Karen's First Polish Convention

If you've seen my Instagram over the last couple of days, you know I've been in Toronto for the inaugural Indie Expo Canada (IEC). Ever since Pam of Girly Bits fame announced the idea, I wanted to go. I like indie polish (well, all polish really, as you know), and I like Pam, and I like Toronto, so I bought a VIP ticket when they went on sale even though at that point I wasn't sure I'd be able to make the trip from Idaho. Obviously, it turned out that I was able to, making this weekend a feature of another long road trip.

I left home the Monday before Memorial Day, drove to my mother-in-law's house in Illinois over three days, then spent about a week in the Land of Lincoln, including a craft conference over the holiday weekend. The night before I was to depart for Canada, I did my nails, choosing a shade from the small selection of polishes I'd brought with me. Finger Paints DIY Diva is a summery orchid with blue shimmer, very pretty and very well coordinated with the outfits I planned to wear at IEC. Unfortunately the polish in the bottle I got was thick and goopy, so I had to thin it despite it being a recent purchase and never used before. It also really didn't get along with the first topcoat I tried on it, wrinkling up to the point that I had to take it all off and start over (a smarter and/or less stubborn person might have decided to switch to another color at this point). It did better with the second topcoat I tried (Diamond Dry) but still wasn't leveled as well as I'd like, so I added a layer of Sally Hansen Diamond Flash the next morning, and still wasn't happy, so put China Glaze Fairy Dust over the top the morning after that, my first full day in Canada. Here's a shot in natural light (in my car, which is where I added the Fairy Dust):



And here's the proof that my manicures don't always work out: attempt number one with the incompatible topcoat (in weird light at my MIL's house):



My IEC experience started with a polish making workshop on Saturday morning. Actually, it started a bit before that when Melanie and I took turns trying to get the pay station in the parking ramp to take our money. It didn't like her card, then it didn't like my card, then it did deign to take her other card, and I found enough change in the plastic bag of Canadian cash that Mr. Karen gave me to cover the fee. Then we were both able to go upstairs and take our places in the conference room for three hours of fun with suspension base and colorant and shimmer and glitter and flakies and such.

I had some inkling what we'd be doing, since I was fortunate to have done the workshop at Pam's studio a few years back, so I came in with the idea to make a polish inspired by the woods that surround me in Idaho, and pretty much managed to make that vision a reality with Lost in the Forest, a green jelly glitter topper that was my first creation at the workshop.



I couldn't wait to use it, so I put a coat of Lost in the Forest over my existing mani, even though I wouldn't usually put green over orchid. It didn't look too bad.



My second polish was inspired by a pen that Melissa loaned me that morning.



I had to try that one, too, but limited myself to an accent nail of the newly named Flair Purple.



After I finished my second polish, there was still a fair bit of time left, so I decided to use the leftovers in my mixing cup to make a bonus color, adding random stuff as I walked around the room looking at what other ladies were doing. Thus Bonus Flakes was born. There were leftovers from this, too, but no more time to keep creating.



After polish making, I had lunch with mrsrexy, then we returned to the hotel for afternoon seminars on blogging and marketing, after which we strolled around the city for a bit and continued to catch up with each other.





I ended the day back at my hotel tired and happy.



I wasn't too tired to do a new manicure for the main event on Sunday. I used Essence When Tomorrow Comes (taupe creme) and Chrome Paradise (charcoal duochrome shimmer) as a base for Bonus Flakes.









Sunday I donned my nail polish print skirt and headed downtown. I allowed myself plenty of time to deal with the effects of a freeway closure between my hotel and the host hotel, so was feeling pretty good when I pulled into the parking garage ahead of schedule. That feeling went away quickly when I realized I'd left my Canadian cash back in my room; fortunately the garage was attended so I could pay with my card that way. Digging around in my purse, I later found the coins I'd intentionally gotten the night before to pay for parking, but that wasn't going to buy any polish. Ah well, that's why we have Paypal and credit cards.



Check-in went smoothly and soon I was sitting in a comfy chair going through the pretties in the VIP bag. Jj happened to sit down nearby and we ended up chatting for a while and even did an impromptu swap of one shade of Fiendish Fancies for another since we each liked the color the other got better than the one in our own bag. Then we lined up to get into the ballroom and it was off the races. I hadn't done any planning as far as making a wish list or even studying the layout, so I just wandered from table to table in no particular pattern, picking up things that looked most interesting and putting many of them down again because my retirement budget is a thing. A thing that I stretched rather a bit as the day went on. Maybe I'll do a haul post at some point; that might be frightening (or impressive, depending on your perspective).

In addition to the shopping, there were tutorial sessions. I signed up for two: Advanced Stamping with mrsrexy (I decided since I'd graduated from the turtlechick school of stamping, I could be advanced) and Nail Art with Candace and Katherine. They packed a lot into these short sessions, and I learned some things you may see show up here on the blog before long. There was also a panel discussion in there somewhere, but I didn't see much of that as I needed to step out and have a snack lest my blood sugar do bad things. I unfortunately can't blame blood sugar on the two most embarrassing parts of my day: knocking over a cup of water during the nail art tutorial (not just into my lap but into that of the woman next to me) and flashing my underwear for an unknown number of attendees when I failed to notice my skirt getting caught up under my tote bag when I bent over to look at polish. Ooops.

All in all, it was a fun time and I hope I can return for future IECs. Perhaps by then I can figure out how to have more energy so I can go out and socialize at night instead of crashing in my room. Or perhaps I'll learn how to drink espresso. Time will tell.

Throwback Thursday

Today I harken back to a simpler time in the nail polish world, before there were eleventy million indie brands, a time when if you wanted an exclusive shade, you made it yourself from the materials available to you. You frankened (a la Frankenstein's monster, constructed from disparate parts). Recently I dusted off my frankening hat and mixed enough of a flakie polish to fill two bottles, one for me and one for a very close friend in Michigan I don't get to see nearly enough of now that I'm off in Idaho. I call her Miss Nikki.



My two main ingredients were Fresh Paint Sugar Crush and Cover Girl Boundless Color Pink Twinkle, with just enough Revlon Lunar and Wet 'n' Wild Black Creme to darken the base a bit.

I'd never gotten around to trying the polishes I'd gotten which purported to be Pantone's color of last year, Marsala, so I pulled those out to make a base for Miss Nikki. Top to bottom: Essence The Gel My Love Diary, Studio M Marsala Shimmer, Studio M Marsala Creme, and Essence My My Love Diary (again). All were two coats. Which one is the closest to what Pantone had in mind, I've no idea.



Then I topped the marsalas with one coat of Miss Nikki and clear top coat.



Of course I had to give the flakies a chance to really show their stuff, so I donned a black creme base, then one coat of Miss Nikki plus clear topcoat. Hello, green and gold and orange.





I also tried Miss Nikki over a red base, Orly Scandal.





I'm happy with how this turned out. Granted, the effect is not dramatically different than Sugar Crush alone, but I like knowing that my friend and I are the only two people who have this exact polish. And she'd never tried flakies before, so it was extra special.

Girly Bits Customs and Coming Attractions

On Friday in my textured polishes post to wrap up the week, I shared a Girly Bits polish from the collection that just opened for pre-order. Today I have another two colors from that collection, but first, I want to share the two custom mixes I did during the polish making workshop, Party at Pam's and Unexpected Brown.



Party at Pam's is my glitterbomb. Near as I can recall and piece together from my photos, I put these glitters in it: purple 1mm, light purple hex .375mm, purple holo .375 and .2mm, teal holo .375mm, lime holo .8 and .2mm, silver less than .1mm. As for the proportions, I wanted the purple to dominate, so I used more of those glitters. The lime was my accent color, so I used the least of that.



Party at Pam's has a clear base and I meant it to be a layering polish, but I did swatch it on its own just to see what that would look like. This is three coats of Party at Pam's on its own, with no topcoat so i could see how bumpy it would be (answer: somewhat). The accent nail is Party at Pam's in a jelly sandwich with L'Oreal Berry Nice (two thick coats of the L'Oreal, one of Party, one more of the L'Oreal). I loved how it looked in the sandwich, I must say.



Here's how Party at Pam's looks over L'Oreal Royalty Reinvented (accent nail) and Sinful Colors Mesmerize (with topcoat this time).



Same combination outside in the sun:



And outside in the shade:



I also tried Party at Pam's over green; here it is on top of China Glaze Def Defying (accent nail) and Nuance Prickly Pear, again with topcoat, again in the shade:



Overall, I'm pretty happy with Party at Pam's but I think I may have overdone it with the eensy weensy silver holo glitter, as in some lighting conditions, all that silver distracts from the colored glitter.

Whereas Party at Pam's is pretty close to what I imagined beforehand that I'd want to make if I had access to a fully stocked polish making studio, my second creation was inspired by things I saw that day, namely a packet of pretty bronze glitter on the table and the other ladies working with colored bases. I'd gone multi-colored with my first creation, so I wanted to keep this one more monochromatic—yet it still ended up having a touch of purple in it, because I do love my purple. Here's Unexpected Brown, so named because brown was not at all what I thought I'd end up making before our workshop started.



To the original bronze .625mm glitter that caught my eye, I added .1mm glitter in dark brown and gold, .2mm in gold, 1.5mm in brown, .375mm in maroon, and some violet shimmer pigment. I also tinted the base with green and red (to make brown) and black (to darken the brown). This wheel shows the progression from left to right as I started with a very light tinted base and went darker, then tweaked to go less red and more brown. Last tip on the right was a test to see if I could build this to opaque in reasonable number of coats.



Here's Unexpected Brown at three coats plus topcoat; it's definitely jelly-esque as the glitter does show nicely, but it's also opaque enough that I consider three coats full coverage.



In low light (and sunlight, though I didn't get any decent photos of that), Unexpected Brown gets a sort of polka dot look to it, as the larger dark glitters pop from the lighter base color.



As I was swatching, Unexpected Brown was reminding me of some other polish but I couldn't think of which one exactly; finally I decided it was Oopsie Daisies Ganache (scroll down in that post); it's the same brown jelly base with brown glitter idea, though Ganache has a different glitter mix and no violet pigment.

Unexpected Brown is sheer enough that it can be layered, too; I tried it over Revlon Top Speed Seduction (left unlayered on my accent nail). The darker glitters blend into the base color, leaving the lighter glitters and the purple pigment to take center stage.



Enough about me and my creations, let's look at some polishes created by someone who really knows what she's doing. First up is Girly Bits The Power of Love, from the 80s Girl Bands collection that opened for preorder at noon today. (Since the first song that pops in my head when I hear "The Power of Love" and 80s is Huey Lewis and the News, who were not girls, I had to read the lyrics quoted on the website to figure out this is referencing Jennifer Rush.) This was one of the many bottles I bought after the workshop. It's a warm lilac with shimmer, holo shimmer, and small and large teal and silver holo glitter.



I used three coats of The Power of Love plus topcoat for my swatch.





In the sun, the shimmer and holo really shine:



Finally today I have another 80s Girl Bands color, Supersonic, which Pam kindly gave me for review as a gift of my choice with purchase. This is a neon yellow green jelly with gold and blue shimmer and blue flecks. I chose this one because I'd picked it up and put it down multiple times while deciding what to buy; it's so bright and I don't have anything like it, yet I wondered how much I'd wear it since neon green is not a staple in my wardrobe.



If you want just a very bright look, you can wear Supersonic on its own at three coats; there might be a little visible nail line but the color is so eye catching I don't think anyone will notice. If you want a crazy eye popping bright look, layer two coats over white, as I did on my accent nail.





Supersonic shimmering in the sunshine:



All 10 colors in the 80s Girl Band collection are available for pre-order now on the Girly Bits website for $10 a bottle (I think the regular price will be $11.50 after the pre-order ends on June 6th, but I could be wrong about that). Looking at that page, I see a couple more I wish I'd brought home with me, so you may see those swatched here later this summer if I succumb to temptation as I so often do.

The Other Two Frankens by Beanie

I couldn't swatch only two of the frankens I won from My Blue Lacquer, so today I have the remaining two, completing the set that started with Las Vegas Watermelon and continued with Blue Sangwich. Now, because I have a lazy streak, I did swatch the last two together, using Purple Nerple with Are You Yellow-ous? as an accent nail. I used four coats of each.

Purple Nerple has different sizes of holo glitter and some small purple glitter and some even smaller silver glitter. It's like all my favorite things in one polish. I really want to experiment with layering this one. Next time I will have to spend enough time to coax some of the really big hex glitters out of the bottle.





Yellows can be so tricky, so it was a nice discovery when Are You Yellow-ous? applied well and looked good. Maybe there's a touch of green in there that makes it work for me; I'm not sure. I do know that Beanie made great color choices when adding the glitter to this; they all go together so nicely. (Next time I will get some of those stars out. If I'm not feeling too lazy, that is.)





Another thing I know is that it's hard to hold two bottles at one time.



I hope Beanie comes back to her blog soon with more frankens, because this batch is quite good.

UPDATE 28-Nov-2011: Beanie has now got these glitter frankens on offer in her blog sale. I swatched the other colors here and here.

Blue Sangwich and Glitter in the Air

Late entry today because I was fighting with getting my photos uploaded. I was about to give in and just give up control and do them through Blogger but finally used clues in an e-mail I got from my hosting company to figure out a tweak to my FTP setup that worked and here I am.

When I posted the frankens from Beanies and swatched the pink one last week, a lot of people commented that they'd like to see the blue one, Blue Sangwich. So here it is, three coats of it (no top coat):





Multi glitters in a colored base always make me think of Deborah Lippmann. Beanie's Blue Sangwich is a blue cousin to Lippman's Candy Shop, but I don't have Candy Shop (yet, anyway), so I pulled out Glitter in the Air to sample instead. This is four coats, no top coat:







And here are the two together:





I think you can tell which is which without me telling you. Blue Sangwich is more of a fun party, with lots of colors flitting about, while Glitter in the Air is a more quiet gathering.

UPDATE 28-Nov-2011: Beanie has now got these glitter frankens on offer in her blog sale. I swatched the other colors here and here.