How I Add Colour to My Acrylic Nail Powders With STAEDTLER Karat Soft Pastel Chalks

I've been looking for a more consistent way to add colour to my acrylic powder mixes. I have been using eyeshadow, but once you run out of a colour finding the same one again can be a challenge. I decided to try an old friend. STAEDTLER Karat soft pastel chalks are great to have in your art cupboard for a bunch of uses. We use them to add colour to all sorts of projects from paper mache to school drawing assignments. I decided I would get a colour I could rely on and go back to again and again if I mixed my own acrylic powder with these highly pigmented sticks.

Here's how I did it!

Things you'll need to mix your own acrylic powder colour:

STAEDTLER Karat soft pastel chalks in the colours of your choice
STAEDTLER Lumicolour permanent black 0.6 F marker
Nail file medium grit
Sheets of plain white paper
Nail brush
White acrylic powder
Clear acrylic powder
Sparkles in the colour of your choice
Small seal-able containers to hold mixed powder
clear nail tips
Monomer liquid
#6 round brush
Paper towels

Pick some colours that you would like to mix. I chose different gradients of blue for a future frosty project. Make sure your work surface is clean and protected. This can get messy. Lay out a sheet of clean white paper.

Put the tip of the nail file onto the center of a plain white piece of paper and file the tip of one of the chalk colours you have chosen until you have about a quarter teaspoon of colour on the paper.


Use the nail cleaning brush to clean off the nail file. Scrub it over top of the paper to collect the mess. Use the sheet of paper to pour the chalk powder into a small container. Repeat as many times as you want with as many colours as you'd like. Clean the file and brush between colours and use a new sheet of paper for each colour. I also find it helpful to start with the lightest colour first. It keeps colour contamination down.

Here's what I came up with. Four hues of blue. Approximately a quarter teaspoon each.

I decided to add sparkles and mylar flakes to the lightest two colours. I picked similar shades, but interesting combinations can be made by choosing contrasting sparkles. Mix in as much or as little as you'd like. I used about an eighth of a teaspoon each.

I added two scoops from my cuticle pusher, about a quarter teaspoon, of white acrylic powder to each pot.

I added ten scoops from my cuticle pusher, about one and a quarter teaspoons, of clear acrylic powder to each pot.

Seal up the jars and roll them around a bit to mix the ingredients together.

Huh.... They look pretty good so far. I'm going to have to test them to see if they are what I was looking for.

I wet my brush in monomer and picked up a ball of coloured powder. It instantly darkened. Most coloured powders you buy commercially darken when used, so I'm not worried. It's why I added white powder to my mix. Smooth the ball out onto a nail tip and shape it. Set it aside to cure and repeat with the other colours you've mixed.

I coated each test nail in a clear coat. They look great. The pigment in these little chalk sticks is pretty intense. A little goes a long way.

I grabbed my black Lumicolour to mark each tip with the corresponding colour number so I could keep track of my mixes in my colour diary. I really like that I can blend my own colours. The colour choices are endless now. Staedtler Karat pastels come in sets of up to 48 colours and they can each be blended together to achieve an uncountable array of rainbowy goodness.