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| Kunimitsu Lucky Goldfish and Barielle Falling Star |
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| Kunimitsu Lucky Goldfish and Barielle Falling Star |
Barielle is a mainstream polish and skin care product producer founded about thirty years ago by a husband and wife team who started out making hoof treatments for their racehorses. I love that their logo reflects their horsey origin.
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I've used several of their hand and cuticle care products and find them to be excellent if a little pricey.
Their nail lacquer collection was launched in 2005 and, for a mainstream producer, has plenty of interesting and innovative polishes. I especially appreciate the many green and blue polishes in their line up. Falling Star is one such. It is a nicely-pigmented medium dark dusky violet blue creme swimming with small copper glitters. Despite the opacity of the creme base, the glitter seems almost to float on its surface and shows up beautifully against the blue.
I have read reviews of this polish where folks encountered application problems because of an overly-thick and gooey consistency. When I first wore Falling Star, I didn't have any problems applying it. This time around it was thicker and much more difficult to manipulate. These days I never sit down to do a manicure without my bottle of Nubar polish thinner. I tend to be quite liberal with the polish thinner as I figure a polish can and will always thicken back up over time. So I added a dropperful of thinner to Falling Star and had no more problems after that.
For this manicure I used two coats of Falling Star over my basecoat duo of Seche Rebuild and Essie First Base. Because of its glitter content, Falling Star dries to a surface with a slightly dimpled texture. It doesn't seem like it would be a topcoat thirsty polish, but the surface redimpled after the first layer of Seche Vite so I added a second.
All of my photos for this post were taken at night in the kitchen under the halogens. I'm beginning to think I might redo the lighting set up that I have for my jewelry to see if I could possibly use it for polish. It might improve my night time photography, which it could definitely use.
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| Barielle Falling Star -- note air bubble in topcoat on index finger, don't know why it happened but several of these nice big air bubbles appeared in both of the coats of Seche Vite I topped Falling Star with... |
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| Barielle Falling Star |
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| Barielle Falling Star showing excellent match to bottle color |
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| Barielle Falling Star |
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| Barielle Falling Star |
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| Barielle Falling Star |
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| Barielle Falling Star |
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| Barielle Falling Star |
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| Barielle Falling Star |
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| Barielle Falling Star |
In person, Falling Star is a bit darker and more purple than it shows in the pics. It has a very easy going and sort of helpful feel to it. Like the sort of friend you could call if you needed help with a particularly stressful task -- uh, sorting your closet for example. *wink* You know they'd be there for you without trying to take over, know what I mean? You could wear this polish anytime, anywhere.
Kunimitsu Nail Potions is an indie polish maker in Port Orange, FL powered by owner and formulator Jessica Blodgett. Her logo features a cat and she has created a collection of polishes based on the colors of different breeds. How cool is that?
Lucky Goldfish is not one of those, obviously. But it is equally cool. I totally adore the inspiration of koi in a fish pond, such a wonderful visual concept. I discovered Lucky Goldfish when a nail polish friend featured it on her blog, ::pretty::tough::nails::. Rock on Thithi, you enabler you! If you want to see some excellent photos of beautifully manicured nails, check out her blog. She and I share a deep abiding love of Hare Polish.
Lucky Goldfish shares with Falling Star the same basic components: a blue base with copper/orange glitter. But Lucky Goldfish's base is more of a "crelly" than a creme. That is, it has a certain amount of translucency like a jelly does but can be layered to full opacity in a few coats like a creme. Lucky Goldfish also has two sizes of glitters, small and small medium, and the blue base color has a teeny bit of green to it which ultimately gives it more of a royal blue appearance. Plus the blue base of Falling Star has a bit of grey in it that gives it a more muted presence than Lucky Goldfish.
When I began to apply Lucky Goldfish I quickly found out that consistency was a little thick to work well for me. The polish had a tendency to cling to the brush as it fanned out across the nail, making it harder to cover the nail to the edges. You can see that in my pics where the gaps that I leave between polish and nail edge are particularly wide with this polish. After a dropperful of thinner it was much easier to work with. The glitter dispersion was excellent and the translucent nature of the base gives this polish a wonderful depth. The orange glitters sparkle from within the blue just like goldfish in a pond. Inspiration beautifully executed!
I removed Falling Star from the nails on my left hand and applied Lucky Goldfish to those nails only so that I could visually compare the two polishes. I used three coats of Lucky Goldfish over my basecoat duo and topped it with one coat of Seche Vite, mostly to ensure drying of the polish layers.
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| Kunimitsu Lucky Goldfish |
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| Kunimitsu Lucky Goldfish |
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| Kunimitsu Lucky Goldfish, macro shot in the bottle |
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| Kunimitsu Lucky Goldfish, with camera reflections *groan* |
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| Kunimitsu Lucky Goldfish |
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| Kunimitsu Lucky Goldfish |
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| Kunimitsu Lucky Goldfish |
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| Kunimitsu Lucky Goldfish |
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| Kunimitsu Lucky Goldfish |
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| Kunimitsu Lucky Goldfish |
LOVE! This is a beautiful and fun polish to wear. It's adorable! I love that there are two sizes of glitters, and I love how they show in the layers of polish. The translucency of the base is particularly lovely. I think it's more special than Falling Star, in no small part because it's a handmade artisinal polish but also because it is so true to the concept that inspired it. Very well done, no?
When I started the swatching for this post I was thinking that Falling Star and Lucky Goldfish were more alike than different. But I've changed my mind. They feel VERY different when you're wearing them. And even though the photos don't show it well, there are significant visual differences between them also.
I've worn Falling Star before and I know how it looks in daylight. I think I'll redo my right hand with Lucky Goldfish so that it matches my left. I can't wait to see how it looks in the sun!
Maybe I'll take some better photos of it then. Would you like to see them?
love,
Aunt Liz
ps I hear that you all are going to take a trip up to Quebec next month, how awesome!
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