Application was great! The consistency of Gilded Grove is fluid, light and smooth, with a silky, self-leveling glide over the nails. The flakies are very well-behaved, go on smoothly and lie flat to the nail without tumbling, stickups or protrusions over the free edge. With the polish's built-in translucence, coverage is buildable over multiple coats. I used three for this manicure and even though I can still detect a hint of visible nail line when backlit, it is wearably opaque under most viewing circumstances and the color is rich and full. Cleanup is easy and straightforward with almost no pigment travel and just a hint of residual staining, mostly at the cuticle. Gilded Grove dries naturally in very good time to a beautiful glossy finish with no detectable texture from the components.
Photos show three coats of Gilded Grove over treatment and basecoat with a topcoat of Seche Vite.
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| Emily de Molly Gilded Grove |
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| Emily de Molly Gilded Grove |
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| Emily de Molly Gilded Grove |
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| Emily de Molly Gilded Grove |
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| Emily de Molly Gilded Grove |
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| Emily de Molly Gilded Grove |
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| Emily de Molly Gilded Grove |
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| Emily de Molly Gilded Grove |
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| Emily de Molly Gilded Grove |
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| Emily de Molly Gilded Grove |
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| Emily de Molly Gilded Grove |
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| Emily de Molly Gilded Grove |
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| Emily de Molly Gilded Grove |
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| Emily de Molly Gilded Grove |
In retrospect, I probably should have added an additional coat for the photos to minimize sheerness at some of my nail tips and to give a better overall representation of what this polish is like in person, where the slight translucence that you see in some of these photos is not noticeable. The color, though, has translated accurately: a nice forest/pine green, mellow and organic, one that I'm sure green polish lovers especially can appreciate.
If you're into indie polishes, you've probably read about the Mentality Polish debacle that has recently received a lot of attention from polish enthusiasts, bloggers and folks that monitor independently made beauty products. Certain products from Mentality have been linked to onycholysis, a condition where the nail separates from the nail bed, with accompanying pain, sensitivity and swelling. Mentality's reproachable handling of this problem has resulted in a maelstrom of criticism and recrimination. You can find more detailed information in these posts: Mistakes Happen but This Response is Unacceptable by Kirby of The Mercurial Magpie, Fact Check: What's to Blame for Mentality Nail Polish Problems by Michelle of Lab Muffin and Thoughts from a [former] Mentality Blogger by Kelly of Nails for the Sake of Sanity.
I have featured Mentality here a dozen times over the last couple of years. While I've not had any symptoms from my most recent Mentality purchase in May this year, which from what I understand would have been the most likely polish to cause them, I do feel like I dodged a bullet. Needless to say, I won't be purchasing from them again. In fact, after all that's happened and continues to happen, I'll be very surprised if Mentality survives this catastrophe.
Although shocked and deeply disappointed by these circumstances and Mentality's handling of them, I believe absolutely that this situation is a singular anomaly in the world of indie polish making. I've purchased and used hundreds of other independently made polishes over the past four years with zero problems and will continue to do so. My enthusiasm is undimmed, my support ongoing.
love,
Liz
That is a very pretty polish!
ReplyDeleteIt's a really nice green, isn't it?
DeleteThank you soo much for sharing links and your perspective on the Mentality mess. I had only just discoved that particular drama and disaster the day before, and was/am so horrified. The LabMuffin article was amazing. Waiting with baited breath to hear the results from the various labs/professionals who have been roped into helping figure out what's going on. I had just bought a ton of Mentality from Harlow during a sale in July, and I'm so relieved that I hadn't gotten around to trying it, but bummed that I now have all these toxic, unusable polishes. At first I thought I might use some in an art project or some such, but then I read a recommendation from someone that we should not even open or smell these if we can avoid it (until we know what's going on that is), as it is possible that formaldehyde is in the works and you don't want that around anywhere. I'm really hoping that this doesn't damage the businesses of responsible and talented indie makers :( :( :(
ReplyDeleteGorgeous swatches and review, by the way ;)
Marisa, is Harlow offering refunds for the Mentality they sold this summer? I know that some of the overseas stockists are. In any case, those polishes may turn out to be useful for analysis by interested parties at some point so I'd keep them for a little while. When you're ready to let them go, there's always Zoya's Earth Day Exchange next spring. Also I found through Priti NYC that a company called Chemwise will dispose of unwanted polish and recycle the bottles, but they charge a fee... http://www.chemwise.org/services-nail-polish.html
DeleteSucks royally to be out the $ but I'm just really, really glad that you didn't use any of it.
I think the Mentality mess may well have put some people off indies. However, the bulk of us who use and love these polishes know that whatever happened with Mentality is not representative. I hope that we'll eventually find out what that was, but given the disingenuousness exhibited generally I can't help but doubt that we ever actually will.
I hadn't heard the formaldehyde thing, but you know that until relatively recently formaldehyde in some form was always an ingredient in polish. I remember one especially lean Christmas when I disassembled a mobile made from hundreds and hundreds of tiny seashells, painted them with polish, strung them on embroidery floss and gave them in sets as Christmas gifts.