HOW TO MIX CUSTOM ACRYLICS USING PIGMENTS

hey guys welcome back to my channel or if you're new to my channel welcome for the first time as always don't forget to click those like and subscribe buttons and any comments you have put them below for me guys so I had one of my subscribers asked me how I mixed my custom acrylics with pigments she had mentioned that she had used some mica and that it didn't work for her so I am going to show you today how I custom mix the colors in my drawer I have so many I have hundreds of custom mixed little colors and I just have them in little pots like this and I have them numbered so that I can put them in swatch sticks so I'm going to show you two or three different colors today well technically too but I'm going to show you how to make one better so what you're going to need first and foremost is you want to make sure that you have a mortar and pestle so this is the mortar I believe and this is the pestle so a lot of times you'll see people using them for cooking to grind up different herbs or garlic and ginger things like that I believe that I got this one at winners but you can get them anywhere they have little small ones like this I've seen them at Walmart you don't need a big one obviously now I've seen wooden ones and I've also seen these ceramic ones I would say get a ceramic one I'm not sure that the wooden one would work quite as well for this but yes so they are very heavy and the reason you need this is because when you mix the pigments if you were to just put the pigments in a little jar like this with your acrylic and just give it a little shake the pigment does not combine properly and you end up with sort of little beads of pigment and then when you go to dip your brush into the mixed acrylic with your monomer you end up having little streaks of colors so this is very key to mixing your pigments or your Mica's now that being said the reason I said and Myka's is because when the follower on my or subscriber I should say on my YouTube channel had mentioned that she used my cos I was curious what a mica is and apparently there is actually a difference so pigments are colors that have no shimmer or sparkle to them whatsoever like this one here would be I'm just going to move this guy out of the way this one here would be a pigment there is absolutely no shimmer no sparkle it's completely matte anything that has a shimmer is apparently a mica so this one is like a pearl so this one would be a mica now you can use them exactly in the same way but apparently there's just a lot of confusion I'm not really sure that it matters but I thought I would clarify that because when I was researching that was the information that I came across so if you're wanting something with shimmer it may be called a mica instead of a pigment so let's get started okay so as I mentioned I'm going to show you how to mix a purple one so I've got this one here and this pigment came from a company called elite and the number is 21 electric purple I've used this in a few of my other videos and as it's as I showed you it is a matte pigment now you see how those little beads all those little tiny tiny beads so those are the little beads that I'm talking about if you were to just put it in a jar with the acrylic and give it a shake those beads would not break down properly so that is why the mortar and pestle is so important I'm also going to use this one from crystal nails called neon pink and it is exactly that it is a neon pink it is super super bright again you can see all those tiny little beads there so this is a pigment it has no shimmer or anything in it and then I've got this one from born pretty and it's just a white pearl and this is sort of I guess the one that I use my little tip or trick that I use when you mix a colored acrylic and the color is not blending properly so if it's kind of marbling or separating that's my little trick for you guys so then obviously you are going to need a clear acrylic as well and then for the one other color I'm going to be using a little bit of white and you are going to need obviously some little jars now I just get these guys at a local craft supply store but you can get them on Amazon you can get them anywhere I'll try to find a link on Amazon free buys with these ones and that is it guys so let's get mixing [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] now if you want to be very particular with measurements because you know that if you make a color you're going to want to make it again and you want to be the exact same I would use measuring spoons so I don't because I honestly I just always wing it so I usually just use a cuticle pusher like this and this is kind of the scoop that I do but yes if you want to be more particular I would say use some measuring spoons and then keep a note somewhere of your measurements so that you can make the same color again in the future so we're going to start off with the purple one and so I'm going to take some of my clear acrylic and I'm just going to put it in another key is to not put a lot so I will just do one little scoop and this is just to start when you want to start mixing and grinding up those little pigment beads so then I'm going to if so the reason that I'm sorry let me just step back here guys so the reason that you don't put a lot of the clear acrylic in first is I have found in the past when I have done that I'm like okay you know what I want to mix three scoops because that's how much I want to make when I go to use my my pestle in here and grind there's too much clear acrylic and I can't get those little beads to blend in they just kind of float around too much so this way when you just have a very little tiny bit of that clear acrylic to start your pestle can really get in there and really grind up that color so I'm going to show you here so we're going to I'm just going to use the other end of my cuticle pusher and I'm going to grab a good couple of scoops now pigment obviously is very pigmented so you don't need to use a lot but I really like to make sure that my mixes are very pigmented so I like to put about four little scoops like that so as you can see it is going to be quite pigmented so even if you see right there if it will focus if you look along the side do you see how there's all those little tiny beads of pigment now if we did not blend those and really grind those up you would end up with a streaky acrylic when you go to apply it with your monomer so this is where you really want to take your time you want to get in there and really grind up and press that pestle against the mortar and just really grind it up [Music] and then just take a peek you can tap here your mortar I hope that I'm saying it right I think that this is the mortar and this is the pestle I should have googled it before I started the video but I didn't so if anybody if I'm incorrect and this is the mortar and this is the pestle let me know below somebody tell me if I'm if I'm correct oh right so to me that looks very good I think that's going to be mixed enough so now I would just give that a little tap arou and this is when I would add the remainder of my acrylic just so that I make the amount that I want now when you test this if you find that it's not dark enough so I'm going to test it and see we'll see how it looks if you find that there's not enough pigment what I recommend doing is taking out some of this and again just leaving a very small amount so that you can really get it ground up well alright so now generally what I'll do is I will just tap it down there and I'll grab my monomer and credit brush and I will just do a little test to see if it is dark enough and then you can always watch it on the paper towel because you guys can't see there so I'll do another one just so you can see here and for me that's very pigmented so I think that that that will do just fine so then obviously you just want to take your product that's in your order and close up this pigment here and get one of your little jars and scoop it [Music] so what I'm going to do is just make a little swatch on my jar here my jar lid I know what color it is down there and as you can see it's quite pigmented all right so now the next one I want to show you I'm just going to clean out my so the next one I want to show you is actually a pink so anybody who works with acrylics knows that if you get like a light pink even sometimes a brighter pink I have a ton of them from several different companies what happens is when you dip your monomer your brush into the pink acrylic it almost separates the white and the pink pigment so you get this sort of marbled effect and it's kind of a pain in the butt because when you're applying it on clients you have to sort of almost like try to paint it on as opposed to building it like we normally would so I'm going to show you a little trick to help with any of the colors that you mix and that happens so if I was going to make a lighter pink I would take some white acrylic and my pink pigment and I would mix them just like I did with the purple so I'm going to take some of my white again I'll do one scoop to start and then I'm going to take some of my pink pigment I'm gonna scoop a good scoop of that in there cuz we're gonna try to make this like a brighter pink that and then I'm going to go in my castle like I said and start breaking up those little beads again you can see all those little tiny beads that are there that would just cause a bunch of streaking in our acrylic if we didn't get them blended up okay so I feel like the appointment has mixed in there quite well so I'm just going to grab some of more of my white acrylic I'm gonna grab a couple of scoops and I can go back in and give it another good mix [Music] okay so now we're going to do our little test bead so I've got my little jar here and I'm just gonna test the bead on top of the jar alright so I've got my monomer I'm going to wet my brush and I'm going to pick up a bead of that acrylic so as you can see it looks like a beautiful pink color let me see if I can get it to focus here it looks like a beautiful pink color okay I'm just gonna grab another one sound let's starting to cure so looks like like quite a good color but then when you put it on - I don't know if you can see it but it's almost like the white sort of separates a little bit so if you can see in the middle it looks more white and I'll see if it shows you it even more so this one is just one from glam and glitz again I'm going to dip in and look at a color looks amazing but when you put it on so did you see what I'm saying this one does it even more it's like the white acrylic completely separates from that pigment so the one that I've made over here actually is not really too bad at all but when you've got something like this you go to put that on the nail and it's not really fun to apply so the little trick that I have if you ever have something like that happen is to add some shimmer so that's where this little pearl powder comes in so then you would just take actually you know what I'll show it to you because this one actually is really not that bad this pigment mixed in with that white quite well but I do want to show you just how you can utilize something like that glam and glitz one where the pigment really separates and if you really like that color but you hate how that color separates so I'm gonna take a little bit of that glam and glitz and I'm going to add some of this pearl powder to it and I'll show you the difference so to show you this one on a swatch stick actually so you can see the difference when applying it so I'm just dipping into the jar over here and I'll actually apply it on top so clearly like you can see how much that color separates so then generally what we have to do is kind of play with it a little bit and we have to kind of paint it on like this drag it through the nail and just kind of muck around with it more than we would like to in order to kind of blend that color and I'm not saying that there's anything wrong with the glam and glitz acrylics I have a ton of them and use them it's just that when you when it comes to this issue it's sort of Panda but when you're applying it on clients and in a wasting time kind of mucking about okay so I've got that and I've had to blend it and mix it and I'm just going to again I'm gonna throw a little bead on top here just so you can see what I mean again with that little bit of light that's sort of separated in the center so now if you add some of this of a white chrome or a white pearl pigment like so I find that it really helps with that sort of separating of color [Music] so I'm just gonna tip this and get a little pile there and I'm going to grab my bead now I'm going to place a bead and you can see there is still a little bit of that white but it is not as distinct and when applying it when you're kind of painting that color on it just applies better I find with that shimmer so I mean you still have to paint it on but it just you don't have as I don't know the white just seems to blend in a little bit more and I mean it does lighten the color up a little bit when you add that shimmer but so I'm just gonna show you both of them here so you can see that it does lighten the color up slightly when you add that shimmer but if you look at the top of this one there's there's still quite a bit of white that I was not able to blend in and you could see that I was trying to do it but just when it blended and this is more of a uniform consistent color all the way through I mean it's a little transparent here because it's been it's not thick enough there but the color in itself is way more uniform so that's a little trick that I use if your pigments are not mixing properly if you're getting some kind of separation try adding a little bit of shimmer well guys thanks again for watching another one of my videos here are some more examples of some custom colors that I have made for clients and don't forget if you have pre-mixed colored acrylics like the ones from glam and glitz for example you can mix those together as well with pigments or just with them themselves and custom makes so many different colors it's a great way to save money and you don't have to buy all of the colors in every single collection I hope that you enjoyed this video please don't forget to Like and subscribe and share this video with anyone that you think might like it any comments that you have leave them below and hopefully you got something out of this video and it helped you if you were struggling with mixing pigments and as always guys have someday

Channel: Nails By Jen Regina SK

Views: 2,411

Rating: 4.7866669 out of 5

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Id: MgrSH6l98Go

Length: 19min 48sec (1188 seconds)

Published: Thu Jun 04 2020