Pigments & Glitter for SOG polishes

[ferretkingdom]

I thought since there was no other place to post just pigment swatches, that I would create a new thread for them. We have a glitter swatch thread also, which is just for swatches of all the wonderful glitters out there in the world.

Feel free to post swatches off all your pigments and Mani's using a SOG with pigment added, as well as other information about pigments, what you like, where to find them, etc.

Places I like to shop for pigments:
Coastal Scents
DIY Cosmetics
The Conservatorie
TKB Trading
Blick Art Materials
And eBay of course.

Also, plain old makeup can be used. Find a favorite blush or eyeshadow and scrape a tiny amount into a blob of SOG on a piece of tinfoil and mix it up. I've even used my loose foundation powder (Bare Minerals) to mix up a nude color.

For pigments, I generally mix them into clear (Gelish Structure gel or Gelish Simple Sheer, since it's nearly colorless), but some have also patted them into the sticky layer. Pigments are a fine powder, not visible pieces like glitter is.

Here are some pics of my latest stuff from DIY Cosmetics. These are the Xirona pigments, which I believe are Dupes for the Travel To powders available from TKB trading.

Sadly because it is night time here, these pics don't really show the color change. I will try to get better pics in the sun soon.

Xirona Indian Summer
Xirona Magic Mauve
Xirona Volcanic Fire
Xirona Golden Sky
Xirona Kiwi Rose

Without flash:

With Flash:

 

[ferretkingdom]

Spectraflair is wonderful stuff. It's a holographic pigment powder meant for automotive uses though, so if you don't feel comfortable mixing it in a gel and putting it on your nails, DON'T. So far I have had no issues with it.

It comes in several grades, with the finest being 14 microns (in other words, TINY Particles!) and the coarsest being 35 microns. The finer grade (spectraflair 1500-14 or 1500-20) has a different look to it than the larger grade (1500-35). the coarse grade has a bit more sparkle to it, but I think the linear holo effect is a bit less sometimes.

It's sometimes elusive stuff. It's expensive as well. There's a few people who sell it online on ebay, ecrater, a blogger who sells it, and someone on a facebook group I think. It ranges in price, but usually seems to be about $15 and up for a 1 gram baggie.

Pigments will last you forever pretty much, LOL. At least the way I use them. I never mix up whole bottles. I only mix up what I need for a manicure, so when I use a pigment I'm using teeny tiny amounts, like the size of a grain of rice if even that much.

Spectraflair has a silvery color to it on it's own. It can be mixed with colors, but it does change the look of the color. If you mix in too much, it will just make the color look silvery gray. You get the best effect with it applied over dark base colors.

I think all my swatches here are with the fine grade (I have both 1500-20 and 1500-14 and they look the same, honestly). I'll have to get a pic of a swatch with the coarse grade.

Gelacquer Smokey Grey (a pot gel very pretty on it's own) mixed with spectraflair:

Spectraflair mixed with various colors:
From left to right: Mixed with clear, Mixed with black and applied over black base, Mixed with Gelish Up in the Blue (i used too much here, and it made it very gray), Mixed with Gelish Exhale

As you can see from this mani I did, as long as you don't use too much like I did in the one swatch above, it doesn't completely grey the color. This was a mani I did with Spectraflair and Gelish Up in the Blue

This one is Orly Gel FX Ruby mixed with the coarse grade spectraflair. You can definitely see the rainbow sparkle, but the linear effect isn't as great as with the finer grade.

 

[ferretkingdom]

Makeup as pigments works great too. I've used eyeshadows, blushes and loose makeup foundation powder that is mineral make up (like bare minerals, bare essentuals, mineral effects, etc.).

clear mixed with Hard Candy "sinful" eyeshadow and Supernail Silver Rush holo (a very fine glitter powder available at Sally Beauty).

The first two swatches on this wheel were done with L'Oreal "diva down" eyeshadow. You can see they are quite different. In the first one on the left I used more eyeshadow for the pigment, and added some of that same supernail glitter as the one above. The second one is no holo glitter and less pigment, so it's not as dark. You can totally customize with pigments!

NARS "Orgasm" blush mixed with clear on the left, and with Gelish Sheek White on the left.

Here is a mani I did with the NARS blush. I mixed it with clear for the nail bed color, and then did black tips.

This one is Artistic Color Gloss DeBlu with LA Splash "snowflake" eyeshadow scrubbed in on top instead of mixing it into something.

 

[ferretkingdom]

I have every color they have I think. At least I did at one point. LOL.

You can buy them individually at Blick Art Materials online. You can also buy them as series sets. They have 3 series, with 12 colors each, or they have a set of 32 colors. They can also be found on Amazon.com, eBay, and my local craft stores all have them (we have JoAnn's, Michaels, AC Moore and Hobby Lobby here).

They come in little easy to work with jars, and they are all easy to mix and work with. Again I usually mix them into clear, as all of these swatches are, but people have also scrubbed them into the tacky layer and topcoated and it works fine that way too. You can also mix more than one color into some clear and make a whole new color!

There are more swatches from different angles in my photos section in my signature. For some reason links on TPF don't seem to be working, so if you see a Bing error message just copy and paste the link into the address bar. it IS a good link. Or you can go to my blog and follow the link in the right sidebar.

Series 1:

Series 2:

Series 3:

Extras that were not part of any of the series'

 

[ferretkingdom]

There are TONS of potential candidates in the automotive market, if you aren't afraid of using that stuff in polish on your nails. Remember though, if you aren't comfortable doing that, please don't!

Look for things like "pearls" and always make sure if you are getting something it's in powder form and not already mixed into an auto painting liquid or basecoat.

This is a great way to get the color-shifting colors. Sadly, many of them are only available in liquid form, but I have found several that aren't.

Scour eBay for cheap pearl pigments. I pretty much only do the color-shifting ones, as I have all my other pigment color needs pretty well covered with my makeup pigments and Pearl EX powders.

There are also some liquid color drops. They are ones meant for coloring gel or acrylic. Don't try to use regular food coloring - it won't work as it has a water base for the color and it will not cure - the color will bead up and wipe right off even though the gel cures. It was an interesting experiment. LOL.

Artistic Color Drops are what I have, but there is another brand somewhere. I'll have to see if I can find it online again. I only have 1 color of the color drops, because I wanted a pale coral cream and couldn't find it, so I got the orange. I mixed a teeny tiny drop of it with white and got a color I liked. Mixed with clear, these color drops make a translucent Jelly color. Very cool!

Top here is Sheek White with the orange Artistic Color Drops
Bottom is a Chameleon Pearl that shifts green/blue/purple over a black base. It's from Sik Custom Paint and I got mine on eBay.

here is a mani I did with it the same way - mixed in clear and applied over black for a base. I had a terrible time really capturing the color shift, but it was gorgeous!

These color morphing powders I got from a blogger, who isn't selling it anymore due to difficulties in getting it. I believe they are KonFusion brand, which can be bought in larger quantities from The Coating Store. She may still have some left, at least at the time of me writing this, so PM me if you want to.

From left: emerald green to violet blue, copper red to green, green to gold.

The red-green and gold-green are swapped in this one.

 

[ferretkingdom]

These are my newest eBay finds, and are from Custom Creation Paints which is actually in the UK. These came a long way to get to me!

Unfortunately again it is nighttime here, so the color shift is hard to see. I'll try to get better pics of these when I have some time and some daylight. These pics really do not do them any justice at all!

On left is KonFusion Viola Fantasy (green-purple)
On right is Chroma Shift (aquamarine-blue-violet-red)

The chroma shift in the bag. The Konfusion just looks like white in the baggie so I didn't bother taking a picture

 

[ferretkingdom]

All of the TKB pigments here are mixed into clear as I normally do and swatched over a black base.

The Sparks! Collection

Left to right:
Zirconium Cluster (not part of Sparks! collection, but looked similar so I grouped it here)
Red Sparks
Purple Sparks
Aqua Sparks
Blue Sparks
Green Sparks
Noble Silver Sparks
Gold Sparks
Copper Sparks

Moondust Collection
These have very nice color-shift

Left to right:
Luna Blue
Crescent Crimson
Indu Rose
Lavender Luz
Aisha Gold

Star Brites collection
These have great color shift and look like glass-flecks

Left to right:
Miranda Star
Chekira Moon
Shanira Sun

Travel To collection
Dupes of the Xirona colors I posted above from what I understand.
They do color shift, but not as much as I had hoped.

From left to right:
Travel To Venus
Travel to Neptune
Travel to Jupiter
Travel to Pluto
Travel to Earth
Travel to Mercury
Travel to Mars

 

[AllBling]

These are my newest eBay finds, and are from Custom Creation Paints which is actually in the UK. These came a long way to get to me!

Ferret, I want to live in your pigment box. It's difficult to tell which products are dry pigments and which ones are already mixed. The Konfusion comes in mls so looks like it comes as a liquid. I wonder how many of the other ones that look like they are supplied as liquids are actually dry pigments? What sizes did you manage to buy? Did you have to ask specifically for sample sizes? I love the Prismatic too.

 

[PolishQueen]

Nice looks like you've swatched the three main series i planned on buying from TKB Trading though i am wondering how you got the sparkly finish. When i've seen these pigments made up, not counting the Sparks and Bites they have had a smooth texture. Hmm and as for the coarse grade spectaflair, I thnk that when you used it maybe you didn't use enough to get the linear effect, I have it aswell though i haven't used it much, i need to order some basic supplies but when i did use it i got a nice linear effect. Did you use regular clear base or did you use luster base, which suspends the pigment?

One other thing i've wondered have you used some of these pigments as eyeshadow? Obviously i'm not refering to the ones used in the car paint but the pigments you've bought from TKB trading for example.

 

[ferretkingdom]

Ferret, I want to live in your pigment box. It's difficult to tell which products are dry pigments and which ones are already mixed. The Konfusion comes in mls so looks like it comes as a liquid. I wonder how many of the other ones that look like they are supplied as liquids are actually dry pigments? What sizes did you manage to buy? Did you have to ask specifically for sample sizes? I love the Prismatic too.

Apparently many of them are available in powder form. I ordered the Chroma flair on ebay and when i got it the Konfusion was was in the package with it. I won't look a gift horse in the mouth! LOL.

I had sent them an email from their website asking which were available in powder. He said the ones that are sold as liquids he mixes, so he has them all in powder form. I haven't gotten into huge details about minimum quantities and such, as I think the overseas shipping will kill me most likely, LOL. I want ALL of them! When I have money I'll be able to order though. He said to look at the Konfusion colors and the Optical Illusions ones, as those for sure I can get from them in powder form.

Nice looks like you've swatched the three main series i planned on buying from TKB Trading though i am wondering how you got the sparkly finish. When i've seen these pigments made up, not counting the Sparks and Bites they have had a smooth texture. Hmm and as for the coarse grade spectaflair, I thnk that when you used it maybe you didn't use enough to get the linear effect, I have it aswell though i haven't used it much, i need to order some basic supplies but when i did use it i got a nice linear effect. Did you use regular clear base or did you use luster base, which suspends the pigment?

One other thing i've wondered have you used some of these pigments as eyeshadow? Obviously i'm not refering to the ones used in the car paint but the pigments you've bought from TKB trading for example.

You mean you've seen them come out looking matte or just not shimmery? I didn't get a matte or non-shimmery finish from any of them, they all have a little shimmer to them. What are others mixing them with? Maybe that is the difference?

I am mixing mine with soak off gels, and I only mix up what I need for a single manicure, so i'm not using any kind of polish base. from what I have read though the suspesion bases are what is really needed, or all the pigment would settle to the bottom and cake there like in my little bottle of spectraflair topcoat I tried to make. sadly that was a waste of spectraflair!

I'm sure I probably should've used more of the Coarse spectraflair when I did my red mani, but as I was adding it was changing the color enough I didn't want to add any more. I wanted to make sure it still looked red enough, LOL. I'll have to play with that one more. It was still a great mani that got me lots of compliments.

I haven't tried to use any of the TKB pigments as eyeshadow, but i'm sure you could. As i've never tried to make my own makeup I'm not sure if it has to be mixed with anything else or not, but I dont' think so. I know when i've gotten it on my hand it stays well! LOL.

 

[PolishQueen]

Two blogs I read that has gotten me interested in frankening are http://morenailpolish.blogspot.com/ and http://polishandpigments.blogspot.com/ they've both used the color morphing pigments and they came out with a smooth texture the Polish and Pigments blog is an amazing resource the woman who does it has done many experiments with pigments to see what combinations work as well what glitters work when suspended in nail polish and a list of etailers.

If you add a couple of BB to your franken that can help mix up your polish, thats what i did with my copper holo. I found both bloggers very informative about frankens. In fact i think some polish companies must follow the blogs as well as the lady that runs the More Nail Polish blog did an experiment with spectaflair and some Ozotic's 505 which is this beautiful multichrome and created this holo multichrome and a few months later the company comes out with the same thing but calls them mish mash.

 

[ferretkingdom]

Yes I follow both of those blogs. The texture of the powders and multicromes are all completely smooth to touch, they are just all shimmery. It doesn't have a glitter like texture or anything.

My little spectraflair topcoat did have BB's in it, but it was just a cheap little bottle of petites topcoat and the spectraflair literally clumped into a cake at the bottom. I tried that before I found the blogs lol. Luckily It didn't use a ton of spectra or anything, but it still wasted and I hate that. Live and learn, lol. Now I rarely wear regular polish so I just mix gel as I go.

 

[VuittonsLover]

wow.. your pigment swatches are fantastic.

 

[AllBling]

I've just been to Lincraft to check out glitters and (I guess because of Christmas) there's hardly a sparkle left on the shelves. So then I went over to Cosmetics Plus to see what powder shimmers they had and found this little treasure (48 colours - all very shimmery) for $12......

 

[ferretkingdom]

I got these from the Conservatorie. They are part of the collection of Xirona pigments I got from DIY Cosmetics, but DIY didn't carry these two colors. I know they are supposed to be dupes of the planetary sampler from TKB, but I didn't care, LOL, i wanted them anyway. Just in case they weren't really exact dupes.

I was feeling particularly lazy after having swatched my glitter haul from Conservatorie, so instead of mixing it into clear, I just scrubbed it into the tacky layer of my black this time. I think it worked way better actually. The color shift is more apparent and it was less messy and there was no mixing or clean up, LOL. I think I might start doing this with all my pigments and see how it works!

Caribbean blue has a blue-purple shift, while Nordic Sunset has a sort of green-pinky purple shift.