Guest Blogger Tara from Osiris and Loki paint their nails

We have another guest blogger!  Tara was unwell last week but I don't want you to miss out on the knowledge Tara has of  glow in the dark, and a chance for you to see the amazing polishes she makes


Hey there everyone! how are you all? I’m very excited today to be asked to blog for the lovely Theresa.

Glow in the dark 101

OK so if any of you don't know who i am, let me introduce myself, i’m Tara and the owner of the blog www.osirisandlokipainttheirnails.blogspot.com  and the indie polish brand called Lokis Lacquer.

At the moment you may see around.............. and this does include Lokis Lacquer....... that the Glow in the dark ( aka GITD) polish is all in at the moment! and why shouldn't it be?!? we seem to be all about the 80’s this year and if you grow up in the 80’s like i did it was all about neon and GITD stuff!!!

So you may be asking ...so what? well apart from sharing with you some lovely Glow polish swatches i will share with you some little “tricks of the trade” on how to get the best results with any type of GITD polish.

so first up..how does it all work?? well there are 2 things you need to know.... firstly, GITD polish is NOT the same as UV polish. i get this ALL the time when people ask about my GITD polishes. It is totally different.

UV polish glows a specific colour under UV light (black light) while GITD polish will not glow under UV but instead absorb the UV and store it to make the pigment in the polish “glow” you can get on the market polish that glows under UV light and also glows in the dark, but this purely by the polish maker mixing a UV pigment with a glow in the dark pigment.

secondly GITD polish will only glow as much as you charge it. so say you pop your polish bottle in the sun for 20 mins, you will not get a glow for 12 hours at night. you will only get a glow for a short period of time. it is all about ‘charging’ the pigment in the polish to get the best glow.

You can cheat. yep that's right ...isn't it always the way? a cheats version or something that takes longer usually. well its no different with GITD polish. if you get yourself a UV light or black light you can get the GITD polish to absorb the UV a huge amount quicker and therefore get a brighter longer glow.

ok so the basics we have covered. here is a pic of a polish i received from a indie brand called celestial cosmetics - http://celestialcosmetics.bigcartel.com/

And here it is after i had charged it for a total of 5 mins under a UV lamp.

As you can see it glows pink!!!! and this glow stayed for over an hour.

here is another GITD polish.

This is called If it bleeds... kill it.  This is a Lokis lacquer. it is a green glitter polish but once charged.....

It glows aqua and you can see the glitter on the polish as well.

I charged this for 2 mins with a UV lamp. and the glow lasted for over 3 hours.

lastly here is another polish by lokis lacquer called white walkers.

A very basic white polish with fine glitter through it. but when it glows......

IT REALLY GLOWS. this is with 5 mins under a UV lamp. and as you can see it glows bright blue.

What you will find is if you can get a GITD polish that glows green, blue,purple or aqua those colours tend to glow the longest. by a rule of thumb, a clear based GITD pigment will be able to absorb more light and therefore glow brighter and for longer. this is why when i make polish i tend to stick to those colours for a good glow.

Apart from this as long as you always shake your GITD polish really well before using it to disperse the pigment in the bottle you should get a great result with your polish.

I hope i have helps you a little with glow in the dark 101

tara