Orly Rock the World

Like Stone Cold, Rock the World was released by Orly as part of the Mineral FX collection for fall 2011. It has a deep plummy purple translucent jelly base filled with a massive amount of irregularly shaped golden foily shimmer flecks. The combination gives this polish a coppery burgundy look speckled with gold. The superabundant golden flecks appear in varying colors depending upon how deeply buried they are. At the surface, they are gold, then as you go down you see pink, magenta, burgundy, purple and bronze. Although it's deliciously flecked and speckled in indirect light, I think it's at its very prettiest in full sun, where it scintillates with sparks of color from the flaky shimmers. 

Application was nice. Rock the World has a fluid and thin but not runny consistency that is easy to work with. It likes to go on in thin coats that lay down in an even, self-leveling manner. Pigmentation is provided largely by the shimmers, but they are so densely packed into the base that opacity can be achieved in two coats. I did three because I now have an overdeveloped paranoia respect for the power of the macro. Cleanup was easy. The golden flakes of shimmer tend to want to stick around but they give up the ghost after two or three swipes with the cleanup brush. Rock the World dries naturally in average time to a smooth shiny finish. Topcoat definitely enhances the colors and pops the shimmers.

Photos show three coats of Rock the World over treatment and basecoat with a topcoat of Seche Vite.

Orly Rock the World

Orly Rock the World

Orly Rock the World

Orly Rock the World

Orly Rock the World

Orly Rock the World

Orly Rock the World

Orly Rock the World

Orly Rock the World

Orly Rock the World

Orly Rock the World

Orly Rock the World

The combination of a purple or pinkish red colored jelly base with profuse flaky shimmers was very trendy around the time of this polish's release and there are several popular polishes by other brands and Orly itself that are similarly constructed. Zoya Faye and OPI Rally Pretty Pink have a lighter, pinker base. OPI It's My Year has a lighter, more violet tinged purple base. Orly Oui has a deeper violet base and its sister polish from the Holiday Soiree collection, Ingenue has a lighter violet tinged purple base -- very like OPI It's My Year. Sometimes these polishes get lumped together as being TOO similar, and I can see how that could happen. If you want to see some comparisons for yourself, The Polishaholic has a Zoya Faye vs Orly Rock the World vs OPI It's My Year comparison post, here. And Piece of Pie has a comparison of the three Orlys, Oui, Ingenue and Rock the World, here. 

I have both Oui and Ingenue in addition to Rock the World, and have a post featuring Ingenue, here. I think these three are distinct enough to warrant having them all, but Rock the World looks better on me than either of the other two. It's combination of reddish purple and yellow gold has a beautiful warm bronzy brown look in some lights that reminds me of the bloom that develops on the surface of scuppernong grapes as they ripen. Scuppernongs, at least the variety that we have here, are green, but there's a duochromatic pinch of green to the golden shimmer in Rock the World too, which is easier to see in the bottle but you can catch it around the edges on the nail in certain lights. In dim indoor lighting, Rock the World has a deep purplish red look with flashes of gold along the axis of light. 

For me, despite the number of similarly constructed polishes, Rock the World has a particularly evocative and delicate fleeting beauty that's very autumnal. I wasn't expecting to love this one as much as I do, but the more I look at it the more multifaceted and beautiful it becomes!

love,
Liz