Lacquer Slacker Liz: Reprise: KBShimmer You Autumn Know

Tuesday, October 7, 2014

Reprise: KBShimmer You Autumn Know

You Autumn Know was released by indie polish maker KBShimmer as part of the Fall 2013 collection. I purchased this polish the minute it was available in September last year, so smitten was I with its adorableness, and featured it here shortly after. The leaves are just beginning to change now in North Carolina, which I think is a great reason to renew my infatuation with You Autumn Know.

Christy, the owner and creative force behind KBShimmer, makes some wonderful crelly (creme/jelly hybrid) glitters, and You Autumn Know is one of them. It has a creamy white crelly base carrying an exuberant mix of metallic glitters in gold, orange and fuchsia, including variously-sized hexes and microbar slices. It was inspired by early fall snows that dust the colorful fallen leaves with white. Now that kind of snow never happens here -- by the time it snows, IF it snows, the leaves are long gone -- but that doesn't stop me from loving this lacquer. It's everything that makes your eyes happy about the changing leaf colors of fall set off deliciously by the milky base.

I had previously layered You Autumn Know over an off-white polish. This time I decided I was up to the exercise of applying it by itself, no undies. It went on beautifully! The consistency of the crelly base is fluid and smooth with an eminently paintable balance of fluidity and viscosity. It's suspension properties after a year were unaffected -- the glitters were still perfectly mixed with no settling at all. Glitter payoff is excellent. You get a Goldilocks amount of glitters per brushful, not too many, not too few, and they disperse easily over the nail as you paint, no dabbing or extra manipulation necessary. Another Goldilocks quality: pigmentation is outstanding for a polish of this color and type. On the one hand, you want to be able to achieve opacity; on the other, you don't want it so opaque that you can't see the glitters. You Autumn Know builds easily to opacity in two or three coats depending upon how thick/thin your coats are. I used three medium coats, but really I could have stopped after the second. You Autumn Know dries naturally to a mostly smooth, shiny finish with slight texture from the components.

Photos show three coats of You Autumn Know over Seche Rebuild treatment and Pretty Serious All Your Base basecoat. To smooth the surface I used a thin layer of Essie First Base followed by a topcoat of HK Girl.

KBShimmer You Autumn Know

From my first review of You Autumn Know:

Tell me, how can you not have a smile on your face after looking at that sweet glittery goodness? So charming and lively and bouncy puppy happy! Oh, I just adore this polish, everything about it from the fetching color palette to the skillful formulation to the bottle and brush it comes with! The lighthearted pop sweetness it radiates on the nail in no way diminishes You Autumn Know as a masterful feat of polish making. This polish goes straight to the treasured category in my collection.

And so it remains to this day!

love,
Liz