I first met Daryl Chew, founder of Nail Deck, back in law school when he had a pushcart at the SMU basement and I was still blogging on Legally Nailed.

We lost touch but because Singapore is disturbingly small, we reconnected in 2015 when we ended up working in blocks right next to each other in one-north!

In my last week at ShopBack, I was happy to do a review of his latest product, the Nail Deck Lacquer Kit!

Nail deck custom nail polish

All their nail polishes are cruelty-free, vegan and 9-free (i.e. free from Formaldehyde, Toluene, Dibutyl Phthalate (DBP), Camphor, Formaldehyde Resin, Xylene, Ethyl Tosylamide, Phthalates and Parabens).

If you’d like to do the customisation yourself, Nail Deck now has a Lacquer Kit that allows you to mix and create your own custom nail polish colours.

Nail Deck custom nail polish kit
Nail Deck Lacquer Kit

Retailing at SGD$88, the Nail Deck Lacquer Kit comes with all of the equipment you will need to make your own custom colours! Throwback to your secondary school days in the science laboratory, playing with the funnels, syringes, stirrers and mixing cups included in the kit. There is 50ml worth of primary (red, yellow, blue) and base (white and black) nail polish colours for you to experiment with and create any colour imaginable.

Nail Lacquer Kit by Nail Deck contents
Nail Deck Lacquer Kit Contents and Ingredients

Nail Deck empty bottles
Empty 5ml and 10ml Bottles

Nail Deck Laquer Kit Base Colours
Nail Deck Lacquer Kit Base Colours

Nail Deck tools - syringes, funnels, mixing cups and stirrers
Syringes, funnels, mixing cups and stirrers

You have to have some sort of understanding of colour theory if you’re trying to create a specific colour, but even if you’re absolutely terrible at it, it’s still fun to just mix and match to see what you can get. Otherwise, there’s always Google!

For my first attempt, I didn’t try to be overly ambitious and decided to attempt a dark red. Less colours = less likely to fuck up.

Step 1: Use the syringe to measure out and extract the amount of nail polish you want.

For my dark red, I used 3ml of red.

Step 1 - making custom nail polish

Step 2: Transfer the first colour into the mixing cup.

Step 2 - making custom nail polish

Step 3: Measure out your second (and subsequent) colours and transfer it into the mixing cup.

For my second colour, I used 1ml of black. While the polish bottles provided are 5ml, I intentionally only measured out 4ml first, so I would have a 1ml buffer to add/adjust the colours after mixing.

Step 3 - making custom nail polish

Step 4: Mix the colours in the mixing cup using the stirrer provided.

After stirring, I decided that the colour was a bit too dark, so I filled up the last millilitre with more red.

Step 4 - making custom nail polish

Step 5: Once you’re satisfied with the colour, use the funnel to pour the nail polish colour into the nail polish bottle.

Final step - making custom nail polish

The Lacquer Kit also came with suggestion cards, listing out the proportions required to make certain colours. For my second shade, I followed the “Deep Lilac” suggestion card, but modified the proportions slightly to get a more pastel purple.

Making custom nail polish
Nail deck lacquer kit Colour Cards

Recipes - making custom nail polish
Nail deck lacquer kit custom nail polish

And here are the final nail polishes (with the “recipes”)!
Dark Red – 4ml Red, 1ml Black
Pastel Purple – 1ml Red, 3ml Blue, 1ml White
Coral – 3ml Red, 1ml White, 1 ml Yellow

Custom colour nail polish - making custom nail polish
Nail Deck Lacquer Kit Custom Colours

Making your own custom nail polish

And here’s how they look on the nail!

The Lacquer Kit allows you to create 8 bottles of nail polish (averaging around $11 for a 5ml bottle), so you can make them with friends, create custom colours as gifts or just keep them all for yourself!

The nail polish colours and bases are personally sourced and tested by Daryl himself (he always has nail polish on his finger nails when I meet him) and they are really high quality. They were easy to apply and the polishes were super glossy, even without a nail polish top coat!

It can get a bit messy though, so remember to lay out some newspaper before starting on your project!

Making custom nail polish at home - DIY - beauty arts and crafts
Nail deck lacquer Kit

Get rekt.


Excerpts from original article Basement Vandals by Xun-Lin | Beauty | Review
Images courtesy of Basement Vandals and Nail Deck