Nail Art with Pearl Ex Pigment Powders

Jacquard Pearl Ex powderJacquard Pearl Ex pigment powders are made from fine particles of glistening mica.  The varying sizes of the coloured particles produce pearlescent and metallic effects. These ultra fine powders can be combined with any viscous material such as glue, paint, resin, varnish, or brushed onto tacky surfaces such as wax candles or modelling clay.

This exciting art material can be used in so many other creative ways.  The finer powders can be added to screen inks for screen printing, while Gum Arabic makes an excellent carrier for making watercolour paints. The Jacquard Textile Colourless Extender can be used for making Pearl Ex paint for fabric.

Cara’s Toes!

The Pearl Ex powders have been used to great effect by our colleague Cara to decorate her toe nails for a mermaid costume she will be wearing soon. Scroll down to read how Cara achieved this look.

Toes nails with Jacquard Pearl Ex

“I did this by painting turquoise nail varnish onto my nails, but you can obviously use any colour nail varnish.  When it was dry, I rubbed a small amount of the Pearl Ex on top of the colour and then covered with a clear top coat.  I used the Interference Violet and a bit of the Interference Green Pearl Ex for this.”

“I then used silver and black nail art pens to draw the scales on top and then another clear top coat again!”

Pearl Ex Pigment on Polymer Clay

The same Pearl Ex Interference colours were used on this piece of moulded polymer clay. You can see from the image that the colours are very effective on dark coloured materials.  After the clay in baked in a domestic oven at 130°C, the colours remain stable and unchanged.  In fact, 17 of the 49 colours (the Interference Green and Violet included) have been tested in a glass kiln and shown to withstand temperatures between 590°C – 925°C!

Pearl Ex on polymer clay

Happy Feet!

Toe Nail Art

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