This been on my Girly Bits wishlist for months now, so I was happy to see it offered on a blog sale recently and emailed right away to pick it up. It's a bright minty aquamarine, a light but intensely-hued white-based shade with a certain neon-esque quality that is carefully balanced between spring green and cyan. Very Miami Beach! It's accompanied by petite color-shifting flake shimmers in gold/pink and blue/green, which you'd think would suffer in comparison to such a bold color but they hold their own quite well, thank you. Tiny glints in pale shades of pinkish gold, blue and green gleam when the light hits them and blanket the polish in a glistening veil that twinkles like sunlight on water. Beachy and fresh, it's perfect for summer!
Application was trepidatious. Like many white-based polishes, Mint-al Precision is prone to streakiness and ghosting and doesn't want to self-level. The consistency is quite fluid but light and fluffy with flake shimmers that are a bit unruly and given to tumbling. After two thin but very streaky coats, I succumbed to my medium-thick coat inclinations for the third, which brought the opacity up to snuff but left me with lumpy-looking coverage. A generous topcoat of Seche Vite evened things out mostly, but it still has a bit of that heavy "too much polish here" look. In retrospect, I wish I'd continued with thin coats, even if it meant four of them instead of three. Next time! Cleanup left a few shimmering flakes here and there, which I was too angsty to pursue. Mint-al Precision dries naturally in good time to a shiny finish with some visual texture from the flake shimmers that smooths out with topcoat.
Photos show three coats of Mint-al Precision over treatment and basecoat with a topcoat of Seche Vite that I wish I'd applied more meticulously. My camera did not the color accurately. It's Tiffany's blue, but it is not a Tiffany blue. It's greener than that, and more intense. Think aspirations to neon.
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| Girly Bits Mint-al Precision |
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| Girly Bits Mint-al Precision, macro shot in the bottle |
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| Girly Bits Mint-al Precision |
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| Girly Bits Mint-al Precision |
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| Girly Bits Mint-al Precision |
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| Girly Bits Mint-al Precision |
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| Girly Bits Mint-al Precision |
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| Girly Bits Mint-al Precision |
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| Girly Bits Mint-al Precision |
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| Girly Bits Mint-al Precision |
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| Girly Bits Mint-al Precision |
Hmm. It just hasn't been a very good day for polish. I was originally going to feature a different polish from another well-known indie brand, but I was so disappointed by it once I'd finished the manicure that I removed it completely, put the bottle in my giveaway box and started over with Mint-al Precision. That doesn't happen very often. I don't enjoy writing about polish disappointments and will rarely do it, usually only if I believe that I'm the source of the problem. It just isn't any fun! I think most polish bloggers feel that way. For example, the polish that let me down had zero reviews online. Zero. And I know it sold. Speaks volumes.
Mint-al Precision was tricky, but not a let-down. It's a singular color with a beautiful shimmer. Do you have the right touch for this pretty summer shade?
love,
Liz
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