The hottest application technique since the Forever French nail enhancement was introduced is causing a dramatic shockwave among consumers and nail professionals alike. The Custom Blended Manicure brings an entirely new level of nail artistry to our profession and is set to have as strong an impact on our industry as permanent colour had to the hair world.
The Custom Blended Manicure (CBM) is a technique of blending different Creative Nail Design coloured powders to create a completely new custom colour to compliment the clients skin tone and camouflage imperfections. In my last tutorial, I went through some key principals of colour theory (read here) so in this tutorial I am going to specifically be discussing the CBM as it relates to transforming the look and the length of the nail plate in Zone 2 and Zone 3.
Why bother? Why not just stick to the Perfect Color Pink or Intense Pink? While I love both Perfect Color Pink and Intense Pink for their workability, vibrancy and clarity, there is one big thing that a CBM will do that the other powders wont: Give you complete design freedom! What is exciting nail professionals the most about the CBM is the ability to create an opaque powder that completely covers the free edge of the natural nail. For the nail professional, that means the ability to hide imperfections in the nail and the ability to place the smile line where it looks best (at the pad of the finger) without that manky free edge showing through. Whats even better is that when your clients return for a Rebalance you still wont see the free edge! Thats right brothers and sisters, the longer you go between French Rebalances, the longer and more elegant the nail becomes! Be gone those grotesque French jobs where the smile line starts half way down the nail like some freaky cannibalized bridal set just so the nail tech doesnt have to go through the extra work of conducting a French Rebalance next appointment. Hallelujah, the world already seems a much sweeter place.
Let me preface this next part by mentioning that this is not the only way to skin this cat. In fact, there are thousands of ways to mix, match and blend to perfection this however is a great way to get into the groove of Custom Blended Manicures quickly and easily with proven, consistent results. While you will most likely want to start experimenting with small batches, be forewarned that small batches are far trickier to peg than a large batch. The tones of a small batch can quickly be over done with a few extra grains of powder while a large mix will blend more smoothly and more easily.
Meet the Colours
In my last tutorial, I blabbed on about the basic fundamentals of colour theory. Now that you have had a good month to digest that little beauty, I thought it was time to meet some of the cast of colours that you will be working with during your adventures blending. These are by no means all the colours you have to use, nor are they even close to an exhaustive list of all options. This list is merely a brief synopsis of those powders from the Perfect Color, Metro and Mosaic ranges that are commonly used for a Custom Blended Manicure.
· Golden Glass (yellow)
Used to neutralize underlying violet in your mix. Very handy to cut the amount of violet you get from your monomer.
· Terra Cotta (orange)
Used to warm your blend up and neutralize and blue undertones.
· Quartz Crystal (purple)
Used to cool your blend down and neutralize any yellow undertones.
· Spanish Tile (red)
Used to pump up your red (pink) content. If you have somehow managed to make your blend green, Spanish tile will neutralize it and bring it back (somewhat) to normality.
· Flawless Pink (opaque pink)
Flawless Pink is the single most important powder when creating a CBM for Zones 2 and 3. In other words, youll use a lot of it!
· Perfect Color White (CNDs famously perfect white!)
Lightens up your mix while making it more opaque. Be careful as the more white you put in, the more violet from your monomer comes through (increasing the need for Golden Glass).
· Melting Pot (a rich, copper brown)
Darkens your mix and adds a hint of holographic glitter to increase vibrancy without giving the nail a sparkly effect.
· Twilight (glitter in a natural base)
softens up the blend and makes the mix look shinier. I generally avoid using twilight unless I want a sparkly nail affect.
· Cobalt Glass (blue)
Cuts any orange undertone.
· Jade (green)
Cuts excessive Red in the mix.
Note that some strongly pigmented colours like Cobalt Glass, Jade and even Spanish Tile to a degree may speckle if too much is used. For that reason I generally avoid Jade or Cobalt Glass when creating a mix for Zone 2 and Zone 3.
Another point worth mentioning is that while Perfect Color Pink and Intense Pink are great for blending the colour to the natural nail tone, you do so at the loss of some opacity. When I want to create a blend to completely hide the natural nail free edge, I generally avoid any translucent powders.
The Base Mix:
Now lets create a large base mix from which we will produce 3 more specific mixes (a warm red-orange, a red and a cool red-violet). The Base Mix is designed to be a neutral base that requires little modification to get it to where you want it to be. I have done the rough measurements in that handy dandy metric system you all so love to make it easier to reduce the recipe as needed (Note that a teaspoon is about 5 millilitres).
The core base colours
· 1 Millilitre Spanish Tile
· 4 Millilitre Melting Pot
· 100 Millilitre Perfect Color White
· 400 Millilitre Flawless Pink
Note that often I will add a 1 millilitre of Golden Glass to cut the Violet undertone from Retention+
The Base Mix
To make specific mixes from your base mix, simply add Quartz Crystal, Spanish Tile or Terra Cotta accordingly.
· For a cool Red-Violet Mix:
Add 2 Millilitres of Quartz Crystal
· For an all around Pink mix:
Add 2 Millilitres more of Spanish Tile
· For a warm Red-Orange mix:
Add 2 Millilitres of Terra Cotta
Tinting and shading
One important element of Custom Blended Manicures is with getting the tint and shade (lightness or darkness) of the colour correct. Though the Base Mix is a great starting point, often you may have to adjust the tint or shade to correspond with the clients own skin tone. When a mix is too light, simply deepen it with more Melting Pot. When the mix is too dark, lighten it back up with your 4:1 ratio of Flawless Pink and Perfect Color White.
Testing
The easiest way to test your blend is by using a Brisa Clear Performance form. The centre of each form provides a perfect surface to drop a bead onto and hold it up against the nail. It also serves as an excellent swatch for testing existing batches of blends for new clients.
When trying to compliment the natural nail tone, place the clear form with your bead onto the nail and see if it matches. If its too light, darken it. If its too dark, lighten it. If its not the right colour, freaking change it!
Application
One key to remember when applying opaque colours is to avoid putting 2 beads of the same opaque colour side by side. Doing so will increase the risk of marbling.
To avoid marbling avoid placing Zone 2 and Zone 3 side by side. Instead layer your beads on top of one another. Do this by creating a long, gentle taper from Zone 2 to Zone 3. That way when Zone 3 is applied, it blends over Zone 2 leaving little to no chance of marbling. Think of it as overlapping each zone as you would overlap roof tiles.
Only the beginning
Clearly the Custom Blended Manicure is by far the most significant application technique to come along since fingernails were invented. This guide merely brushes on the surface of the options available to you. The Custom Blended Manicure is the key skill empowering nail professionals to distinguish themselves from the cheap looking fake nails that their competitors do while enabling them to charge more for their work. Not only does it make sense, make you more money, its a freaking blast.
Originally published January 2006 Scratch Magazine
The Custom Blended Manicure (CBM) is a technique of blending different Creative Nail Design coloured powders to create a completely new custom colour to compliment the clients skin tone and camouflage imperfections. In my last tutorial, I went through some key principals of colour theory (read here) so in this tutorial I am going to specifically be discussing the CBM as it relates to transforming the look and the length of the nail plate in Zone 2 and Zone 3.
Why bother? Why not just stick to the Perfect Color Pink or Intense Pink? While I love both Perfect Color Pink and Intense Pink for their workability, vibrancy and clarity, there is one big thing that a CBM will do that the other powders wont: Give you complete design freedom! What is exciting nail professionals the most about the CBM is the ability to create an opaque powder that completely covers the free edge of the natural nail. For the nail professional, that means the ability to hide imperfections in the nail and the ability to place the smile line where it looks best (at the pad of the finger) without that manky free edge showing through. Whats even better is that when your clients return for a Rebalance you still wont see the free edge! Thats right brothers and sisters, the longer you go between French Rebalances, the longer and more elegant the nail becomes! Be gone those grotesque French jobs where the smile line starts half way down the nail like some freaky cannibalized bridal set just so the nail tech doesnt have to go through the extra work of conducting a French Rebalance next appointment. Hallelujah, the world already seems a much sweeter place.
Let me preface this next part by mentioning that this is not the only way to skin this cat. In fact, there are thousands of ways to mix, match and blend to perfection this however is a great way to get into the groove of Custom Blended Manicures quickly and easily with proven, consistent results. While you will most likely want to start experimenting with small batches, be forewarned that small batches are far trickier to peg than a large batch. The tones of a small batch can quickly be over done with a few extra grains of powder while a large mix will blend more smoothly and more easily.
Meet the Colours
In my last tutorial, I blabbed on about the basic fundamentals of colour theory. Now that you have had a good month to digest that little beauty, I thought it was time to meet some of the cast of colours that you will be working with during your adventures blending. These are by no means all the colours you have to use, nor are they even close to an exhaustive list of all options. This list is merely a brief synopsis of those powders from the Perfect Color, Metro and Mosaic ranges that are commonly used for a Custom Blended Manicure.
· Golden Glass (yellow)
Used to neutralize underlying violet in your mix. Very handy to cut the amount of violet you get from your monomer.
· Terra Cotta (orange)
Used to warm your blend up and neutralize and blue undertones.
· Quartz Crystal (purple)
Used to cool your blend down and neutralize any yellow undertones.
· Spanish Tile (red)
Used to pump up your red (pink) content. If you have somehow managed to make your blend green, Spanish tile will neutralize it and bring it back (somewhat) to normality.
· Flawless Pink (opaque pink)
Flawless Pink is the single most important powder when creating a CBM for Zones 2 and 3. In other words, youll use a lot of it!
· Perfect Color White (CNDs famously perfect white!)
Lightens up your mix while making it more opaque. Be careful as the more white you put in, the more violet from your monomer comes through (increasing the need for Golden Glass).
· Melting Pot (a rich, copper brown)
Darkens your mix and adds a hint of holographic glitter to increase vibrancy without giving the nail a sparkly effect.
· Twilight (glitter in a natural base)
softens up the blend and makes the mix look shinier. I generally avoid using twilight unless I want a sparkly nail affect.
· Cobalt Glass (blue)
Cuts any orange undertone.
· Jade (green)
Cuts excessive Red in the mix.
Note that some strongly pigmented colours like Cobalt Glass, Jade and even Spanish Tile to a degree may speckle if too much is used. For that reason I generally avoid Jade or Cobalt Glass when creating a mix for Zone 2 and Zone 3.
Another point worth mentioning is that while Perfect Color Pink and Intense Pink are great for blending the colour to the natural nail tone, you do so at the loss of some opacity. When I want to create a blend to completely hide the natural nail free edge, I generally avoid any translucent powders.
The Base Mix:
Now lets create a large base mix from which we will produce 3 more specific mixes (a warm red-orange, a red and a cool red-violet). The Base Mix is designed to be a neutral base that requires little modification to get it to where you want it to be. I have done the rough measurements in that handy dandy metric system you all so love to make it easier to reduce the recipe as needed (Note that a teaspoon is about 5 millilitres).
The core base colours
· 1 Millilitre Spanish Tile
· 4 Millilitre Melting Pot
· 100 Millilitre Perfect Color White
· 400 Millilitre Flawless Pink
Note that often I will add a 1 millilitre of Golden Glass to cut the Violet undertone from Retention+
To make specific mixes from your base mix, simply add Quartz Crystal, Spanish Tile or Terra Cotta accordingly.
· For a cool Red-Violet Mix:
Add 2 Millilitres of Quartz Crystal
· For an all around Pink mix:
Add 2 Millilitres more of Spanish Tile
· For a warm Red-Orange mix:
Add 2 Millilitres of Terra Cotta
Tinting and shading
One important element of Custom Blended Manicures is with getting the tint and shade (lightness or darkness) of the colour correct. Though the Base Mix is a great starting point, often you may have to adjust the tint or shade to correspond with the clients own skin tone. When a mix is too light, simply deepen it with more Melting Pot. When the mix is too dark, lighten it back up with your 4:1 ratio of Flawless Pink and Perfect Color White.
Testing
The easiest way to test your blend is by using a Brisa Clear Performance form. The centre of each form provides a perfect surface to drop a bead onto and hold it up against the nail. It also serves as an excellent swatch for testing existing batches of blends for new clients.
When trying to compliment the natural nail tone, place the clear form with your bead onto the nail and see if it matches. If its too light, darken it. If its too dark, lighten it. If its not the right colour, freaking change it!
Application
One key to remember when applying opaque colours is to avoid putting 2 beads of the same opaque colour side by side. Doing so will increase the risk of marbling.
To avoid marbling avoid placing Zone 2 and Zone 3 side by side. Instead layer your beads on top of one another. Do this by creating a long, gentle taper from Zone 2 to Zone 3. That way when Zone 3 is applied, it blends over Zone 2 leaving little to no chance of marbling. Think of it as overlapping each zone as you would overlap roof tiles.
Only the beginning
Clearly the Custom Blended Manicure is by far the most significant application technique to come along since fingernails were invented. This guide merely brushes on the surface of the options available to you. The Custom Blended Manicure is the key skill empowering nail professionals to distinguish themselves from the cheap looking fake nails that their competitors do while enabling them to charge more for their work. Not only does it make sense, make you more money, its a freaking blast.
Originally published January 2006 Scratch Magazine
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I got mine at a cookware store for $11 US Dollars, very sturdy, if Im nice to it it should last me a while.
