Project Halloween: Skin Tests

I haven’t glued anything to myself in a while. I am going to be gluing a lot of stuff to myself so I started with a skin test. I need to glue a lot of large flat-back crystals to myself as well as cover myself with metallic body paint and glitter. 

Because...what is more horrific than glitter?

The body paint I used and was blow away by (and having no other experience with body paint) was Mehron Metallic Powder with the matching Mixing Liquid. It was super awesome and then I applied too much glitter. But, that's a good lesson on how much glitter is "too much glitter."  

For the gems, I used good ol’ standard, spirit gum and then liquid latex. A lot of online junk tells me liquid latex is not a good adhesive because it’s rubber or something. And I have used spirit gum for face stuff in the past without problem.

But this is my body. Body skin is different than face skin. And leg skin. And tummy skin. And underarm skin. Literally, if you are a girl, they teach you that you need a different product for every patch of skin you have. Skin is pretty much the same. Sometimes, hair grows out of it. 

Or festering boils.

The problem with spirit gum is that I have to WAIT for it to become tacky or it will migrate. It will also get your fingers all sticky and sh**. It does smell better than liquid latex. 

After about an hour of my test stuff, I need to remove it. It really all held up well - 'cept the spirit gummed gems. They were migrating like mad leaving sticky sail-trails behind. 

So, I start with the gems. The latex was a blast, easy to paint on, stick on and stay stuck and remove and clean. Wonderful. The gems with the spirit gum were just sticky and left behind a sticky mess.Now I’m covered with spirit gum. No problem. I use the spirit gum remover.

And the remover did nothing. 

NOTHING.

I wash with soap and water then drench myself with the remover.

Nope. 

Now the spirit gum remover bottle is covered in sticky spirit gum and so are my fingers – everything I touch is sticking to me like gems, cotton, toilet paper…failure. In fact, the mess is somehow getting bigger. 

And I did check to make sure I was using the spirit gum remover and not more spirit gum. That would have been a funny but pretty difficult endeavor. 

I wanted to try rubbing alcohol, but, I don't have any. Why did this happen? I don't know.

I get a bottle of aloe - because it has some of the same letters as isopropyl alcohol - and rub that all over my chest and find everything gets pretty slipper. Awesome. I sense victory. 

I wash it off and my chest returns to be super sticky.

I get into the shower and use soap and water with a sponge. Still sticky.

I use extra soap and the scrub brush. Still sticky.

I grab the bath salt that have been marinating in oil and rub that over my chest.

SUCCESS.

Needless to say, I will be going with liquid latex to secure the gems. The body paint went on like a dream and stayed like a dream and also washed off like a dream. 

This is why you always rehearse your junk.