Application was especially nice considering that I'm having a bad shaky hands day. The more I use Essie's relatively slender brush, the more I like it. The consistency of this polish is fluid and light with excellent flow over the nail. Cocktail bling applies smoothly and self-levels well. It performed with aplomb when I finessed a nick repair with a few licks and a small drop of polish on the tip of the brush -- all traces of the fix melted into the rest of the polish as it dried. Pigmentation is very good. In the right hands (not mine), I can see this being a one coater. Cocktail Bling dries naturally in fairly good time to a glossy finish. Sweet!
Photos show two coats of Cocktail Bling over treament and basecoat with a topcoat of Seche Vite to smooth out residual hints of my wonky-handed application and hasten dry time.
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| Essie Cocktail Bling |
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| Essie Cocktail Bling |
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| Essie Cocktail Bling |
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| Essie Cocktail Bling |
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| Essie Cocktail Bling |
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| Essie Cocktail Bling |
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| Essie Cocktail Bling |
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| Essie Cocktail Bling, with bonus topcoat bubbles! |
This is a truly love pale grey for fall and winter but it's imminently wearable for any season, I think. It has a quiet, lowered sky kind of feel to it, like when there's welcome precipitation ahead. I love that feeling, and am always happiest when the barometer's dropping.
I decided to add something glittery on top of this one. I know, sacrilege! At first I picked out Deborah Lippmann's Today Was a Fairy Tale. I think that one would have been lovely over Cocktail Bling, but it's familiar territory and being the huge risk taker that I am (NOT!) I finally selected the slightly more avant garde choice of Luna by China Glaze to try with it instead.
Luna was released by China Glaze as part of its 50 Specialty Colors collection in 2009. It's a pale silvery blue glitter foil with silver microglitters and small holographic hex glitter in a light icy blue tinted foil base. It's a true full coverage glitter polish that can be layered to opacity in two to three coats.
Luna has a nice fluid consistency for being so jam packed with glitter, but I found I needed to take a little care to get an appropriate bush load. There were some instances of glitter stacking and protrusion over the free edge, but by and large application was smooth and trouble free. Luna dries naturally very quickly to a slightly textured finish. While the polish was still malleable, I gently tamped the glitters down into the polish with my finger for a smoother look and to thwart any tendencies toward excessive glitter grit at the finish.
Photos show one coat of Luna over the Cocktail Bling manicure above with a quick topcoat of HK Girl to seal all those glitters in.
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| Essie Cocktail Bling and China Glaze Luna, bottle shot |
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| China Glaze Luna over Essie Cocktail Bling |
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| China Glaze Luna over Essie Cocktail Bling |
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| China Glaze Luna over Essie Cocktail Bling |
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| China Glaze Luna over Essie Cocktail Bling |
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| China Glaze Luna over Essie Cocktail Bling |
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| China Glaze Luna over Essie Cocktail Bling |
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| China Glaze Luna over Essie Cocktail Bling |
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| China Glaze Luna over Essie Cocktail Bling |
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| China Glaze Luna over Essie Cocktail Bling |
Now at first I was a little put out by what I perceived as the dominance of Luna over Cocktail Bling. To paraphrase an MUA reviewer, it was like an ice fairy had landed kerfloomph on my nails with a shower of silver snow. But you know, it's wearing on me, actually, kinda nicely. I keep catching rainbow twinkles from the little holo hexes out of the corner of my eye. To be sure, if you layer a foil over a creme, any trace of your creme finish is done for. But I think with a playful approach I can certainly come round to this sort of bling (humor, ha!).
I'm not sure how much different looking Luna would be if I just layered it over itself, but I like to think that layering it over Cocktail Bling is a little less chaotic. Application-wise, it certainly helped to have my lines and shapes done in Cocktail Bling before bringing a glitter-flinger like Luna to the table.
Fun times, bring a date!
love,
Liz
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