Tuesday, September 24, 2013

Nubar Purple Beach

So Eleanor, today I have a fantastic duochrome (duo, two + chrome, color) polish to show you. It's called Purple Beach and it's by Nubar, a California-based progressive salon quality polish maker dedicated to producing polishes that are carcinogen and cruelty free and vegan friendly. This polish came to me via Thithi of ::pretty::tough::nails:: as part of our recent swap. Thanks again, Thithi!

Purple Beach has one of the typically found duochrome shifts, purple to green, but that is only thing about this polish that is typical. The shift in Purple Beach is unusually athletic and agile, and at any given moment you can see both purple and green on the nail. In addition there are a range of related colors visible depending upon the source and angle of light. The primary color is a graceful medium silvery purple, which I love. It's very sleek on the nail. There's also a more vivid and robust purple and a wealth of greens from grey green to a dark forest with a blue tint to a mossy yellow green to a magnificent brownish bronze. 

The consistency of Purple Beach is quite fluid, almost runny, with a streaky brushstrokey application on the first coat. As the second coat goes on, the streakiness disappears. Full opacity is achievable in two coats, with the brushstrokes slowly melting into a unified somewhat metallic look as the polish dries. Purple Beach dries naturally to a shiny finish. It's not a very forgiving polish. Due to the sensitivity of the chromatic shift, any smudge or dent or uneven contour in the nail bed is readily apparent, as you will see. I had to redo one thumb entirely from scratch after a rub up against the Seche Vite bottle. 

Photos show two coats of Purple Beach over treatment and basecoat with a topcoat of Seche Vite. We are having a rainy day here for the first time in a while -- great for the local flora but not so great for picture taking. Thus the photos are somewhat... not dark, but dim. My apologies.


Nubar Purple Beach


Nubar Purple Beach


Nubar Purple Beach


Nubar Purple Beach


Nubar Purple Beach


Nubar Purple Beach


Nubar Purple Beach


Nubar Purple Beach


Nubar Purple Beach


Nubar Purple Beach


Nubar Purple Beach


Nubar Purple Beach


Nubar Purple Beach


Nubar Purple Beach


Nubar Purple Beach


Nubar Purple Beach


Nubar Purple Beach


Nubar Purple Beach


Nubar Purple Beach


Nubar Purple Beach


Nubar Purple Beach


Nubar Purple Beach

This is some deeply cool polish and I am digging it. There are lots of excellent well-written reviews of Purple Beach online and I read quite a few of them. Here's a bit from one of the posts I enjoyed, a review by The Phalanges Files from 26 May 2011: "The duochrome shift is so obvious without the need for finger cirque du soleil or magical lighting, and even the base purple color has this lovely hazy, nebulous quality to it. Nubar did a fantastic job here."


"Finger cirque du soleil...." *lol* So many polishes with claims to duochromedom (sure, it's a word) require all kinds of finger manipulation and squinting to actually see a color shift. Purple Beach is like one of those "beach read" paperbacks you take on vacation, easy and fun to read. 

love,
Aunt Liz


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