Monday, December 3, 2012

Deconstructing a Vamp

Vamps are really hard to see when sorting by color.

Sure, navy and green are easy, but those plum/whine/purple/burgundy ones are hellish and I've got so many it's going to make me blind trying to figure it out.

I decided to experiment with one to see if I could find the "bones" of the color.

e.l.f. make inexpensive polishes that can be pretty decent. In fact I have to admit a few aren't bad at all. Unfortunately not a lot are super memorable to me and I tend to move them along.

Here is e.l.f. Plum. I've taken a bit out and diluted it with some white and I see that instead of a reddish shade, it's really a dusty plum orchid:


Three coats each. I decanted about 1/3 of the bottle into a spare, added enough white to bring up the hue and left it in more of a medium family.

It's kind of a fun process to lighten up a deep color and see what shakes out. I like this one a lot more.
Don't know if I will franken all of them, but I might make a dot test with a 50:50 white to see where it "lives" on the color chart, which will help.

Update on the spreadsheet: I have finished brown/yellow/taupe/tan and am hitting white/black and gray helmer drawer for my spreadsheet.
As I write this I am gazing over at one whole helmer filled up with purple and blue polishes. Holy shite.  I just emptied a "catch all/to be put away drawer" and rounded up all the blue/purple. I am stunned.
Must get busy!

Thanks for reading my little nail polish journal!

2 comments:

  1. Goodness! What a pretty color it is when you add white! I haven't done this with a polish in a long time so thank you for the reminder! I tend to shy away from vampy colors, but I forgot how lightening them a bit makes them more wearable, woohoo!

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Thanks! I think it makes it a more versatile polish. You are right about wearability!!

      Delete

I love comments!
Please email me at paillette.a.nail.journal@gmail.com to add your blog to my blogroll instead of posting your blog here!
Thank you!
Did I mention I love comments?
:D