Lacquer Slacker Liz: October 2013

Thursday, October 31, 2013

China Glaze Howl You Doin'

Happy Halloween! I'm celebrating the day with a Halloween polish from China Glaze called Howl You Doin'.

Howl You Doin' was recently released by China Glaze as part of its Monsters Ball collection for Halloween 2013. Described by China Glaze as a "shadowy purple glitter," it's a glitter jelly polish with a saturated dark red-leaning purple jelly base full of small hex glitters in purple and fuchsia and shardy orange flake glitters. On the nail it's appearance is near black with twinklings of violet, pink and orange.

I've read reviews where folks experienced the consistency of Howl You Doin' as thin but my bottle was thick and rather sticky so I ended up adding a few squirts of thinner. Opacity was excellent for a jelly polish with a bit of streakiness on the first coat and full opacity after two.

For me, jellies are the most difficult kind of polish to manipulate during application. My tendency to hold the brush at a low angle, with more of the side of the brush in contact with the nail surface, does not serve me well with jellies. With Howl You Doin', I tried holding the brush at a larger angle, with more of the tip in contact with the nail, and this worked much better.

Howl You Doin's glitter spread was great, with no trouble getting plenty of its glitters evenly dispersed across the nail. It dries in very good time for a jelly to a textured slightly dull finish that is curiously topcoat hungry. I applied two coats of Seche Vite and still had a bit of texture come through after drying.

Photos show two medium coats of Howl You Doin' over treatment and basecoat with two coats of Seche Vite to finish.

China Glaze Howl You Doin'

Howl You Doin' is pretty much a dupe for Orly Fowl Play (Fowl Play has larger orange flakes, though, and more of them), and while I didn't appreciate Fowl Play when I swatched it I'm sure I would now because I like Howl You Doin' quite a bit. It seems that swatching all these darker colors this fall has expanded my polish aesthetic's horizons further than I ever expected and I didn't even realize it until now.

Eleanor, have a great Halloween! Eat some candy for me!

love,
Aunt Liz

Wednesday, October 30, 2013

Zoya Mira and Candeo Colors Sour Grapes

Zoya Mira. You remember Mira, right? From my Pahlish Dark Paradise post, here. Mira is a medium well-balanced creamy purple creme. It leans neither too red nor too blue and here lately I'm finding it's good for all my medium purple layering needs. Today I'm going to try it out with Candeo Colors Sour Grapes.

Candeo's website description says that Sour Grapes has a "shimmery vibrant purple base loaded with multiple sizes of lavender, purple and dark purple hex and square glitter" and "small black hex glitter thrown in for good measure." The base color is a little more blue-leaning than Mira, it's almost a violet.

Application was ok. The formula was fine, but even dispersal of glitters across the nail wasn't happening. I fished and dabbed for a while but it even so it didn't seem to make that much difference. I had a couple of instances of glitter stacking where a dark purple hex glitter came to rest atop a large lavender hex glitter. This kind of thing doesn't usually bother me with glitter polishes, in fact I expect it to a certain degree. But in Sour Grapes, where I felt I wasn't getting enough glitters on my brush per dip, having these obvious stacks chuffed my chaps a little bit. Also, I had ghosting around the edges of the polish where I overshot Mira with Sour Grapes.

To plump the pillows, here are some photos of Mira, two coats over treatment and basecoat with a topcoat of Seche Vite, taken in the kitchen under the halogens.

Zoya Mira

Now for Sour Grapes. Photos show two coats over the Mira manicure above with a topcoat of Seche Vite.

Zoya Mira and Candeo Colors Sour Grapes, bottle shot

Candeo Colors Sour Grapes, macro shot in the bottle

Candeo Colors Sour Grapes over Zoya Mira on the nail, Sour Grapes in the bottle

Candeo Colors Sour Grapes over Zoya Mira

My favorite parts of Sour Grapes are the shimmer and the tiny microglitters. This kind of shimmery purple is so gorgeous, and the microglitters throw out perfect tiny sparks of light. I love the small black hexes too. I wish there was more of the larger glitters, or that they were easier to capture with the brush. I upended my bottle before I applied but it didn't seem to help, maybe if I got in there with a skewer and loosened up all those big lavender hexes where they seem to be clinging to the sides of the bottle....

Next time I'm going to try this one over a slightly lighter purple, something like Zoya Malia. That way you'd be able to see more of the darker purple glitters.

love,
Aunt Liz

Tuesday, October 29, 2013

Candeo Colors Divi Divi

No purple today, sorry!

Instead I have another polish from the Aruba collection by Candeo Colors. It's called Divi Divi after the resort in Aruba, which in turn is named after the tropical leguminous divi divi tree. Divi divi trees on Aruba grow bent to a 90 degree in a southwesterly direction due to the continuous action of the trade winds that sweep across the island from the northeast, so they're also natural compasses. Their bark and seed pods contain large amounts of tannin and are as effective as oak for leather tanning. When the Caribbean ABC Islands of Aruba, Bonaire and Curaçao were part of the Netherlands Antilles, divi divi pods were regularly exported and used in Dutch tanneries.

All this tannin stuff is particularly relevant because Divi Divi is a brown shimmer polish. It has a sheer medium warm caramel brown jelly base with brown microglitters and brassy golden shimmers that throw out red and green sparks in the right light. It's a unique and unusual color, you'll never see its like.

The base is quite sheer, so the components are very overt and are responsible for most of the coverage, which takes several coats. I used four to get it as evenly opaque as possible, but three will give you good rich color. Divi Divi, like Anochi Kai, has a light loamy gel-like consistency that dries very quickly. Having polish thinner on hand while working with this polish is a must to avoid clumping, patch pulling and other naughtiness. Divi Divi dries naturally in good time to a somewhat rubbery smooth semi-matte finish.

Photos show four coats of Divi Divi over Seche Rebuild treatment and Butter London Nail Foundation basecoat with a topcoat of Seche Vite.


Candeo Colors Divi Divi

Candeo Colors Divi Divi

This is not a color for everyone but you can't say that it isn't interesting and complex. I showed it to Fuzzy and told her the story of the divi divi tree with its tannin-rich seed pods and leather tanning industry links and she said, Imagine having shoes in that color... and I totally could! In fact I would LOVE to have pair of leather flats or some sweet kitten heels with an almond shaped toe in this color!

I'm not convinced that I can carry off Divi Divi on my nails but I do love it for it's unique color and composition. Polishes like this one are what makes indie polish makers so fabulous.

love,
Aunt Liz