One of the things I was most excited about when I got the Essence Vintage District nail art kits (you can see what I did with the microbeads here) was the little square of gold leaf in one of the kits. It looks tiny, but when you unfold it (carefully), it looks like this:
After my disappointment over the not-very-leafy Catrice gold leaf topcoat, I wanted to see if I could make my own from a clear polish and the gold leaf in this kit. I used an Essence studio nails clear topcoat for this.
Firstly, I chopped the sheet up into tiny little pieces on a piece of card using a nail scissors. This is really fiddly, even breathing on it made them fly off the table! I chopped them up as small as I could.
Then, I rolled another smaller piece of card into a funnel shape and put it into the bottle of polish.
I tipped the gold into the polish and used a cocktail stick to push it down into the base. I gave it a good shake, and voila - gold leaf topcoat! I wanted to try it over a few different polishes, so I used green (Sinful Colors Last Chance), grey (Catrice ASHley), pink (Essence Naughty and Pink), black (Pumpkin Polish) and dark red/wine (China Glaze Short and Sassy).
36 hours later, after a lot of cooking, cleaning and washing up, it's still firmly stuck on with only minor tip wear. My topcoat could have done with a bit more gold leaf - I had to fish the pieces out of the bottle, mainly due to this happening:
It's fiddly, but it's completely killed my OPI topcoat lemming!
*****NOTE: After approximately 2 months, this turned green in the bottle. I tested it and it still worked fine, the green didn't show up, but you might fare better if you shred the gold leaf and keep it in a little storage pot, and use as needed.****
That's so pretty but I wonder if the gold leaf will hold up in the polish.
ReplyDeleteThis is actually a great idea, it's awesome.
ReplyDeleteLove it and I have gold leaf here! Have to try tonight now.
ReplyDeleteAwesome! Didn't notice this kit when I was looking at the Essence stand yesterday, I might get to go back tomorrow, fingers crossed it's there!
ReplyDeleteWhat a clever clogs you are!! Great idea!
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This is a great idea! Love it!
ReplyDeleteThat looks very cool! You also have a lot of patience lol
ReplyDeleteThese are beautiful! So creative.
ReplyDelete