Mentality Detonate

Detonate was recently released by indie polish maker Mentality Nail Polish as one of four polishes establishing their new line of what they're calling jellychromes. The jellychrome category is further divided into matte and holo, and Detonate is a holo jellychrome. I used to spend a great deal of time poring over Mentality's abundant offerings and even tried a handful of them, but the sheer number of polishes available became overwhelming. When I saw bottle photos of the new jellychromes, however, I decided it was time to revisit this prolific brand.

Detonate is a chameleon shade of pale aqua blue teeming with scattered holographic pigment and very cool ultrafine color-shifting glass fleck shimmers. It reads as anything from a very pale cyan to a sky blue to a medium aquamarine, with the glass fleck shimmers readily flashing a strong lavender pink. In direct sun, the holo pigment enriches the base color with subtle prismactic bloom of cyan shades as the glass fleck shimmers flash lavender pink along the axis of light. In shade, the color retreats to an icy pale cyan and the glass flecks have a pink glow at the point of reflection. It's a difficult polish to describe and, as I found out, just as difficult to photograph. The glass fleck shimmers, which are not the least bit shy in person, hide from the camera and make getting accurate photos of this interesting, colorful polish very difficult. 

Application was sehr gut! The consistency of Detonate is fluid and sort of fluffy, with a an easy-to-control flow over the nail. Pigmentation is very good with even opaque coverage delivered in two medium coats. I used three to camo my nail ridges, as the formula wasn't quite self-leveling enough to keep them from showing underneath the polish at two. I had no problems with application but cleanup left a myriad of glass flecks everywhere. I took one look at the photos in the first set I took and went back to the cleanup brush and acetone to relieve my nail environs of their decorative pink sparkle before taking a second set. Detonate surface dries fairly quickly to a satin finish but the polish beneath is still tender and susceptible to smudging for a good while. I never did let it dry completely on its own, preferring instead to put a quick dry topcoat to use for that purpose.

Photos show three coats of Detonate over Seche Rebuild treatment and Pretty Serious All Your Base basecoat with a generous topcoat of Seche Vite. As I mentioned, the colors of Detonate are much more vivid and intense in person than I could capture in my images, especially the lavender pink flash. Counting the first set I did before properly completing my cleanup, I took well over 100 photos of this puppy and none of them fully represent what it's like in person. It's richer and more vibrant than what you see here.

Metality Detonate

Metality Detonate

Metality Detonate

Metality Detonate

Metality Detonate

Metality Detonate

Metality Detonate

Metality Detonate

Metality Detonate

Metality Detonate

Metality Detonate

Metality Detonate

Metality Detonate

Metality Detonate

Metality Detonate

Metality Detonate

Metality Detonate

Metality Detonate

I feel like this polish is playing tricks on my camera, kind of the way that Remy did yesterday when it's green flash so consistently eluded my lens. I hope that these pics will at least give you an idea of the multiple interplays at work in this polish. 

In the sun, with the full richness of the aquamarine reading like the sparkling shallow waters over the white sandy bottom off of Long Key, FL and the brilliant flash of cool pink blazing in the midst of that blue, this strikes me as a very tropical polish of the kind that you'll be wanting to stare in the middle of winter with snow heaping on the ground. On the other hand, it has a graceful chilliness to it as well, with the icy blue highlighted by pink as if a glacier were catching the final rays of a sunset. 

Delicate but striking, Detonate is a little more demure than I was expecting from those bottle shots. But I am not disappointed. The colorful glass flecks saw to that!

love,
Liz