Lacquer Slacker Liz: July 2015

Thursday, July 30, 2015

Blue-Eyed Girl Lacquer Bound to the City Life

Bound to the City Life was originally released by indie polish maker Blue-Eyed Girl Lacquer as part of the Spark in the Dark collection in January this year and was recently re-released for pre-order as part of the Fan Favorites collection at the end of June/beginning of July. It has a dark cerulean blue jelly base bearing superabundant holographic microglitters in purple, navy, red, green and silver. I can see why BEGL fans wanted this one resurrected, it's fabulous. Cerulean is one of my favorite blues, and the deep cerulean base color is gloriously intense with a fathomless quality -- it's like the color you see in a clear, cloudless night sky just after the sun has gone down or the color of the Great Blue Hole off the coast of Belize. In the sun, the tiny microglitters throw a bazillion twinkling multicolored pinpoint sparks from within the brilliant inky cerulean depths.

Application was wonderful. The consistency of Bound to the City Life is full-bodied, fluid and smooth with an even, self-leveling flow over the nail. It has a certain jelly-like viscosity to it but is not at all sticky or goopy, and is easy to manipulate with BEGL's round flexible brush. Pigmentation is excellent for a jelly, with evenly opaque coverage available in two coats. Cleanup is surprisingly easy for such a well-pigmented blue polish, with very little pigment travel and almost no residual staining. Bound to the City Life dries naturally in very good time to slightly flat, textured finish that wants a good topcoat to make the most of the jelly base's glossy formula.

Photos show two coats of Bound to the City Life over treatment and basecoat with a topcoat of Seche Vite.

Blue-Eyed Girl Lacquer Bound to the City Life

The amazing dynamic light play of those minute microglitters is impossible to show in a still image, although Plump and Polished does a fantastic job of capturing the colors in one of her photos from a review of the original Spark in the Dark collection, here. I love this sweet dark twinkler, it's beautifully composed and formulated and possesses a "far away stars in the midnight sky" sort of dimensional depth that feels graceful and timeless on the nail.

I'm not sure exactly when Julie is planning to release the Fan Favorites collection for general sale in her big cartel shop, but it must be soon. You can follow BEGL on facebook to keep up with her doings, including the official release of this newest collection. Along with Bound to the City Life, I also got Wanna Fall in Love Tonight during the pre-sale but I'm kind of kicking myself for not getting Cherry Blossom as well. And Fare the Wind. Heck, the whole collection looks great!

love,
Liz

Wednesday, July 29, 2015

Pretty Serious The Crimson Pearl

The Crimson Pearl was released by Australian indie polish maker Pretty Serious Cosmetics at the end of June this year as part of the second batch of polishes from creator Kaz's ongoing Naileontology collection, a series of polishes based on discontinued and vintage lacquers. This is a rich dark red-violet or Tyrian purple, a deep claret sort of color, bearing profuse fine particulate shimmers with a blue/violet color shift strewn with pinpoint particles of sparkling pink. It's a magnificent vampy shade, very sleek and sexy! In low and indirect light, the finely-milled blue-violet shimmers are rather stealthy and contribute a subtle blue-ish haze to the polish, but upon closer viewing and especially in direct light, they add a glistening veil of bright indigo twinkling with pink sparks that appears suspended just below the surface.

Application was delicious. The consistency of The Crimson Pearl is fluid, creamy and dense, with velvety glide over the nail and excellent self-leveling properties. I'm always a little intimidated by the application of very dark polishes, probably for the most part because I'm a messy painter, but this polish has such a buttery, easy-to-manipulate formula that I soon forgot my fear and found myself reveling in the experience. Pigmentation is excellent, with near opacity on the first coat and completely even, opaque coverage in two. Cleanup is something you never want to have to do a lot of
with a dark, well-pigmented polish, and I did encounter some pigment travel under the cuticles and across the skin. The Crimson Pearl dries naturally in good time to a gorgeous plump, glossy finish. Topcoat seems to intensify the appearance and effects of the color-shifting shimmers.

Photos show two coats of The Crimson Pearl over treatment and basecoat with a topcoat of Seche Vite.

Pretty Serious The Crimson Pearl

Just gorgeous! The Crimson Pearl has a brooding, mysterious, seductive presence on the nail, the sort of presence you could imagine sidling up to you in the night to whisper secrets that, for better or worse, will surely make their way into your dreams.

love,
Liz

Tuesday, July 28, 2015

Literary Lacquers Bottletown

Today I have one last polish from the recently released Vurt-U-Want collection by Literary Lacquers to show you. Bottletown is constructed similarly to yesterday's Dreamsnake, with a linear holo base bearing flake and glass fleck shimmers.

The base color of Bottletown is a medium foresty bottle green, a Heineken bottle sort of green. It's packed with finely-milled holographic pigment, abundant iridescent flake shimmers and glistening glass flecks, and it is delicious! What is it about green holos that they produce such gorgeous nuancing to the base color? In indirect light, Bottletown is beautifully shaded with pale hues of milky cerulean, laurel, fern and olivine. The shardy iridescent flakies light up in gleaming hues of electric blue, grass green and fiery orange as the light hits them, recalling the color play of an opal. Direct light generates a dazzling delineated prismatic display with a flame-shaped flare bounded by thin bands of indigo, electric blue, bright jade and yellow green floating over a central flash of shimmering semi-metallic silvery green. The tiny glass flecks create minute scintillating sparks of light throughout, giving the flare a extra sparkly look.

Application was great! The consistency of Bottletown is a bit more fluid than some of the other Literary Lacquers polishes I've worked with but not overly so, with a smooth, eminently paintable formula. It has a light, easy flow over the nail and very good self-leveling properties. Like Dreamsnake, it's a fast drying polish that doesn't cotton to overmanipulation and goes on best in thin to medium coats deftly applied. I am not particularly deft, but the fluidity of this polish allowed me to produce a relatively clean manicure. Once again we see Amy's signature semi-translucent pigmentation at work, with sheerness on the first coat building to full rich color and opaque coverage in three coats. Cleanup is easy and straightforward but watch out for sticky flakies. Bottletown dries naturally in very good time to a smooth shiny finish. Topcoat enhances the presence and effects of the flake and glass fleck shimmers without interfering in any way with the holographic effects.

Photos show three coats of Bottletown over Pretty Serious Rock On treatment and Pretty Serious All Your Base basecoat with a topcoat of Seche Vite -- not so bubbly today, hooray! Once again, apologies for the flaky fingers. They're looking little scruffier than yesterday -- time for a good salt scrub!

Literary Lacquers Bottletown

There's a lot of light play in Bottletown, which I love. The flakies especially are more active and prominent in person than you can tell from my photos. Their bright green flashes remind me of the green leaves of summer lifting and lowering their faces to the sun on a breezy day. And of course the holo-generated blue-green shades that appear amongst the green in indirect and direct light just send me....

Very cool polish!

love,
Liz

Monday, July 27, 2015

Literary Lacquers Dreamsnake

Like yesterday's polish, Curious Yellow, Dreamsnake was released at the beginning of June by indie polish maker Literary Lacquers as part of the Vurt-U-Want collection, a series of polishes inspired by the 1993 sci-fi/cyber-hallucinogenic novel Vurt by British author Jeff Noon.

Creator Amy describes Dreamsnake as a "shimmering soft violet linear holo with green flakies and glass flecks." Shimmered holos are always magical, and this one especially so. It's a sleek light-to-medium violet with a delicate ephemeral quality, slightly silvered and reading darker or lighter depending on how its angled to the light. It's filled with abundant green glass flecks and flake shimmers that look to have a green/blue color shift. These shimmers give the polish a silvery greenish glow on the nail and flash like tiny scales in pale shades of celadon and aqua when light hits them just right. In direct light there's a beautiful linear prismatic display with a sparkling central blaze of violet-blue trimmed with twinkling bands in rainbow colors including lots of red, which I love to see, before shading to a deeper violet around the edges of the nail. The effects of the holographic pigment in low and indirect light generates soft shifting hues of lilac and lavender in the violet base, with occasional scintillating sparkle on the part of the glass flecks. Under incandescent light, there's a dreamy lilac flash.

Application was lovely. The consistency of Dreamsnake is fluid and smooth with a little bit of pull to it that went on best for me in thin to medium coats applied with a generously loaded brush. Self-leveling properties are very good. Pigmentation is sheer on the first coat but builds easily to wearable coverage in two, with fullest opacity and richest color in three coats. This is a fast drying polish that doesn't appreciate overstroking, and will kick up a flakie or two if you mess with it too much. Cleanup is fairly straightforward although those flakies do like to hang around. Dreamsnake dries naturally in very good time to a smooth finish. Topcoat seems to enhance the presence and effects of the shimmers in this polish without diminishing its holographic properties in any way.

Photos show three coats of Dreamsnake over treatment and basecoat with a bubbly topcoat of Seche Vite. Apologies for the flaky fingers -- got a little distracted by Battlestar Gallactica on the scifi channel while applying the cuticle remover the other day.

Literary Lacquers Dreamsnake

Still images really don't convey the sleek, shimmery quality of Dreamsnake on the nail. It has a sort of rippling liquid reflectivity in indirect light that is so delicate and otherworldly, and then you stick in in the sun and BAM! It blazes with this gorgeous scintillating fully prismatic flair, the kind you can't get enough of.

Fuzzy was quite taken with this polish and took a few moments from watching Donnie Darko to turn my hand in the light, looking at it. "That's a nice one!" I made some tea and sat down with her to watch the movie, which is a favorite of mine and which I had recommended to her. Unfortunately the netflix disk was scratched and skippy at crucial points. I really need to figure out how to stream movies to her tv....

love,
Liz