DIY Sheer Tints Review and Nail Art

Hi guys, you may remember a couple of weeks ago, I reviewed the OPI Sheer Tints (here), and in that post I said I was going to have a go at making my own.  Well, I did, 5 of them in fact, so lets see how they came out.
*Warning, this is a picture and word heavy post.

So, first things first - what colours did I make? (L-R) A dark purple with shimmer using Barry M Plum and Color Club Ulterior Motive for the gorgeous shimmer.  The blue is just a very sheer version of Revlon - Royal. The bright purple is Color Club - Miss Robinson, with a few drops BYS - Pink Panic to lighten it a little.  The pink is a mixture of Pink Panic and Color Club - Raspberry Rush.  And the red is Nails Inc for Kate Spade - Big Apple Red (I think - the one that was free with Glamour magazine a while back).

These were all made by adding a few drops of colour at a time to LaFemme Clear polish as well as a stainless steel mixing ball to help with mixing.  I wanted to use 2, but don't have too many atm.  If you're planning to make some yourself, you're also going to want some white coloured false nails to test them on, as you don't want to make them too opaque, so you really need to test it after every few drops of colour.  You can find them pretty cheap on ebay UK.

I left mine for the best part of a day with their lids open to help them thicken a little bit before using them, as this polish is quite thin, and you don't want them pooling everywhere when you're painting with them  They're not as thick as the OPI ones though, I found them a bit too sticky, so I was careful to keep these ones a little thinner than that.

So, how were they?

In the interest of fairness I decided to use the 2 same techniques that I did with the OPI ones, but I have tried to make the finished designs a bit different so it doesn't get boring for you guys, or for me :)  Instead of leadlight stamping, I decided to do a sparkly stained glass mani, since the way you use the tints is essentially the same for both mani's.  I was super pleased with how this turned out, and found the tints easy to work with.

I used the pink, blue and lighter purple of my tints for this, as well as OPI - I Can Teal You Like Me, since I didn't make a teal one myself.

This is the first time I've done a stained glass mani, and I love how it turned out. My black lines could be a little smoother, but other than that I'd say it's a win.  I even went back and did this mani again in different colours, as well as making my first ever tutorial for it!  Since this post is already pretty long, I'll be posting that later on today :D  So excited!

The other technique I tried last time, was a brushstroke mani, so I've done another one, but with some stamping over it too.

For this, I just brushed on alternating strokes of pink, bright purple and blue on a white base, then applied a coat of pink all over to mesh the colours together a bit more. Then I stamped with MoYou XL Back to the 80's 03 with Sinful Color's - Snow me White.  I wouldn't normally think of putting this image in an almost pastel mani, but I'm so glad I picked it, I love how this looks.

What I'm not loving though is the state of my cuticles here, I'm really sorry about that.  I had the headache from hell last week, and I got kind of sloppy at applying my cuticle products.  Bad Sarah!  A few lemony flutter's later though, they're looking tonnes better.
I decided this mani was also an excellent candidate for mattification, (yep, it's a word now :p) so............

I gave these bottles a good shake, and left them for about 10 minutes before using them, and as you can see, while there are a few little air bubbles here and there, I didn't have any major issues with bubbling which made me very happy :)

Overall, I am definitely calling these a success, and I'm looking forward to mixing up a few more colours.

I'll be back later with the stained glass tutorial, where you'll also get to see the red and dark purple tints in action.  I honestly can't wait, I have wanted to do a design tutorial for ages now!