Franken Fun: Rami, a Franken Tribute to Deborah Lippmann's Ray of Light

Hello gentle readers. Fair warning: This is a long post. I get wordy in this one. (Shocking, I know... :P)

How's things? Looking forward to the weekend? I sure am. Something pretty big is happening for us and it is about damned time! A major several years long pain in the ass is wrapping up. Coming to an end and I am so glad. I am so over it and ready to move the hell on!

Since I am seeing the light at the end of a very long, difficult tunnel, I thought that I would use that as a way to introduce my latest franken. This is a tribute to a new polish recently released by Deborah Lippmann. Ray of Light is a stunning deep blue base packed with flakies. It is beautiful but spendy. I was considering splurging on it, anyway but while perusing photographs and reading reviews I realized that a version of Ray of Light could be quite easily frankened.

Now, I am not claiming that I have a dupe, here. I haven't seen Ray of Light in person and I am not likely to. But I think that I came fairly close with my version. This franken is easy to make, it requires a pretty short list of ingredients that most lacquerheads probably already own. If not, the ingredients are easy and not terribly expensive to acquire.

I named my franken Rami, after my older sister. I chose to name this polish for her for a few reasons. First, I love her name. I always have. When I was a kid, I was a bit envious of it. I got over it but I still love it. I also chose my sister as this polish's namesake because Rami is a ray of light in my life, our mother's life and to anyone who knows and loves her. Ray of Light is blue, blue is the colour for Autism Awareness. Rami was born with a severe form of autism. (Or so the experts have said... Rami is a tough nut to crack. lol) She is a grown woman, physically but otherwise, she is much like a small child, in some ways, like a 'tween. And lastly, I had to name this polish Rami because she loves nail polish as much as I do. Seriously. I am a collector. She is a hoarder. lol And she guards her pretties like a pitbull with a bone!

I have a bunch of photographs of this polish to share. These photographs were shot in sun and the last one in shade. My poor old camera is experiencing focusing issues, so these photographs aren't as detailed as I could wish but I think that they give a pretty good idea of what I was going for. This swatch was three coats with top coat.

Without further ado, may I present Rami:

So, anyone who owns the beautiful original, how did I do? Did I come close? If I am way off, any suggestions would be welcome.

 As I said earlier, the recipe is easy to follow.

Nubar 2010 (any flakie of that ilk will work just fine) somewhere between 2/3 and 3/4 bottle

Color Club Blue-Topia, any deep blue (but not black-blue) jelly will do, up to below where the cap rests, when screwed on. But not too much... You don't want to kill the flakies! Add a little at a time, until you have the right saturation. But hold back a little because you then add:

Eight drops of Wet-n-Wild Black Creme (any black creme polish will do)

Four drops of China Glaze Concrete Catwalk (any dark grey creme will do)

I added the blue, black and grey to my Nubar bottle, tossed in a couple of extra ballz and a few drops of thinner and shook it like I meant it. That's it. Easy-peasy.

My version is very jelly and I needed three coats for perfect opacity. (This polish photographs a little sheer, it is opaque in person.) It applied smoothly and the flakies distributed easily and smoothly. Dry time was pretty danged good, especially with a fast dry top coat. It is a tad thirsty and I should have used two coats of top coat to get it perfectly glass like. I wore this swatch to see how this franken would wear and wear time is decent. I got a solid four days out of it before it chipped. While that isn't super long wear, it is fine for me, as I change my polish pretty frequently. This franken wasn't difficult to remove. I just pressed remover soaked cotton rounds to my nail, held it for a bit, then gently scrubbed the polish off. I had no staining of my nails or my skin.

You should have seen me, running around with my dotted nail art on one hand, Rami on the other. heh heh

Okay, so there you have it. What do you think of Rami? Yes? No? I had no business attempting to franken Ray of Light? (I didn't do it for financial gain or to take anything away from the creator of the original, just to have the pretty, on my budget and because I really wanted to see if I could.) Do you think that you will try to knock this together? Your input is welcome.

Thank you so much for popping in. Have a great day and may your polish never bubble.