Showing posts with label zoya. Show all posts
Showing posts with label zoya. Show all posts

Sunday, 11 August 2013

Homemade Nail Polish Remover

I've been reading up quite a bit on nail polish removers recently and while browsing online I've seen mention of a homemade version of Zoya's Remove + which is a very highly rated, and expensive, nail polish remover from Zoya. 
 
 
My search led me to loodie loodie loodie's blog and her recipe to make a copy of the top rated remover.  There are various posts online on the subject and they all seemed to come to the same conclusion; it's easy to do, not too expensive and works as well as the store bought product.  Obviously I had to give it a go.
 
So I stopped off at Sally's for some Acetone and Boots for the Glycerin required.
 
 
The Acetone was £3.49 and the Glycerin was £1.29.  £4.78 in total which will make one large bottle of remover with a good amount of Glycerin left over.  Zoya is $10 for just over 200ml (8oz) so it's quite a saving.
 
As well as the Glycerin and Acetone you add a little water into the mix to help everything emulsify nicely.  I wasn't exact with my quantities but I would say I used roughly 160ml of acetone, 3 teaspoons of glycerin and probably 4 or 5 teaspoons of water altogether.  I mixed them up in a smaller acetone bottle I had bought previously, making sure that there wasn't any glycerin rolling about at the bottom of the bottle (if there is, just add a touch more water and mix again until they all blend together nicely as one clear layer).
 
First impressions are good, the remover took my polish off super fast as you'd expect from something which is almost pure acetone but unlike using pure acetone it didn't leave my nails looking too dry, or feeling like they'd been stripped of all moisture as is often the case when I just use acetone.
 
I'll report back after I've been using it for a bit longer, and tried it on some tougher polish - like glitters - but so far it seems like a super efficient remover for very little money.
 
Have you tired Zoya Remove+, or made your own version before?
 

Monday, 21 May 2012

Zoya Adina, Kiko 347 & Barry M Silver Foil Stamping

Over the weekend I decided to try out Zoya Adina, it's a polish I have had for a while but only worn once so I thought I should give it an outing. 


After I applied it I decided it was a bit dull and I wasn't overly impressed with it on it's own on my newly short nails so I thought I would stamp over the top with Kiko 347.

Unfortunately, my stamping skills were clearly not up to par yesterday and it all looked a bit smudged, patchy and messy. 
Rather than take it all off and start a again I decided to try and save it by stamping again over the top with Barry M Nail Foil in Silver.

 

 
While it's still not perfect, and a bit of an odd combination, I do think the stars make the whole design look a bit more cohesive, and more the the point you can't tell that I smudged the zebra print underneath quite so badly.

I do like the double stamp look so that's something I will definitely be doing again, as for the colour combination, probably not.