Wednesday, April 1, 2015

ILNP Happily Ever After

Happily Ever After was released for presale by boutique polish maker I Love Nail Polish (ILNP) as part of the Spring 2015 collection in March. I'm not sure of the exact date that it will be available for sale on the ILNP website, but it should be very soon! 

Barbra, owner and creative force behind ILNP, gives us a wonderful description of Happily Ever After:
Happily Ever After is a soft and rich shade of lilac carefully paired with the perfect amount of silver flakes and breathtakingly intense holographic pigment. Indoors, Happily Ever After is dainty, sweet, and super feminine. Step outside into the sun and you'll be stunned at the extra vivid holographic rainbow sparkle parading all over your fingertips.
She pretty much covers it right there! If ever a polish made me feel like a princess, this one does. The delicate lilac or pinkish purple pastel color is simultaneously airy and fresh and exquisitely refined, with all the soft sweetness of a ladyfinger dusted with powdered sugar. It's silvered with ultra fine holographic pigment and superabundant irregularly-shaped silver flakies, the latter of which give it a gorgeous glistening reflective shimmer in indirect light. In direct light, whoa -- there's a glorious blazing linear prismatic display bolstered with extra sparkle from the flakies reflecting through the holographic pigment.

Application was awesome. The consistency of Happily Ever After is fluid and smooth with a silky glide over the nail and excellent self-leveling properties. I noticed no tumbling of the flakies, they slid onto the nail and lay perfectly flat with only a few tiny protrusions over the free edge that are easily taken care of with a tip-wrapping swipe of the flattened flexible brush. Coverage is largely provided by the flakies, which are so profuse that I achieved an opacity I was happy with in only two coats. This polish applies so evenly that you could even wear it at one coat for a glimmery, slightly sheer look. Cleanup is mostly a matter of sweeping away escapee flakies, a task best done as you go along as they become somewhat recalcitrant once the polish has dried on skin or cuticle. Happily Ever After dries naturally in good time to a smooth, semi-metallic finish with only a hint of discernible texture from the silver flakes.

Photos show two coats of Happily Ever After over treatment and basecoat with a topcoat of Seche Vite.


ILNP Happily Ever After


ILNP Happily Ever After


ILNP Happily Ever After


ILNP Happily Ever After


ILNP Happily Ever After


ILNP Happily Ever After


ILNP Happily Ever After


ILNP Happily Ever After


ILNP Happily Ever After


ILNP Happily Ever After


ILNP Happily Ever After


ILNP Happily Ever After


ILNP Happily Ever After


ILNP Happily Ever After


ILNP Happily Ever After


ILNP Happily Ever After


ILNP Happily Ever After

As a bigtime admirer of silver flake shimmers, I love this. The pebbly dimensional reflectivity of the finish, the mosaic-like appearance of the embedded flakes, the amplification they give to the prismatic holo effects, the delicate lilac hue that waxes and wanes across the nail, all these things are delicious to me.

When I swatched Alchemy Lacquers Lilac the other day, I had Happily Ever After out next to it on my tub surround where I do my manicures, and I toyed with the idea of swatching Lilac with an accent nail of Happily Ever After. I still think this would be a cool looking combination....

love,
Liz

4 comments:

  1. Oh my goodness- the FIRE in the sunshine!!! So relieved that I ordered this and it is sitting here with me right now, otherwise I would have been in agony after reading this post, haha :) This is so elegant and magical on you!! Love love love.

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    1. Thank you, m' dear! So happy to know that you've got this one in your clutches, it's surely a polish that a faerie princess would wear. Will you be featuring it on your blog? I hope so, I'd love to see it on you!

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    2. Oh, I hope so!!! You said it, this is the penultimate of faerie princess polishes. I am experiencing a slough of complicating factors with the blog at the moment, however: first being, no time! I have two months to finish my thesis project (and find a job), and it has been a constant state of minor panic attack around here. I also broke one of my full-spectrum light bulbs yesterday, and I also had a severe nail break a few days ago that has reduced my nails to the quick :( I'm feeling kind of self conscious about my swatches, and am hoping they grow back quickly!!! It's all unfortunate timing, as spring is my very favorite season for polish, and I have many beauties that I desperately want to wear but fear I will not do justice to at the moment. Anyways, that is the very long explanation to why I'm not sure how much activity will be happening on Tiny Twinklings for the next couple months. I've been feeling bummed about it. :( We'll be back at it after graduation, though!!!

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    3. However much I love Tiny Tinklings, finishing up your degree and exploring job possibilities supercede blogging every day of the week. Don't worry too much! I have all kinds of confidence that the road to your future will rise to meet you, as the blessing goes. With your infectious enthusiasm for life and the sparkling effervescence of your nature, I just know in my soul that you will do wonderful things along that path. I'm excited for you!

      Be kind to your sweet self!

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