Thursday, July 5, 2012

When Good Glitters Go Bad

Part of the work of developing nail polishes is testing the glitter. Here are a few examples of things that can go wrong.

Bleeding:

 

Curling (these are .062" hexes):



I'm not sure quite what to call this, it's like pitting.  These were originally irridescent pink



More curling, except these are square, and they are surprisingly very tiny.




Most of these failed right away, with the exception of the pink hexes which took over a month before they showed any sign of curling. 

9 comments:

  1. Wow these are some strenuous stress tests your bottles go through :P So in instances where the glitters go wrong...do you first test a single bottle or a whole batch? I'd hate wasting money like that D:

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    1. Hi Pryanka! I should probably do a whole post on *how* I test, huh? These are actually very tiny amounts with just the single glitter in some of my base. I have little glass vials that I use for testing and I don't ever make anything (single bottle or otherwise) until the glitter passes my "vial-tests". At least that way I've only wasted money on the glitter itself and not bottles and base and balls...etc.

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    2. Hi Allison! You can tell imma be a regular fixture on your site, right? I would love to see a post on how you test!! I'm not a polish maker myself, but the process is fascinating nonetheless! If I ever want to franken/create polishes, I would love the know-how and the tutelage from people who have been through the mistakes.

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    3. Pryanka - I can tell and I love it! I've been blogging to no one for...a really long time. It's wonderful to now be getting comments and interacting with people!

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    4. Mhm, I can understand exactly what you mean. I blog to myself a lot too LOL. I received both of my polishes yesterday in the cutest packaging EVER! Tysm for the note as well, I just loved everything about your package <3

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  2. Great post with surprisingly nice pictures! I'd heard about glitter issues before, but these visual examples are very helpful/illustrative. Maybe now I will be able to be a bit more patient about waiting to score indie polishes, since I have a bit better idea of what goes into them.... lol

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    1. Hi Emily - thank you! My hope is to try to pull back the curtain a bit on what goes into making polish - both for customers and people who want to get into it for themselves. I'm glad you found this helpful!

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  3. I'm glad you take the time to test! Makes for a better product we can all rave about! =)

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  4. I really appreciate you test you glitters and share your successes and failures with them. I feel so confident buying your product. Can't wait to purchase more

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