Indie-licious: Fanchromatic Nails The Iron Price & the Elmer's Glue Technique

Hello!!

Today I have a triple-purpose post for you. This is a review of a polish (Fanchromatic Nails The Iron Price), a before & after post, and a review of a new tip I've been hearing about (the Elmer's glue basecoat trick).

If you haven't heard about the Elmer's glue trick, I can't wait to share it with you. Lots of polish lovers, me included, don't use glitter quite as much as we might otherwise because it is such a huge pain to remove. Recently, however, a polish company came out with a glitter basecoat that some savvy polish bloggers noticed looked and smelled a lot like white children's glue (Elmer's in the US). Since this glue costs about a dollar a gallon, they figured they'd try it out as a basecoat--and apparently, it works.

This excited me, but also raised a lot of questions. How does a water-soluble glue hold up through showers (especially the long ones I take) and hand washing (I'm a germophobe and wash my hands about 100 times a day)? How do you apply the glue evenly, so that your base polish doesn't look all icky, if you aren't using an over-all glitter? What sort of wear do you get with this technique? And does it really truly come off easily?

I decided to try it out with a new polish that just came in the mail, Fanchromatic Nails The Iron Price. This polish is a brown-red crelly with a ton of silver and red glitter in all sizes--silver shards, small silver hexes, red squares, red bars. It builds up over several layers, but because it's not a straight creme, you can see the underlying glitter and it gives the polish great depth. The downside is, you need 3-4 coats if you wear it on its own; so if you want less glitter, use an undie. :)

Fanchromatic Nails: The Iron Price

Fanchromatic Nails: The Iron Price, glitter shot

Fanchromatic Nails: The Iron Price, direct sunlight

Fanchromatic Nails: The Iron Price in direct sunlight

The above pictures were taken after three days of wear with an Elmer's Glue basecoat, and Seche Vite as the topcoat. I was stunned to find that after much immersion in water and three whole days, there was barely any wear! No lifting at the cuticles, normal tip-wear. And no indication that it was going to let up any time soon. :)

The whole time I wore this polish, I couldn't help wondering what it would look like with matte on top of it--such a pretty color with so much exceptional glitter, I figured it would be stunning, and it was:

The Iron Price mattified in the sun

The Iron Price mattified in indirect light

I honestly can't decide which way I like it better--they're both just beautiful. I wore it this way for most of the rest of the day.

How about application of the glue and removal of the glitter with the glue polish? I have seen several suggestions on the web about how to apply the glue basecoat. The first one I tried is just to squirt out some glue onto plastic and apply it directly to the nail with a nail art or paint brush. I tried this, but found it hard to get an even coverage. So, I tried a different method--putting it into a polish bottle and applying it like any other basecoat. This worked well, after I learned some things.

One of the things I learned was to wash the bottle out thoroughly. I had just finished up a Seche Vite bottle, and I washed it by rinsing it with acetone. After doing that, I should have rinsed the bottle out thoroughly. Because I didn't, the acetone reacted with some of the glue and made clumps. Luckily, I was mostly able to get those out. The other thing I learned is to put in a tiny bit of water into the bottle with the glue. If you don't, the glue will stay pretty thick, and will be hard to apply with the brush--the brush gets plank-stiff. But with a little water, the glue stays a bit thinner and you can apply it with ease.

I've seen a couple of people on the web show their polish come off in a single piece using this technique, with no hassle at all. I didn't have this experience--mine took a bit more work to peel off, and came off in smaller pieces. However, it was still infinitely easier to remove than normal glitter removal, so don't take this as a criticism--it's just me saying mine didn't come off quite as easily as other people's did, but still pretty darn easily. And, I think the reason I had a slightly harder time might have been the length of time I wore the polish; I wore mine for three days while the other people I've seen use the technique removed it after one day.

So, my conclusion on this technique is that it works very well, and really is a life-saver when it comes to glitter. I am looking forward to using this for manicures I've been terrified of removing before. :)

EDIT: Thanks to comments from my awesome readers, I realized I forgot to mention a couple things. First, I used 2 coats of the Elmer's basecoat. Second, the only downside I've found to this method is that it takes a bit longer for the glue to dry than a normal basecoat does.

And what about The Iron Price? How gorgeous is that?? I am partial to reds, I admit, but I think even if you're not this is a special polish. Also, I found most of her polishes to be interesting and unique; even the ones that on the surface seem a bit more 'typical' are surprising. For example, take a look at her take on a gold glitter, Fistful of Latinum, which I used for this mani. Not just a gold glitter bomb, but a thoughful, pretty polish blend.

You can find Fanchromatic Nails' Etsy store here. Both The Iron Price and Fistful of Latinum are currently $8.25 for full-sized bottles, and $4 for minis. :)

Wow, that's a lot of information for one post! Thanks for sticking with me if you made it this far. :)

xoxoxo,

M.

(The products reviewed in this post were purchased with my own money.)