’ll never  be wearing on my eyes!

So, you can see there’s just a tiny dusting of fuschia in the baking cup- it’s just barely sprinkled in there.  I added the same amount of Blu as I did before. But check out what color the pigment changed the Blu to..

A nice royal purple!

Finally, I decided to give the yellow pigment from TKB Trading a try, hoping for a nice springy green. This one was doomed from the start- the dang bag split when I opened it and I got bright yellow pigment all over my pants.  Lesson:  Don’t wear good clothes when working with pigment.

So here’s what I mixed:

…and I got lumpy baby poo green.

That’s not to say it’s the fault of the pigment. Some pigments are lumpier than others. It has more to do with the color and chemical composition of the pigment, not the brand or price. This TKB pigment was lumpy, but I’ve worked with other TKB products that are not lumpy. Fyrinnae has pigments that are smooth as silk while others make a nail that looks worse than Funky Chunky. MAC is pretty good all across the board and I’ve never experienced lumpiness with it but it’s expensive and the price is set to double soon, if not already.

I have a couple more pointers in mind for another tutorial as well, maybe involving glitter! I do have some fun nail art coming up, but let me know if there’s other things you want to know about pigment!