Premiere Orlando: Franken-Polish

Haven’t we all dreamt of making our own nail polish? Just think: all the glitter and color we could ever want and we could even give it a name of our choosing! At Premiere Orlando, Amerikan Body Art made that dream a reality. Their booth included a stand showcasing Franken-Polish — a kit that allows anyone to create their own custom color. It is an easy process to create your own polish, and an addicting one too. Here’s how it’s done:

1. Begin by pouring the base into a 15 ml mixing cup.

2. Add three scoops of mica or glitter. More than three scoops of mica can make your polish too thick and clumpy. Doing a glitter polish without mica is much more forgiving, and you can get away with adding four scoops of glitter. I personally added four scoops: two of chunky glitter and two of fine glitter. (You can mix mica and fine glitter, but not mica and chunky glitter as the opacity of the mica can hide the chunky glitter.)

3. Stir everything together in the mixing cup until it reaches a texture you like.

4. Insert the funnel into the polish bottle. Pour the contents of the mixing cup into the bottle via the funnel. If you used chunky glitter, you may have to use your stirring stick to get all the glitter through the funnel.

5. Screw the top on and you have your very own nail polish!

I talked with Erika Harrison, CEO of Amerikan Body Art, to get the glittery scoop on this fun product. “We were already selling glitters for body art when I started receiving e-mails from customers wondering if our glitters were solvent resistant. I asked what they were doing with it, and I learned all about the art of franken polish, a hobby that’s been around on a small scale for at least a decade.” It’s important to know that not just any glitter will work in the polish. “Some glitters can warp, bleed, or even dissolve in nail polish.” To be safe, it is best to buy the professional kit from Amerikan Body Art that comes with all the supplies needed to make your own polish bar, including 27 jars of glitter and 27 jars of mica. If you already own glitters from Amerikan Body Art’s other lines, then some of those will work too. “The only ones that didn’t hold up in the polish were our more sheer holographic glitters. But our holographic gold and silver work fine so we just mix those with the other colors when we want a more multidimensional look,” advises Harrison.

The polish has a wear time of about a week. “I usually get a good solid week before I have any chips on my fingernails and I am pretty hard on them with setting up booths at tradeshows.  I can easily get a couple of weeks if I’m just sitting around doing computer work,” says Harrison.

This would be a great purchase for hosting salon parties or to create custom colors for brides or proms. “Many of our customers are planning to bring this to birthday parties and Bat Mitzvahs. I think it’s something new and different that we’ve all been waiting to see hit the market.” Plus, your salon can create its own custom color palette, perfect for matching your interior or catering to what is trending in your area. It only takes about five minutes to make a bottle of polish. This experience is one you will definitely want to indulge in with customers and on your own. It’s scary fun!

Photos by Bethanie Dardant.

— Beth