Orly Emberstone

Emberstone was released by Orly as part of the wonderful Mineral FX collection for fall 2011. It has a semi-translucent tabasco/cherry red base packed with irregularly-shaped foily metallic shimmers in gold, hot pink and bright orange. On the nail it's like a fiery metallic coalescence of red, blood orange and hot pink speckled by fine foily flecks of color, with a scintillating sparkle from the shimmers and washes of intense color over the nail that change depending upon the type and angle of light. This color of this polish is so dimensional and dynamic that the only thing I can liken it to is stained glass. All of the exquisite red, orange and pink sunset colors are here, and it shimmers and fluctuates between them exactly like colors do in the glowing coals of a fire.

Application was great! In the bottle, Emberstone looked like it was going to be kind of watery but it turned out to be surprisingly user friendly. The consistency is thin and fluid but not watery. This polish likes to go on in thin coats and it goes where you put it and stays there. Of course if you swipe a cuticle or bit of skin with a heavily loaded brush it will run and flood, but it's easy to work with in spite of that with a smooth even flow over the nail that gives you every chance for a clean manicure. Pigmentation is buildable: sheer on the first coat, nearing opacity and wearable with two and achieving completely opaque coverage with three. Great self-leveling properties, too. Cleanup takes a little extra effort if there's any flooding, which I did experience on a couple of nails (user error), as the pigmentation is quite plucky in spite of the sheerness and it will leave traces of itself tucked into cuticles and threaded over skin if you aren't thorough. The foily shimmers can be a bit recalcitrant too. But overall, this polish delivers an enjoyable application experience, even if you're a little messy like me. And it's very cool to watch the shimmers go onto the nail! Emberstone dries naturally in good time to a smooth shiny metallic finish.

Photos show three coats of Emberstone over treatment and basecoat with a topcoat of Seche Vite. 

Orly Emberstone

Orly Emberstone

Orly Emberstone

Orly Emberstone

Orly Emberstone

Orly Emberstone

Orly Emberstone

Orly Emberstone

Orly Emberstone

Orly Emberstone

Orly Emberstone

Orly Emberstone

Hot! Emberstone is every bit as bright and bold and vital in person as it is in these photos and is one of those polishes that you would wear for its own sake rather than as an accompaniment to an outfit or an occasion, I would think. It reminds me of that certain hot red-orange color of rose you sometimes see at the florist that morphs to hot reddish pink at the tips of the petals. After dark under artificial light it becomes less seething and more of a shimmery metallic blood orange. It's at its most startling and brilliant outdoors in bright indirect light, where it glows with rosy maraschino cherry and strawberry red tones.

Generally I prefer chunkier, flakier foils but Emberstone is so intensely radiant and full of energy that I can't help but adore it. It's a beautifully constructed polish, the size of the shimmers and ratio of colors work together synergistically to produce a very provocative, almost shocking color dynamic. And yet, there's an air of transience and delicacy to it also, as if something so profoundly colorful could only exist for a moment before it's gone, like the fleeting poignancy of a brilliant sunset as the last colors glow on the horizon or the dreamy evanescent shapes that appear in the flames of a fire. 

love,
Liz