Friday, November 14, 2014

WingDust Collections Prize Winning Petunia

Stephanie, the owner and creative force behind WingDust Collections, tell us in her description of this polish that "prize-winning petunia" was a pet name that her mother had for her kids when they were little. Of course we'll never know the context in which this was used but I hear it in my head as something like, "Well, aren't you just the prize-winning petunia!" I used it in this way on Fuzzy and it was met with delight -- Fuzzy LOVES being the prize-winning petunia! In any case, this polish is Stephanie tribute to her mom.

Prize Winning Petunia is one of Stephanie's glitter jelly holos. It has a medium-toned violet scattered holo jelly base swimming with a bouquet of analogously-colored hex glitters in purple, lavender, lilac, pink and blue, some of them iridescent, as well as tiny metallic teal squares. The mix produces a fetching menage of purples, blues and pinks on each nail, accented by colorful flashes from the iridescent glitters when the light hit them just right and pops of teal from the tiny squares, all misted over by the silvery scattered holo pigment, which sends out sparks of rainbow colors in direct light.

My bottle, which came with the other WingDusts I recently ordered from Llarowe, had apparently been sitting for a while. It had a bad case of glitter settling, especially the larger-sized pink hexes, which seemed to be fastened to the bottom of the bottle. Not even days upside down budged those glitters. I wonder what dynamic is at work that causes glitters to stick to the insides of the bottle like that -- something along the lines of static electricity perhaps? I used the polish before I thought of stirring the pot as it were with a tool along the lines of those plastic dental picks that have a sharp kind of curved tip at one end and a flat fern-shaped floret at the other, but before I use it again I'm going to have a go at that bottle with a dental pick to see if I can't get some of the settled glitter back into circulation. 

So my application of Prize Winning Petunia was overshadowed by consternation that I wasn't getting my due in glitters. So petty, but there you go. The consistency of the polish was slightly thick but not goopy or sticky, with the lovely smooth self-leveling flow over the nail that seems to be the standard for Stephanie's creations. There was no tumbling or stacking of the glitters, which lay down flat to the nail, and only a few instances of protrusion over the free edge. I find with WingDust glitters that if I can swipe the edge while the polish is still quite wet, the brush will lift off the offending protruder quite easily. You'd think I'd be able to do this automatically as a matter of proper application technique, but no! My mind, racing ahead as is its wont, is already on the next nail before I finish the current one, so important little steps like sweeping off glitter protrusions often get leapfrogged. Prize Winning Petunia is nicely pigmented with even, opaque coverage achievable in two coats. I used three as I wanted MOAR glitters, but I didn't really get the payoff I was looking for and I point my finger accusingly at the settled glitter in my bottle as the cause. Besides that, though, I had no troubles with application. 

Prize Winning Petunia dries naturally in good time to a surprisingly smooth finish with only the tiniest amount of surface texture from the components, which only needed topcoat for near glass-like smoothness. 

Photos show three coats of Prize Winning Petunia over treatment and basecoat with a topcoat of Seche Vite.


WingDust Prize Winning Petunia


WingDust Prize Winning Petunia


WingDust Prize Winning Petunia


WingDust Prize Winning Petunia


WingDust Prize Winning Petunia


WingDust Prize Winning Petunia


WingDust Prize Winning Petunia


WingDust Prize Winning Petunia


WingDust Prize Winning Petunia


WingDust Prize Winning Petunia


WingDust Prize Winning Petunia

It's still pretty lovely even if my nails aren't as glitter-filled as I was expecting, which was something along the lines of Crystal's swatch of Prize Winning Petunia on Crystal's Crazy Combos, here. And I'm very happy with how I handled applying this glitter-filled jelly. Practice may not make things perfect (sometimes perfection is just not possible despite our culture's obsession with it), but it does make them better.

love,
Liz

5 comments:

  1. Oh wow...this purple is insanely pretty. I'm not sure I would have liked it as much with more glitter? I kinda like how sparse it looks with the holo particles. Grrrr...you're making me want some WingDust!! :)

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    1. Glitter anxiety on top of already overly-abundant self-criticism is not pretty. Now that I see these photos again, I agree with you, Melissa. There's plenty of glitter here and the polish is lovely. The base is such a nice color, a kind of dusky sunset purple. Sigh.

      Ok now, I'm really not wanting to tempt you with glitter polish because I know that once you got it and applied it, no matter what it looked like you'd be hating me when it came time to remove it. Am I right? No soup for you!

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  2. Self-criticism, indeed! I was definitely confused that you didn't think your nails were as sparkling as Crystal's; I thought they looked very much the same :) You don't give yourself enough credit, Liz!!

    The Fuzzy thing made me laugh out loud :D Who is Fuzzy?? Do we get to see Fuzzy??! I love the story behind this gorgeous, gorgeous polish. "Prize Winning Petunia"- possibly the cutest polish name I've ever heard, especially now that I know its history <3

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    1. You're right, Marisa. And it occurs to me that in the process I'm not giving enough credit to this sweet polish, either. My bad!

      Ah, Fuzzy. Fuzzy is my mom! That's her "grandmother" name. We share this house, she lives downstairs and I live upstairs (in the attic, ha). She's an artist, art dealer, cinephile and a classic humorist. I have a great photo of her that I took for a bio, I'll have to check whether she'd mind being outed on the blog. I think she'd acquiesce. ;)

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    2. Hahahaha I totally and completely thought that Fuzzy was a Pomeranian!!! :D I love that you call your mom Fuzzy, that is even better!! I'm sure we'd all love to see your mom too, maybe some mother/daughter manis!! I have many guest manicures, including one of my mom's, that I need to put on the blog still :P

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