Thursday, March 17, 2011

TKB Trading DIY lipsticks

I recently purchased some materials for making lipsticks from TKB Trading.  I got some uncolored lipstick base, a sampler set of all the colored bases, the natural dye lip liquid kit, blue-1 lip liquid and a bunch of wheels to put my lipsticks in.  I already had tons of micas that I'd bought to use as eye shadows.  So far I've made 22 lipsticks.  I've only photographed these six so far though.  All of the following pictures are straight off the camera and completely unretouched.  I'm showing them in the order that I made the lipsticks.  I'm not very creative with names, so they're just numbered.  Also, these all look much better in person and not so super close up.


1-2: This is the second lipstick I made.  The base is Autumn.  It's a little splotchy because I didn't realize that you can and need to put in tons of mica to get good opacity and pigmentation.   I also used some blue and yellow lip liquids and Dragonfly mica (but not very much).


2-1: This was made with Wild Cat base, 2 drops of black liquid, and lots of Glitter Bordeaux mica (I don't have a small scale, so I don't have actual amounts of how much mica I used).  For some reason lipstick never looks that great on my lips - especially in photographs.  I thought this looked about as good as a lot of commercial lipsticks look on me.



2-5: This is UV reactive pink.  It's made with Moonlight base and Strong Fluorescent Pink powder (I'm pretty sure it's not a mica).  It looks nice and opaque and evenly applied under regular light, but it was pretty much impossible to get it evenly applied under black light.  I wonder if commercial (Kryolan) lipsticks have the same problem?  Anyway, I thought it looked great as a regular lipstick.



3-1: This is UV reactive orange made with Bella's Kiss base and Fluorescent Orange Blaze powder.  As I was reheating (always good to reheat it a little just before pouring to make it flow out better) this after adding and stirring in the powder it started getting all weird and thick and lumpy.  None of the other lipsticks I made were like that.  I don't know if I added too much powder, or if it just doesn't disperse well or what.  But heating it actually seemed to thicken it up instead of melting it.  You can see the little gritty blobs on my lips.  Still, it's not too bad.


5-1: This was made with Bella's Kiss base, carmine and yellow liquid and Tangerine Pop! mica.  I wanted to make an orange like the UV orange but without the granules.  But since Tangerine Pop is so shimmery, it came out very metallic, instead of matte like the UV orange.  Ironically I think this is the best looking photo of the lot, but I thought it looked the worst in person.  It's so metallic and shiny that it doesn't look like it's applied evenly even when it is, if that makes any sense.


5-2: This was made with Cupcake base, lots of carmine liquid, a little white and blue liquid, and tons of Green Sparks!  In daylight (this was taken in the bathroom with incandescent light) you can actually see a hint of green, and up close you can see the sparkles.  But mainly it just looks very metallic.

So that's it.  In my next order I'm getting some versagel and glitter to try making some really sparkly glosses.  I'm also getting some matte colors because most of the micas make for very shiny, metallic lipsticks.

5 comments:

  1. I recently purchased supplies from tkb trading as well. My goal was to make the perfect nude lipstick. I got the uncolored lipstick base as well, but i'm having a really hard time mixing stuff. I melted the lipstick base, and added the pale color micas. I bought white thinking it would make it more opaque. It doesn't really mix well, it's not clumpy but all the sheen seems to streak through the mix. I tried a second time and added the micas to a bit of castor oil first then mixed the oil into the lipstick base. It did the same thing. The tkb trading site kind of sucks when it comes to instructions. Do you have any suggestions for me? Did you have any of these problems?

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Sorry - I haven't fooled around with my TKB stuff since making this post, so I don't remember a lot. I guess I do kind of remember it looking streaky while liquefied. How was it when it solidified?

      Delete
    2. Hi Rebekahlolsen do know if you figure things out by now. but here it goes.
      The gloss comes from the OILS. Lipstick base is more for a LIP STICK but can be altered by adding oils to loosing the formula a bit.
      The best thing i use is Versa Gel.. It take beautifully and looks marvelous. To the versa Gel i add Castor and Vitamin E and Almond oil.
      when Mixing you Formula do it in Phase.
      Phase 1 Melt your wax.
      Phase 2 add your color. Micas that have PIGMENTS are better at giving you a better payout ( meaning Color).You can purchase FDC color from TKB and add them. TKB also has A NUDE collection that is used to create NUDES.. Adding White( or Titanium Dioxide) will Darken (opaque) the formula a bit. NUDE to me is LESS color. Try using a sheer Powder like white sheer to add sparkle or a white diamondy mica that really does not change the color but blends well.

      Delete
  2. Hi! Would you mind posting swatches of those TKB colored bases?
    I can't find those anywhere... Thank you!

    ReplyDelete