diy nail polish - any color - for less than $5

I am not the first person to do this. I saw the idea somewhere on the internet some time ago. I'm gonna tell you how it's done. And then I'm gonna tell you what it's really like.

Materials:
Clear nail polish (I used NYC brand because it was a $1)
Eye shadow (I used Wet 'n' Wild, also because it's cheap)
Your receipt (or a piece of paper, if you're using old stock)

 Use the brush from the eye shadow to crush the color you want to use. Crush it up good an' fine.

 Use the receipt to funnel it into your bottle. I poured out some of the clear polish to make a little extra room. This also helps it to mix up more easily.

Shake a bunch and there you have it. Your own half-way homemade nail polish in any color you can find cheap eye shadow in.

The pros are, you have custom polish and the coverage is pretty good, it goes on decent. You can make it more or less sheer by adding less or more powder.

However, because of the powder you're adding to the polish, it's going to be flakier than your standard polish. And your polish is only going to be as reliable as your base (and actually slightly less), so, the cheaper polish you use as your base, the less staying power it's going to have. You are going to want to do a top coat definitely and bottom coat, probably, of some other more chip-resistant clear polish.

But, the pros are pretty great, right? If you're dying for a color of polish that you can't find, you can make it! And though I haven't tried it yet, you could certainly mix up different eye shadows to create a truly unique color. I'm also interested in trying this with the NYC matte clear polish that I saw at the drugstore yesterday. Maybe with one of the eye shadows I have left. Of course, you can do this with any powder makeup.

Try it and out and let me know how it goes!

Peace & love,
-A.