Mannequin Hands: Zoya Farah and Barielle Buddaful

 After a number of brightly colored manicures I sometimes feel the need for what is called in the nail polish enthusiast world, a "palate cleanser." That means it's neutral time! A neutral polish can be one that easily accompanies other brighter or more impactful (yes I made up that word) colors, as you know from watching What Not To Wear. It's also a term used to describe polishes that are close in color to the natural color of the nail bed, producing a look otherwise known as "mannequin hands."

Mannequin hands. You'd think you could slap on any pale beige color and get them and I guess you could if you didn't care whether they matched your skin tone. But you do care, of course! And I do too. However sometimes my love of a color supersedes my ability to judge whether one in particular goes well with my skin tone. I suspect that may be the case with the polish I have to show you in this post.

The polish is by Zoya and it's called Farah. Zoya described Farah as "an opaque light khaki-beige with subtle sandy, greenish undertones and a cream finish." Khaki has always had greenish implications in my mind, which I don't like because it's a member of the brown family of colors and technically it doesn't have any green in it. I don't see the green in Farah either. To me, it is a creamy whitened beige with grey undertones.

Application of Farah had a couple of things in common with other whitened colors that I've worked with. Despite having a liquid consistency, it was sticky and wanted to patch. It would take a more experienced and even hand than I have to apply thin coats of this polish. I used two medium coats. Farah also wasn't as self-leveling as I've come to expect from Zoya's polishes, but again this is a whitened color. 

All in all, though, I LOVE this color. It's a beautiful creamy easy-to-live-with neutral and makes my eyes happy. That said, I'm not so sure it's my perfect mannequin hands polish. Let's look at the pics. 

Things I need to quickly apologize for: acetone residue, stray green glitters (from what I have no clue), nail ridges, dent gremlins had a go at my right pointer finger. Ok, now the pics.

Zoya Farah, bottle shot

Zoya Farah

Zoya Farah

Zoya Farah

Zoya Farah

Zoya Farah

Zoya Farah

Zoya Farah

Zoya Farah

Zoya Farah

Zoya Farah

Zoya Farah

Zoya Farah

You may be wondering, how could dent gremlins get to a manicure when she's awake? Sneak attack.

Yes, sometimes it happens. You have to pee and forget that your newly finished manicure is vulnerable. The dent gremlins are alert for this possibility and when it presents itself they will attack. Urination has been the downfall of many an innocent manicure and I'm glad I had the opportunity to impart this knowledge. Remember, pee first THEN manicure.

Buddaful by Barielle is a sheer milky pinkish beige packed with transparent iridescent color-shifting flakies that change from green to blue depending on the angle of light. Being so sheer meant I'd need underwear for it, so I layered it over my Farah manicure. 

For a sheer polish, there's a lot of bulk to Buddaful (love that name, so cute!). There are some monster flakies in this polish! They give it a very chunky consistency and are not all that well-behaved either. I had shardy bits that didn't want to lay flat and some that wanted to poke out over the free edge of my nail. 

I almost stopped at one coat of Buddaful but I'm glad I didn't. Layering another coat brought out the blue shift in the flakies, although I had to look at a pretty sharp angle to see it. The second layer also added more pink to the look, which seemed on the whole to be a better match for my skin tone. But it did create a "thick polish" polish look on the nail, which a layer of Seche Vite only added to. I think once all the layers are dry this look will tone down some, but it's apparent in the photos since I took them right after application.

Zoya Farah and Barielle Buddaful, bottle shot

Barielle Buddaful, bottle shot showing green to blue flakie shift

Barielle Buddaful over Zoya Farah, flakies are transparent unless illuminated from the proper angle

Barielle Buddaful over Zoya Farah, a bit of green to blue flakie shift especially in the giant flakie at lower left

Barielle Buddaful over Zoya Farah

Barielle Buddaful over Zoya Farah

Barielle Buddaful over Zoya Farah

Barielle Buddaful over Zoya Farah

Barielle Buddaful over Zoya Farah

Barielle Buddaful over Zoya Farah

Barielle Buddaful over Zoya Farah

Barielle Buddaful over Zoya Farah

Barielle Buddaful over Zoya Farah

Barielle Buddaful over Zoya Farah

Barielle Buddaful over Zoya Farah, green to blue flakie color shift

Barielle Buddaful over Zoya Farah

Barielle Buddaful over Zoya Farah

Barielle Buddaful over Zoya Farah

Barielle Buddaful over Zoya Farah

Overall I'm pretty pleased with how this manicure turned out. Farah I would move to Vermont and marry, that's how much I love it. But it may be a better color for a wall or upholstery than my nails. Blinded by love, I can't tell. I think maybe trying more putty-colored polishes would improve my "objectivity" *snort* regarding this type of color. 

Buddaful is cool as all get out, no doubt about it. A little bit of a PITA to work with but a lot of return for your trouble. Next time I'm going to try it over a pink.

love,
Aunt Liz