I was blog browsing this morning and came across a post from Debbie aka The Crumpet, the second in a series of posts she's doing about her stash, color by color (with a few extra categorizations that she will explain herself), on video no less. I'm loving these stash videos, Debbie is so upbeat and lovely and full of humor and love for polish that they are just a treat to watch! The video I watched this morning was about the "GREEEEEEEN" portion of her collection, and what should she pull out but Hare's Golden Years. As I watched her twirl the bottle in front of the camera and talk about how beautiful the polish is, I thought I gotta swatch that puppy right now, today! Thus this post.
Golden Years is best described by Nikole herself. "Golden Years is a semi-sheer navy blue jelly packed full of gold glitter in squares and hexes in all kinds of sizes, mysterious iridescent blue glitter, navy blue hexes and delicate gold flecks." Through the navy base, the golden glitters read as green (hence its presence in Debbie's green category), and their different sizes and shapes come through as a shimmering green mosaic accented by brilliant flashes of blue from the iridescent blue glitters and deeper green from the navy glitters. It's deep blue green appearance gives this polish an oceanic feel -- it brings to mind golden treasure at the bottom of a cold reedy sea, an image befitting the Finders Keepers theme.
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| Hare Polish Golden Years over Impala Azul Pavão |
In the past I've worn Golden Years layered over a favorite "undie" polish from Brazil, Impala's Azul Pavão, and I decided to stay with that combo today. Azul Pavão is a translucent deep blue green jelly, a dark teal color that is very sheer. It's great for layering under deep blue or green glitter jellies, it gives them a foundation to build on while remaining translucent enough not to affect the original color too much. It has a fluid, gel-like consistency that can get a little sticky if overworked so I apply it carefully in thin coats. I don't try to build opacity with this polish, so pigmentation isn't an issue and cleanup is very easy. I can't recall if it stains, though. I believe it does. Well, we'll see won't we? Azul Pavão ("pavão" is Portuguese for peacock) dries naturally in good time to a glossy jelly finish.
Photos show two scant coats of Azul Pavão over treatment and basecoat. No topcoat.
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| Impala Azul Pavão |
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| Impala Azul Pavão |
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| Impala Azul Pavão |
Once Azul Pavão had dried I applied Golden Years. Now I hadn't touched this polish since the last time I wore it over a year ago and the glitters were still perfectly suspended and the polish hadn't separated at all. Nikole's suspension base rocks! The consistency is fluid, a little oily and dense with components. It has good flow over the nail but the glitters do like to tumble and protrude over the free edge. This glitter jelly is one that you can paint on like a regular polish. You get a copious amount of glitters with each brushful and they disperse beautifully over the nail as you paint. The only place I did any dabbing was along the edges where Azul Pavão needed a bit of covering. The dark blue jelly base is very pigmented and I've seen this polish layered to opacity in three coats, but it's mainly the components that provide the coverage. I used two coats of Golden Years for this manicure. Cleanup is best done as you go along so that you can remove any glitters while the polish is still wet and prevent them from become entrenched on the skin. Golden Years dries naturally in very good time to a surprisingly smooth shiny finish with only the slightest texture from the components.
Photos show two coats of Golden Years over the Azul Pavão manicure above, with a coat of Nail Pattern Baldness Glitter Food to further smooth the surface, followed by a layer of OPI Matte Top Coat (which you'll see in a minute) and finished with a glossy topcoat of HK Girl.
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| Hare Polish Golden Years over Impala Azul Pavão |
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| Hare Polish Golden Years over Impala Azul Pavão |
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| Hare Polish Golden Years over Impala Azul Pavão |
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| Hare Polish Golden Years over Impala Azul Pavão |
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| Hare Polish Golden Years over Impala Azul Pavão |
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| Hare Polish Golden Years over Impala Azul Pavão |
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| Hare Polish Golden Years over Impala Azul Pavão |
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| Hare Polish Golden Years over Impala Azul Pavão |
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| Hare Polish Golden Years over Impala Azul Pavão |
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| Hare Polish Golden Years over Impala Azul Pavão |
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| Hare Polish Golden Years over Impala Azul Pavão |
There's something of the intrepid explorer to this polish that gives it a sense of mystery and potential danger... like the drama of journeys into the strange unknown, seeking out hidden treasures (or new life and new civilizations).
I wanted to see what Golden Years would look like with a matte topcoat. I actually matted it first, before the final topcoat of HK Girl, because Nail Pattern Baldness Glitter Food dries kind of satiny matte and John liked that look. Here's how it turned out with a layer of OPI Matte Top Coat over that....
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| Hare Polish Golden Years over Impala Azul Pavão, matte |
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| Hare Polish Golden Years over Impala Azul Pavão, matte |
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| Hare Polish Golden Years over Impala Azul Pavão, matte |
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| Hare Polish Golden Years over Impala Azul Pavão, matte |
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| Hare Polish Golden Years over Impala Azul Pavão, matte |
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| Hare Polish Golden Years over Impala Azul Pavão, matte |
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| Hare Polish Golden Years over Impala Azul Pavão, matte |
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| Hare Polish Golden Years over Impala Azul Pavão, matte |
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| Hare Polish Golden Years over Impala Azul Pavão, matte |
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| Hare Polish Golden Years over Impala Azul Pavão, matte |
As fetching as matted glitter is, I think I prefer this one glossy. It just feels more in keeping with the daring heroic import of the polish generally. But the matted version does display the glitters beautifully. John likes it best matted. This manicure was a bit of a "He Picks My Polish" kind of thing. As much as I wanted to revisit Golden Years after Debbie's video, I had other polishes waiting to swatch and so I asked John: glitter or flakies? After an initial protest where he tried to figure out what it was I REALLY wanted from him (so suspicious, this guy!), he picked glitter, which meant Golden Years. If it was up to him I'd have left it matte, but I couldn't resist the glossy.
Now that I've quite thoroughly scratched my itch, it's time to take this polish out on the road for some errand-running to expose it to the masses... or something like that. Sometimes you just gotta show it off, you know? Even if you don't have a target audience in mind. Golden Years is unusual and flashy enough to be hard to miss. Fun times, bring a date!
love,
Liz
ps. No staining, hooray!
oh she sos pretty! and thank you for the shout out - glad you're loving the vids xx
ReplyDelete*squee* A visit from The Crumpet! I can die now. You've made my day Debbie, and you earned that ref.
DeleteLove it! and the combo is perfect :)
ReplyDeleteI'm glad you enjoyed it, thank you for your comment!
DeleteThis is absolutely gorgeous! I still need to add it to my collection.
ReplyDeleteThank you, Melissa! I'm glad you like it, but's what this? No Golden Years in your stash? I'm shocked, I tell you. Shocked! *lol* Luckily Nikole continues to keep up with this one, I've seen it available during some of her restocks.
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