Samantha Holloway.

Writer, Editor, Indie Nail Polish Maker.

 

The very first nail polish I ever liked was a sheer color shifting one called Sheer Angelwings. I have no idea what company it was--I was five and didn't know that things were different brands*--but it was white in the bottle and shone bright pink and blue and purple on my nails. I would chip it off just so I could repaint them again with the same color. It was likely Revlon; that seems to be the company my mom bought the most when we were little, and she got her nails done at the salon every wek. We were living in Japan at the time, and so it really could have been anything. I don't remember the shape of the bottle; I remember the hypnotizing swirl and shift of colors inside when I moved it around while mom was getting her nails done each week.

About a decade later, we were back in the states and I was fifteen, with an allowance that mostly went to nail polish from Claire's and Target and the grocery store. I wasn't allowed to wear red, so I experimented until I figured out which layers made the pink I was allowed to wear look like the red I wanted. I also wasn't allowed to wear the black my gothy soul wanted, so I also experimented with blues and purples until I had ones that looked like black--but with blue and purple swirls. And my favorite was a deep purple with this rich gold smudged over the top so the purple showed through.

Fast forward another (mumblemumble) years and I discovered that when you're unemployed and getting poorer, nail polish is an affordable luxury. It reignited my long-standing love of nail polish, and there are more colors and finishes than ever! And you can make them at home! That fact, combined with the realization that I'm Synaesthetic and I have pre-exisiting colors and pattern associations with TV, music and books, was all I needed to know. I could make my own polish. I could use these weird visual things that I can see and no one else can for something creative and useful! I could make being a geek AND a girl a thing!

I've never been convinced of anything faster than I was convinced I needed to start making nail polish. I like to pick a theme, and they're usually geeky because I'm geeky--the first set was based on Firefly, the second on Doctor Who, and over the next six monthI made ones for the Hobbit, Winterfell, favorite 'ships, Downton Abbey, and have kept going for three years. After the theme, I come up with three to five colors that encapsulate that theme and how I see it. I always mean to stick to the theme, and always seem to make a few extra on the side, testing new kinds of glitter, or things I could use instead of glitter, or weird ideas I have that might look cool in a nail polish or top coat. 

I'm a noodler, a fidgeter. I mess with things. I have all these supplies laying around, just *begging* to be made into as many new kinds of nail polish as I can come up with! I wear all my creations to see how they go on and how they stay on, even when I decided it'd be cool to try out brown paper confetti (it doesn't go on easily, but it wears like armor!).

I love the creation process more than anything else. Except getting to share them with you! Welcome to my home of my own, away from Etsy and all the other sites!