In her blog post about this edition of A Box, Indied, creator Nikole described The Blooming Desert as "a bright pink jelly with orange dots, pearly white hexes and squares, glowing gold iridescent glitter and gold flakies. It also features gorgeous golden shimmer!" The jelly base is a medium glowing rosy pink, a cooler-toned shade that is heated up by its components to a rich, glimmery gerbera pink on the nail. The golden shimmer, flakies and hex glitters and satiny orange circle glitters add the warmth, while the white hexes and squares keep the mixture light, reading as a fine baby pink from within the layers of the base color. This is yet another example of what Nikole does so well with her polishes, a creative melange of colors and shapes that becomes a mini dimensional collage on each nail.
Application was fun! The consistency of The Blooming Desert is nicely fluid but dense with components, which have a tendency to tumble a bit as you apply. I had some glitter protrusions over the free edge as well, but this is to be expected when you have a polish as packed with glitters as this one is. I've seen this polish layered over a corresponding pink creme to great effect, but wanted to preserve the translucent color of the jelly so I chose not to use a base polish. Pigmentation is buildable. I used one thin and two medium coats to get coverage I was happy with. I did experience some tip pull on my thinner nails (generally the ring fingers on both hands) after topcoat even though I took care to wrap my tips, so if that kind of thing bothers you then layering over a base polish is the way to go. I did my cleanup as I went along, just some minor swipage that cleaned up without a problem. The Blooming Desert dries naturally in very good time to a matte-ish sort of finish with some texture from the components, which I smoothed with a layer of Nail Pattern Boldness Glitter Food before topcoating.
Photos show three coats of The Blooming Desert over treatment and basecoat with a surface-smoothing layer of Nail Pattern Boldness Glitter Food and a topcoat of Seche Vite.
 |
| Hare Polish The Blooming Desert |
 |
| Hare Polish The Blooming Desert, macro shot in the bottle |
 |
| Hare Polish The Blooming Desert |
 |
| Hare Polish The Blooming Desert |
 |
| Hare Polish The Blooming Desert |
 |
| Hare Polish The Blooming Desert |
 |
| Hare Polish The Blooming Desert |
 |
| Hare Polish The Blooming Desert -- if you enlarge this shot you can see the golden shimmers that came out to play! |
 |
| Hare Polish The Blooming Desert |
 |
| Hare Polish The Blooming Desert |
 |
| Hare Polish The Blooming Desert |
 |
| Hare Polish The Blooming Desert |
 |
| Hare Polish The Blooming Desert |
 |
| Hare Polish The Blooming Desert |
Nikole's inspiration for her take on "The Deadly and the Beautiful" theme for A Box, Indied was the cactus flower. I think she captured it perfectly!
 |
| (source) |
I love, love, love analogous colors together so the orange and pink combination in this polish really sends me. It's the gradations of shades that trips my trigger, accomplished here by the tinting of the components by the translucent jelly base. This polish positively glows on the nail, delicious!
love,
Liz
Oh my, this is brilliant on you!! Wow, it really does remind me of the desert... I always crave Arizona and southern Utah around this time of year, as we used to always go either in February or over spring break growing up. I'm glad you were able to find this exclusive treasure; I'm hoping I will be able to do the same for the Hare contribution to last month's A Box, Indied: "Cotton Candy Crush". I have been so obsessed, and now that I have had a taste for the brilliance of Hare I can't go back!! The other polishes in the box aren't really speaking to me, but if it goes on sale for $30 like last month's did briefly then I will be springing for it anyway just for the HARE. I can't imagine anyone giving their "Cotton Candy Crush" up but who knows!!
ReplyDeleteIncidentally, I agree that Nikole nailed this one; the pearlescent glitters remind me of the papery thin, crisp petals of some blooming cactus flower that I can't quite grasp in memory. What a happy, happy polish. I simply cannot imagine feeling glum while viewing this :)
Thanks, Marisa! I've never been to a desert, but from viewing cactus flower photos the origen of this polish is clear. Nikole does this kind of thing so well that she makes it look simple, I'm positive that it is not. Blooming Desert got a great reception out in the world, my personal trainer at the gym LOVED it and for a pink that is a big thing as she is not a girly girl.
DeleteMarisa, I bet you'll be able to find Cotton Candy Crush on storenvy.com -- so many polish enthusiasts do their destashing there. That's where I found Blooming Desert. Just keep doing searches for it and sooner or later you'll find a bottle. No need to get the whole box when the one polish is what you really want!