Emily de Molly Ariel's Realm

Ariel's Realm was released by Australian indie polish maker Emily de Molly as part of the Back to Base trio in December 2014. Hayley, the owner and creative force behind this brilliant Aussie brand, recently did all of us in the US a solid by opening an online storefront here, so you know I beat a path to that door forthwith and purchased three polishes, of which Ariel's Realm is one. It's been almost two years now since I featured my hitherto one and only Emily de Molly lacquer, Studded Jeans, and I'm thrilled to have a direct source for her offerings.

Ariel's Realm is a very deep cerulean blue jelly bearing superabundant ultrachrome flakies in shifting colors of blue, green and gold as well as tiny ultraholo microglitters in copper. The deep blue-green jelly base is pigmented enough to provide wearable coverage in two coats and translucent enough to allow the tiny variably-shaped flakies to gleam brilliantly from within. Add a generous sprinkling of ultraholo microglitters and you have a marvelous pavé of darkly-bedded jewel-tones flickering with perfect panache on your nails. Stunning!

Application was wonderful. The consistency of Ariel's Realm is fluid, light and smooth with a silky, self-leveling slip over the nails. No stickiness, no running or pooling, no tumbling or stickups or protrusions, just pure nail-painting bliss. Being a jelly, coverage is buildable. If you want a brighter base color then two coats will accommodate you perfectly. I acquired two unusually large flakies on one nail with my second coat, which my OCD tendencies would not allow to stand so I added a third coat to that nail. Seeing that it darkened the base substantially enough to look different from the others, I added a third to them too. The deeper the base color, the more dramatically the flakie and ultraholo microglitter colors pop from within it. Cleanup is easy and straightforward with surprisingly little pigment travel and no residual staining, hooray! Ariel's Realm dries naturally in very good time to a mostly smooth, shiny finish with a tiny bit of texture, more visual than tactile, from the components. Topcoat glosses things up and further accentuates all the colorful bits.

Photos show three coats of Ariel's Realm over Pretty Serious Rock On treatment and Pretty Serious All Your Base basecoat with a topcoat of Seche Vite. The washed-out halos near my cuticles on some fingers mark places where topcoat fell short of the polish -- my bad!

Emily de Molly Ariel's Realm

Emily de Molly Ariel's Realm

Emily de Molly Ariel's Realm

Emily de Molly Ariel's Realm

Emily de Molly Ariel's Realm

Emily de Molly Ariel's Realm

Emily de Molly Ariel's Realm

Emily de Molly Ariel's Realm

Emily de Molly Ariel's Realm

Emily de Molly Ariel's Realm

Emily de Molly Ariel's Realm

Emily de Molly Ariel's Realm

Emily de Molly Ariel's Realm

Emily de Molly Ariel's Realm

My photos do not do proper justice to this marvelous creation. In person, the colors are brighter and the components stand out more, and although the base is indeed very dark at three coats, it is not as quite as murky as it appears here. If you would like to see the color at two coats, I recommend taking a look at Alena's gorgeous review photos of this polish on her blog, The Polishing Life. She captures the lively colors of the components and the teal-leaning cerulean blue of the base with much more accuracy than I have.

I would love to get my greedy grasping paws on Calibrated, the purple sister to Ariel's Realm, but it's not offered at Hayley's US storefront... yet! Hope springs eternal!

love,
Liz