Mentality Hoopla

Hoopla was released by indie polish maker Mentality as part of the Jellychrome line of polishes in February this year. From what I understand, the Jellychromes are jelly-based polishes that contain beaucoup amounts of color-shifting glass fleck shimmers. I featured one of the early Jellychromes, Detonate, here back in November. Now it's time to move on to the newest crop!

I was compelled to purchase Hoopla after seeing Anne's enthusiastic post about it on Betty's Beauty Bombs, where she declared it to be quite possibly her favorite pink polish ever. If that's not a ringing endorsement, I don't know what is -- if you follow Betty's Beauty Bombs, you know I'm right! Hoopla is a shimmering mirage of a polish with a medium rosy gift-wrap-ribbon pink jelly base loaded with superabundant multichromatic glass fleck shimmers in pale icy blue with color shifts to aqua, violet and red. The first thing you notice about Hoopla is the blue flash along the axis of light, beautifully complementary to the pink base color. The glass flecks are nice and chunky and produce an interesting visual texture as well as a scintillating sparkle when the light strikes them just right, which is nearly all the time. Even in deepest shade, if there is a scintilla of light around, the glass flecks just GLOW. My favorite ways to view polishes like this one is in indirect light or, best of all, backlit, when you can get a good eyeful of shifty goodness.

Application was an adventure. The consistency of Hoopla is gel-like and fluffy with glass flecks. It's the kind of polish that spreads rather than flows onto the nail. It's fairly easy to manipulate with Mentality's flattened, flexible brush, but the effects of the shimmers made it hard for me to see exactly what I was doing. The gel-like nature of the formula combined with the fact that it surface dries very quickly made it a little difficult to apply evenly, at least for me. The brush can get a little gummy and I had lots of glass fleck protrusions over the free edge that weren't easily remedied with a tip wrapping swipe. If you're not like me and are quick and sure with your brushstrokes, you probably won't have these issues. I'd say the pigmentation was excellent (again, hard to tell with the reflectivity of the glass flecks in play), with near-opacity in one coat. I used three coats for this manicure to ensure completely even opaque coverage for the photos. Cleanup took a bit of patience. The glass flecks disperse across skin and cuticle at the touch of acetone, but they are amenable to being rounded up and brushed away, it just takes a little more time. There was no pigment travel or residual staining from the pink base. Hoopla surface dries naturally in lightspeed time, but remains vulnerable underneath for a little while longer. The natural finish is matte with some discernible texture from the glass flecks. I used a coat of Nail Pattern Boldness Glitter Food before topcoating for maximum smoothness.

Photos show three coats of Hoopla over treatment and basecoat, with a surface-smoothing layer of Glitter Food followed by a topcoat of Seche Vite. My camera has oversaturated this pink a bit, so my photos show the color as slightly more intense than it is in person, but the shimmery blue glow and the nuances of pale violet and shading to red along the edges are very like what I'm seeing right now.

Mentality Hoopla

Mentality Hoopla

Mentality Hoopla

Mentality Hoopla

Mentality Hoopla

Mentality Hoopla

Mentality Hoopla

Mentality Hoopla

Mentality Hoopla

Mentality Hoopla

Mentality Hoopla

Mentality Hoopla

Mentality Hoopla

Mentality Hoopla

Mentality Hoopla

This is perhaps one of the most energetic pinks that I have in my collection, it's just electric! My fingers look like they're tipped with petals from a faerie flower. 

Fun polish!

love,
Liz