Chinese New Year was recently released by Arizona-based indie polish maker Lacquistry to celebrate the day. You probably remember Lacquistry from creator Jenna's celebrated Amazeballs, the Blended Family version of which I feature on the blog last June. Chinese New Year is a medium-tone dazzlingly bright slightly blue-based red version of the original Amazeballs, not to be confused with REDiculous, a different red version Jenna created for Christmas 2014. Unfortunately I failed to snag a bottle of REDiculous, but Jenna differentiates between it and Chinese New Year thusly: "REDiculous was a lighter pink-based red with superfine metal flake particles. Chinese New Year is a deep true red with larger reflective metal particles." You can find a side by side comparison of these two, along with a beautiful red and gold manicure featuring Chinese New Year on the Australian blog, More Nail Polish, here.
Application was mostly about cleanup, but I'll get to that later. Chinese New Year is basically superabundant thin metallic flakies in a red-pigmented suspension base. And when I say pigmented, I mean profoundly! It applies like a typical well-made component filled polish, with a smooth, fluid consistency that is dense with flakies. For me, it preferred to go on in thicker rather than thinner coats. Pigmentation is out of this world intense. One coat is almost more than enough, truly! I wish I had the skills to apply an error-free one coater, but it was not to be. After one coat I had some lines to correct so I applied a second.
Cleanup. Cleanup, in a word: don't! If you can manage it. This polish is seriously pigmented and the pigment transfer at the application of acetone is immediate and pervasive. It runs right round the nail, staining everything a bright pink. Plus, when you go to remove a bit of polish on the nail you end up with bright metallic flakies there that stick like limpets. I spent more time cleaning up my cleanup than I did on cleanup. And still, as you'll see, there are traces of pink and bright silvery-gold flakes left over (not to mention purple and green microglitters left over from an incomplete removal of yesterday's Laissez les Bon Temps Rouler 2.0). Nature of the beast. If you have a steady hand and are prepared to produce a perfect manicure in one pass, you won't have these issues. Chinese New Year dries naturally in good time to a smooth, shiny finish.
Photos show two coats of Chinese New Year over treatment and basecoat with a topcoat of Seche Vite.
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| Lacquistry Chinese New Year |
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| Lacquistry Chinese New Year |
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| Lacquistry Chinese New Year |
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| Lacquistry Chinese New Year |
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| Lacquistry Chinese New Year |
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| Lacquistry Chinese New Year |
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| Lacquistry Chinese New Year |
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| Lacquistry Chinese New Year |
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| Lacquistry Chinese New Year |
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| Lacquistry Chinese New Year |
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| Lacquistry Chinese New Year |
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| Lacquistry Chinese New Year |
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| Lacquistry Chinese New Year |
Beauty! As you can see, the irregularly-shaped metallic flakes give Chinese New Year a fabulous pebbled visual effect. In direct light, this translates to a beautiful scintillating sparkle in shades of pink and red all across the nail. Add to this that Chinese New Year is perfectly self-leveling and camouflages all nail bed flaws, and cleanup issues aside you've got a winning red metallic polish!
love,
Liz
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