Nail Polish: Not Just for Nails Anymore

A few weeks back, Cara from workshop760 asked if I'd like to review one of the pendants she makes. I've turned down a request from a jewelry company before since I didn't think it had much to do with the subject matter I try to focus on here, but this was different—Cara's jewelry is made with nail polish, so I said yes, of course! She asked me about my favorite color of polish and what size pendant I prefer, and a just little while after that a package arrived from her.

I had said "purple (followed by blue ...)" for my favorite color, and the round pendant made with Color Club Total Mystery that Cara sent fits the bill perfectly, as it's several shades of purple and blue all together. This round pendant came on a black beaded necklace (Cara makes those, too!) with what Googling tells me is a toggle clasp.





I unfortunately didn't manage to get any photos of me wearing this pendant, partly because I haven't developed good jewelry photo skills but mostly because I was very distracted by the suprise in Cara's package: a second pendant, this one made with the famous Clarins 230! Even in the indirect indoor light of the room where I first set eyes on it, this one glowed with a whole range of colors, from blue through green to orange.



This necklace has a lobster claw clasp and a length of chain at the other end so it can be worn shorter or longer. And I have worn it a lot in the short time I've had it; it actually came with me on both my recent trips so it's been seen almost coast to coast. Here is it in Idaho:





And here it is in Maryland:





Sometimes I had to take it off just so I could enjoy looking at it change colors in the sunshine:







In one of these taking it off to play incidents, I discovered that the black part on the back of the pendant didn't get along with my sunscreen. It felt a little gummy, like the chemicals in the sunscreen were reacting with the resin in the pendant, so I washed it with mild soap and rinsed and dried it and it's fine now. I used a different sunscreen after that when I wore these pendants and haven't had the problem again.

These pendants are my first nail polish jewelry but won't be my last. I've got my eye on a few things in Cara's shop, actually. Looking at her stock on hand right now, the pieces are priced from $18 to $55 depending on the size and polish used; she has a lot of shapes to choose from and takes requests for custom items, too.

The products in this entry were provided to me free for review purposes. The content of the entry was not dictated by the provider, and the products are mine to keep.