Hare Polish Hidden Treasures in a Bowl of Roses

Hidden Treasures in a Bowl of Roses is a recent release from indie polish maker Hare Polish and is part of Nikole's Viva Los Angeles collection for spring/summer 2014. It has a medium denim blue crelly base absolutely packed with black, white, neon pink, neon green and gold glitters as well as golden shimmer. On the nail, it reminds me of hand-torched lampwork glass beads, sparkling and rich with immense visual interest.

Application was unexpectedly easy. The consistency of Hidden Treasures is gel-like but not sticky, and thick with components that spread out smoothly over the nail with minimal stacking and no dragging. Pigmentation of the base is very good. It is translucent enough to allow the glitters to peek through but opaque enough to afford real coverage where it counts, like at the nail line. I achieved completely opaque coverage in two medium coats, and had very minimal cleanup. Hidden Treasures dries naturally in very good time to a shiny finish with some surface texture from its superabundant glitter content. 

Photos show two coats of Hidden Treasures in a Bowl of Roses over Seche Rebuild treatment and Butter London Nail Foundation basecoat with a smoothing coat of Gelous followed by a topcoat of Seche Vite. 

Hare Polish Hidden Treasures in a Bowl of Roses

Hare Polish Hidden Treasures in a Bowl of Roses

Hare Polish Hidden Treasures in a Bowl of Roses

Hare Polish Hidden Treasures in a Bowl of Roses

Hare Polish Hidden Treasures in a Bowl of Roses

Hare Polish Hidden Treasures in a Bowl of Roses

Hare Polish Hidden Treasures in a Bowl of Roses

Hare Polish Hidden Treasures in a Bowl of Roses

Hare Polish Hidden Treasures in a Bowl of Roses

Hare Polish Hidden Treasures in a Bowl of Roses

Fuzzy took a look at this and said: Wedgwood blue, with speckles! It seemed to make a lot more sense to her once I explained that it was inspired by the Rose Bowl Flea Market. There's a series on the Smithsonian Channel called Aerial America where every episode features a state and all the filming is done from a plane or a helicopter one, probably a helicopter for as close to the ground as they get. Anyway, it's a beautiful show and this polish brought it to mind. I can see it as representative of what that huge flea market could like from above, with all the vendor's canopies and wares and thousands of people wandering through. 

Hidden Treasures still reminds me of lampwork glass beads, though. To kind of show you what I mean, I took a photo of a necklace I made many years ago with beads torched by Donna Millard....

Though the necklace is a different blue than Hidden Treasures, there's a look of organic randomness to Donna's lampwork that's also present in the polish. I guess I've always loved that aspect of Nikole's creations. I mean, here are all these perfect graphic little shapes scooped up and splayed out against a background of color in such an arbitrary, indiscriminate way... and yet, bounded as polish is by the dimensions of a finger nail, it takes on a natural coherence and becomes a little piece of artwork. Different on each nail but similar across the fingers, it's a look. 

Hidden Treasures, indeed! 

love,
Liz