Custom Painting Pearls - An Epic Franken Post Part 1 - Holo Flakes

OK this one is a bit epic so I have done it in two parts, but I have been frankening like a woman demented for the last few days.  I have been searching, as I know a lot of you have, for an additive that creates a linear holo but doesn't cost a small fortune, and on my travels I came across Custom Painting Pearls and a lovely chap there called Garry who was extremely helpful and approachable.

So, in short I procured myself some of his powder to try.  I know from our conversations that they supply an acrylics nails salon/supplier in London, so I will be trying this with some nail art later too.  I don't have acrylics or gel, but I have used them in the past and I'm sure this would be great for that too.  So heres what I received in the post (as always pics are clickable to enlarge for detail):

There are six fine powder colours and two holo flakes colours.  I was very excited about the holo flakes, there was a silver one and an Ocean Blue one.  Alas it isn't a fine enough powder to create the holy grail of holo polish, the linear holographic, but it is still an absolute joy to play with, and I know I'm going to be using it in all sorts of ways.  As I said, I have yet to foray into tip dipping, and art adornment uses but I can think of lots I want to do with these holo flakes.  The most obvious to try first was of course, dump some in some polish and see what happens!  First up is the result of adding the Silver holo Flakes, and the Ocean Blue Flakes into clear polish.  

Wow right!  Fine holo glitter, I love this!  This can be used on its own built up over 2 or 3 coats to create a gorgeous effect, or can be used as a top coat for equally stunning results.  I am going to put this over everything!  Here they both are layered over red China Glaze Phat Santa.

 

Blingy!  I like it lots, as always with these types its very hard to photograph though to show the true colours.


Here they are on their own, and the middle one is silver holo flake layered over Orly Wild Wisteria

 

So I would say in a clear polish it is a winner!   It does settle into the bottom of the bottle when you leave it stood (like INM Northern Lights holo top coat) so you need to give it a good shake when you use it, but I know there are particular bases you can get for specific content in mind, like a suspension polish base for glitters for instance that may eliminate that.  Whats even better, is I only tried the silver and ocean blue this time, they have holo flake in other colours!  Awesome right, I will for sure be trying them out too and swatching the results.

Next up for these holo flakes was to put some in coloured polish.  This wasn't quite as successful but still interesting.  I mixed some up with Orly Wild Wisteria which is a very dark plum purple.  Here is what happened.

 As you can see, it settled in quite bumpy, although bear in mind this picture is a close up so didn't actually look that bad to the naked eye!  A nice dollop of top coat later though and its a much different story.

 And finally a blurred shot, I don't usually like doing blurry shots if I can help it but sometimes its the only way to capture the sparkle.

In summary I would say these are a quite a versatile powder and fun to have.  I would probably go more with using it in a clear base, but it may be a different kettle of fish again if used for instance in a gel based colour.  I can think of so many possibilities I will be happy to order more.  

If you are interested in where I purchased these and want some for yourselves, or want to check out the other colours you can purchase them from Custom Painting Pearls here http://stores.ebay.com/CustomPaintingPearls and a little bird tells me because of interest from the polish community they are going to start doing 'Polish Packs' specifically for us nail lacquer nuts!  Isn't that great :)

Part two, the pearl powder colours coming soon watch this space!