Why is TKB's Glamour Base for Nail Polish Purple?

TKB offers an assortment of uncolored nail polish bases for your use in making your own Indie Beauty nail polish brand.

These include:  Glamour Base, Luster Base, Clear Coat, Mattify and seventeen color concentrates.

In this post we look at Glamour Base, our most popular uncolored nail polish base. 

TKB's Glamour Base is a suspension nail polish base recommended for indie beauty nail polish projects where you are adding glitter to your design.

This is because Glitter -- unlike your other options for coloring bases -- tends to fall out of suspension and settle to the bottom of your bottle, so the base you use has to be extra thick and suspending.  Also, Glitter shows off best when it is in a clear base, so you need a base which is clear and see-through.  

So, why is TKB Glamour Base purple?

The ingredients in polish, like lacquers generally, can yellow over time as they are exposed to air.  Like this photo showing what the Mona Lisa would look like if the aged lacquer was removed (Image thanks to Reddit and u/guil92).  You can see that lacquer ages and yellows over time.

Your Indie Beauty Frankenpolish is unlikely to last as long as the Mona Lisa (although who can say, I have old polishes in my drawer from the 70's).  Still, we add a small amount of Violet #2 dye to the base to offset the yellowing effect of aging lacquer.  These keeps the polish in the bottle bright and clear.  

While the polish looks "purple" in the big bulk container you receive, once you pour it into the smaller consumer sized bottle, you don't even notice the color.

Ok, so now I hear you asking, "Why is purple going to make it look clear?"

Color theory instructs us that Yellow and Purple are opposite each other on the color wheel.  As you add one to the other, you begin to neutralize the color, eventually going into a mid grey.  This is why to offset the yellowing effect of age, we introduce a little purple hue.  One offsets the other.

Just another proof that we all need a little purple in our lives!