Gilding Techniques: Spiking Gel and Hair Glue Method
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Make your own gilding
pastes
easily, safely and inexpensively!
Use hair spiking gel (also called sculpting gel) or hair glue for your base. Choose a spiking gel: To find a spiking gel suitable
for making gilding paste, go shopping for a hair styling gel which
advertises "super hold",
"wicked hold" and is meant to pull hair up into rigid gravity-defying
spikes. Look for "water resistant" in the product
descriptions. Turn the bottle of spiking gel upside down and see
if any bubbles rise quickly, slowly, or don't move at all. If the
bubble rises fast, your gilding paste will be runny and not hold its
shape. If the bubble stays still, your gilding paste will hold a
fine, neat, firm line.
  Turn the spiking gel upside down to see if bubbles rise or stay in place. Left: Bubble rising in hair gel: the paste may be runny. Right: Bubbles do not rise in hair gel: paste will hold its shape. If you can find a spiking gel
that is water resistant, and so thick that the bubbles rise slowly or
not at all, that's the one to get. The ones from beauty supply stores
are more expensive, but tend to work better than those from grocery
stores. Manufacturers change their formulae, change products, and
products vary in different areas, so shop around for your gel, and
expect to have to change your mix from time to time.
Spiking gel based pastes are slow to dry, but once they're completely dry, they're tenacious, flexible, and water resistant. If you scrub or soak them, they're GONE. The ones that are slow drying tend to flake less. Those that dry quickly flake more. Thicker, more expensive beauty supply shop gels hold their shape and line better than thinner, cheaper grocery store gels. If you don't know which gel to get, go to a beauty supply shop, and ask what gel makes the highest, most rigid hair spikes, and doesn't easily wash out. Buy that one. Lumiere powder is an excellent
source for pigment! "Lumiere Powder" comes in all sorts of
colors and metallics. Most theatrical and costume supply shops
carry Lumiere Powder, and you can find sources online by searching
"gold lumiere powder".
 Ben Nye and Mehron both have
Lumiere powders. These are very
finely ground so they are easy to mix up and won't clog even the finest
tip. You can also grind up old eyeshadow powder and use that for
color, if you can even out all the lumps. The Mehron gold and
silver powders have a chemical reaction with some hair gels 4
days after mixing, separating into curds, water and bubbles. The Ben
Nye powders do not to this, except for the silver.
Mix paste with hair spiking gel: Stir 1 part Lumiere powder into 8
parts of spiking gel. That proportion is very
approximate!
Please experiment and decide for
yourself what's going to work best for YOU! Stir it until there are no
more lumps and the powder is completely mixed into the paste.
 If you're doing
a lot of this, use
a filter mask! The Lumiere powder would prefer to fly around than
mix into the paste! It's easier to put the Lumiere powder on top of the
paste and stir it in, rather than trying to stir gel into
Lumiere!
Hair glues are slower to dry than
gels; you will probably need to use a blow
dryer to get them completely dried. They are often vinyl based,
and are tenacious and flexible. Once dried, they are more
water resistant than hair gel.
 Most hair glue is white or transparent. Some beauty supply shops have bright colored hair glue that make beautiful gilding paste base! Choose a glue that compliments your pigment color. Add 1 part Lumiere powder to 5 parts of hair glue.  Apply your hair glue paste in
fine, delicate patterns or they'll never dry. Fine patterns take
about an hour to dry without a blow dryer.
 When you've got your pastes
stirred up, put them into baggies or carrot
bags. The gilding gels and glues will stay fresh in the
refrigerator or a cool
place until
you need
them! Do not freeze your gilding paste; it may separate when it
thaws.
 When you're ready to work,
squeeze some paste from your carrot bag into a mylar cone. Make
the tip smaller than you do for henna. Click HERE
to Learn to make and use a mylar cone!
 The pattern above is adapted from "Bella's Wildflowers" by Christine Fenzl, a book upcoming from TapDancing Lizard. Apply the gilding paste in very fine lines, finer than you usually apply henna paste! Thinner lines dry faster, and are less likely to peal off than thicker lines. Use the same techniques and skills with gilding paste as you use for henna.  If you use hair glue based gilding paste, make the lines as fine as possible. You can get Lumiere powder at
costume shops or online from
http://www.stagesupply.com/lumgrand.html |
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