Zoya Natty and Deborah Lippmann Lady Sings the Blues

Zoya Natty is a dark dusky steel blue creme with grey overtones. It's just lovely. Close enough to navy to see that they're cousins, but different enough to warrant keeping Natty for it's slightly greener, grayer appearance even if you already own a navy creme or two. Close enough to a neutral not to steal the show but edgy enough to steal your heart. Dark enough to have the chic glamour of a dark polish but clearly blue and saturated enough never to appear black. Natty is a unique, beautiful color that belongs in every polish enthusiast's collection.

It's a beautifully formulated polish as well, with all the qualities of Zoya's best. It has a one-coater's heart but I found myself wanting a second coat so as not to miss out on having it as richly represented on my nails as possible. The consistency is fluid and dense, the polish goes where you want it to and stays there.

Photos show two easy coats of Natty over treatment and basecoat with a topcoat of Seche Vite to hasten the drying process and protect against smudging.

Zoya Natty

Zoya Natty

Zoya Natty

at the window...

Zoya Natty

Zoya Natty

LOVE!

Zoya Natty

Zoya Natty

Zoya Natty

Zoya Natty

Zoya Natty

Zoya Natty

Zoya Natty

Zoya Natty

LOVE!

Zoya Natty

It occurred to me that as long as I had this lovely dark blue already going on my nails, I should try one of my slightly more unusual dark blue glitters over top of it. I hunted down my bottle of Deborah Lippmann's Lady Sings the Blues to give this untried polish a go.

Lady Sings the Blues is a very dark and vampy (if a blue could be called vampy, it'd be this one) rich well-saturated navy jelly polish with small silver square glitters and medium silver hexes swimming in it's depths. With a near-to-black look on the nail, the semi-translucent quality of its jelly base enables it to refract enough light to show that it isn't black. This is as pigmented a jelly as I have ever seen. In comparison to Natty, Lady Sings the Blues is much darker and covered it completely in one coat. It would certainly be opaque by itself in two.

Like the other Deborah Lippmann glitter polishes I have tried, Lady Sings the Blues is formulated for precise application without sacrificing glitter dispersement. Actually, I found myself wishing that the glitters were a bit more plentiful than they turned out to be and added a second coat in an effort to bring more of them to the nail. 

But the base is so dark that even the highly reflective silver glitters are easily overwhelmed by it and although they do peak out from within the layers the effect is not as magical and immediate as it is with another of her glitter jellies, Across the Universe. Lady Sings the Blues requires close scrutiny to grasp it's effect, which is that of a randomly starred midnight sky.

Sadly, I don't think this effect is very well captured in photographs, which give the glitters a sparse, haphazard impression. The base is just too well-pigmented to allow them to shine as you wish they would. Even with motion, which released the full effect of the glitters in Across the Universe, the glitters in Lady Sings the Blues are too muted to reach their full potential.

Photos show two coats of Lady Sings the Blues over the Natty manicure above with a topcoat of Seche Vite. My apologies for not having a proper bottle shot of Lady Sings the Blues.

Deborah Lippmann Lady Sings the Blues over Zoya Natty

Deborah Lippmann Lady Sings the Blues over Zoya Natty

Deborah Lippmann Lady Sings the Blues over Zoya Natty

Deborah Lippmann Lady Sings the Blues over Zoya Natty

Deborah Lippmann Lady Sings the Blues over Zoya Natty

Deborah Lippmann Lady Sings the Blues over Zoya Natty

Deborah Lippmann Lady Sings the Blues over Zoya Natty

Deborah Lippmann Lady Sings the Blues over Zoya Natty

Deborah Lippmann Lady Sings the Blues over Zoya Natty

Deborah Lippmann Lady Sings the Blues over Zoya Natty

Deborah Lippmann Lady Sings the Blues over Zoya Natty

Deborah Lippmann Lady Sings the Blues over Zoya Natty

Maybe I'm being too hard on this polish, wanting more from it than it was designed to give. It does have a rich, dramatic and glamorous feel on the nail. But I find myself wanting it to be less reticent and more overtly representational of a starry night sky. Lady Sings the Blues is best viewed in bright indirect light; in direct light it appears all but black, and the reflectivity of the dark color outshines the glitters. 

Perhaps if the color had been slightly less pigmented and slightly less saturated... well, but it isn't. Lady Sings the Blues is what it is. For me, it doesn't quite live up to my hopes and expectations.
You can't make everyone happy all of the time! Fuzzy liked this polish quite a bit, and I like it too. Still, I get the feeling that when I'm hankering for a big glitter blue polish, I won't be reaching for this one.

La cosa se anda. *grin*

love,
Aunt Liz