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Tuesday, May 10, 2011

Franken: Twilight Violet

Here's something I tried for the first time which went much better than water marbling: frankening with eye shadow. In this case, some ancient L'Oreal that I haven't worn on my face in years but couldn't part with for sentimental reasons. I wore a lot of L'Oreal makeup in the 80s, which was a good decade for me, filled with lots of milestones: I graduated from high school and then college, got my first professional job, bought my first new car, and got married. (Mr. Karen and I almost bought our first house into the 80s, too; we closed on it in January of 1990.) These eyeshadows were part of a holiday set I bought during that time; the rectangle with the corners cut off shape was a distinctive part of the L'Oreal look back then. (What is that shape called? A lozenge? A biscuit? I'm a quilter; I should know this.)



The shadows are all frosty; I figured I'd end up with a shimmer polish no matter what, so I started with shimmery base: Confetti Tiara.



To keep it simple for my first go at this, I only used one color of eyeshadow, the medium purple.



I scraped shadow into a paper funnel I made with an ad flyer from the recycling bin and kept adding it to Tiara until I got a hazy purple shade I liked. Because Tiara is sheer, I expected the franken to be, too. Since I knew I wanted to see it layered, I put Borghese Mezzanotte Blue on one finger before I swatched the franken, which I dubbed Twilight Violet. I used four coats and still had visible nail line, but this is one of the cases I'm okay with it, since it wasn't too streaky going on. (The layered finger is two coats of the franken over the deep blue base.)





If I look really closely, I can see some little clumps of color where I didn't get the eyeshadow entirely mixed into the base polish; some more shaking (and maybe another ball) should fix that.



The shimmer flakes from Tiara really stand out on the dark base.



I barely made a dent in the polish in the pan, so I'm looking forward to a lot of frankening fun with these in the future.
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23 comments:

  1. Johanna (Paillette)May 10, 2011 at 10:55 AM

    Really gorgeous!!!

    I have a few that I've done out of shadows, it's a treat!

    :D

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  2. Jette FrommMay 10, 2011 at 11:04 AM

    I love it! The two sizes of shimmer is looking great together; I love the base you used :)

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  3. nail crazyMay 10, 2011 at 11:13 AM

    great idea :-D

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  4. Nail Dazzler Nails May 10, 2011 at 11:15 AM

    Very nice. I did one franken a while back but it did not turn out to be right as the glitter separated from the clear nail polish so i never tried it again:)

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  5. Jenny TroutMay 10, 2011 at 11:15 AM

    You really need to make your own nailpolishes and sell them on etsy or something. I would buy!

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  6. turtlechick12May 10, 2011 at 11:17 AM

    That is really nice and I love it over a darker color!

    I always fear the eyeshadow will not mix so I haven't tried this yet. I tried a franken with a MAC Pigment once and it kept separating and discouraged me. lol.

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  7. love4laqcuerMay 10, 2011 at 11:23 AM

    Wow this is stunning!!! I love the idea and the outcome!

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  8. Megan HarmeyerMay 10, 2011 at 11:24 AM

    Very pretty! I've used one pigment as a Franken and I love it but it doesn't stay mixed very well. Looks like you had better luck with yours.

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  9. UnknownMay 10, 2011 at 11:25 AM

    I love it!!
    So cool!

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  10. JaybirdMay 10, 2011 at 12:12 PM

    Great franken!

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  11. GailMay 10, 2011 at 4:53 PM

    What a cool idea!

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  12. LauraMay 10, 2011 at 4:56 PM

    That's really cool! I've never made a franken, I don't seem to have any colors that I want to part with to create something new, but frankening with eyeshadow is pretty nifty, I have to say! Since I don't use eyeshadow, I'll have to try this with some of of it that I have lying around. Thanks for the idea!

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  13. LesleyMay 10, 2011 at 5:57 PM

    I think this looks fabulous! so beautiful and feminine! love it!

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  14. Olivia FrescuraMay 10, 2011 at 6:01 PM

    pretty! do you find that it separates? because that's always happened when I attempt to mix shadow and polish.

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  15. AnonymousMay 10, 2011 at 6:41 PM

    I used some mica makeup samples once. I think I gave that franken away. It was an amazing sea green polish. This one you made is so pretty!

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  16. NgelicMay 10, 2011 at 6:50 PM

    That's one pretty franken!
    Umm, I've tried shadow with mine before but the stuff ended up all settling to the bottom.... is it meant to do that?

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  17. Recalcitrant NailsMay 10, 2011 at 7:41 PM

    Excellent franken. I love it layered!

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  18. Lindsay H.May 10, 2011 at 7:53 PM

    When I tried that, the shadow separated so badly that it was unusable. Your's looks pretty!

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  19. BregjeMay 11, 2011 at 5:23 AM

    What a sweet franken :) Old eyeshadow, here I come!

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  20. KarenDMay 11, 2011 at 6:49 AM

    Thanks, everyone!

    As far as pigment/shadow/glitter separating and settling to the bottom of frankens, I'm far from an expert, but the research I've done says the key to avoiding that is is using a base that's got a suspension agent in it. So for my glitter frankens, I start with a polish that's already got glitter in it, for shimmers, a polish that's got shimmery bits already dispersed. I understand that TKB Trading sells franken polish bases but I haven't tried them since I'm doing fine using readily available regular polishes as my bases.

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  21. DanielleMay 11, 2011 at 7:33 AM

    Very pretty! I like it layered, I wonder what it would look like over other coloured bases.

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  22. GemxMay 11, 2011 at 9:10 AM

    Such a great idea! This colour is really pretty, it turned out really well! I bet you could make some amazing polish colours with the Illamasqua pigments :) xx

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  23. loodie loodie loodieMay 12, 2011 at 9:44 AM

    Amazing, nice job!

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Thank you for reading and commenting! I greatly appreciate knowing I'm not just talking to myself here. :) I'm moderating most comments now due to the spate of spammers who claim to be looking for sexy times.