Darling Diva Flazeda

Flazeda was released by Minnesota-based indie polish maker Darling Diva as a limited edition, single pour polish last month. This is a red-violet jelly polish bearing mass quantities of amazing variably sized and shaped opalescent flakies. The base is quite sheer in order to permit plenty of exposure of the flakies to light, but builds to a nice medium-toned raspberry color over multiple coats. And the flakies, oh my! Pale and semi-translucent on their own, they promptly explode into every jewel-toned, oil slick color you can think of as light hits them, creating a brilliant gleaming pastiche of color on each nail. It's like an Impressionist flower garden done in stained glass.
 
Application was most pleasing. The consistency of Flazeda is thick but still paintably fluid, and dense with flakies. There's none of the stickiness you might expect from a suspension base bearing such abundant components, and the brush never gets gummy. The polish has a lush, easily-controlled glide over the nail and self-levels immediately. Component pay-off is excellent, with a generous amount of flakies dispersing evenly over the nail per brushful. They are well-behaved and go on flush to the nail, and although I did experience some protrusions over the free edge they were easily remedied by a tip-wrapping swipe of Darling Diva's flattened, flexible brush. 

Coverage, as I mentioned, is buildable, but the reflective qualities of the components contribute considerably to opacity on the nail. I was surprised to achieve wearably opaque coverage in only two coats, but I added a third to deepen and intensify the raspberry base, the further to pop the brilliant colors of the flakies. Cleanup, if done as you go along before the polish has time to dry, is surprisingly easy. Flazeda dries naturally in very good time to a shade that's lighter than bottle color and a shiny finish with a gentle pebbly texture from the components. Topcoat helps to smooth the surface and accentuates the opalescent colors of the flakies.

Photos show three coats of Flazeda over treatment and basecoat with a topcoat of Seche Vite.

Darling Diva Flazeda

Darling Diva Flazeda, blurry macro shot in the bottle

Darling Diva Flazeda

Darling Diva Flazeda

Darling Diva Flazeda

Darling Diva Flazeda

Darling Diva Flazeda

Darling Diva Flazeda

Darling Diva Flazeda

Darling Diva Flazeda

Darling Diva Flazeda

Darling Diva Flazeda

Darling Diva Flazeda

Darling Diva Flazeda

Darling Diva Flazeda

Darling Diva Flazeda

Darling Diva Flazeda

I believe that Carrie, the owner and creative force behind Darling Diva, took the name of this polish from an impromptu nonsense word passed off as a culturally relevant colloquialism by drag performer Pearl Liaison (aka Brooklynite Matt James). Uttered while a contestant on Season 7 of RuPaul's Drag Race, an American reality competition television series produced by World of Wonder for Logo TV, flazéda (as the official -- and probably trademarked -- version is spelled) has since become something of a socio-cultural byword and meme. And although Pearl did not win the competition, she did manage to parley her rhetorical slip into a signature fragrance. Herstory, as they say, marches on. 

Having had no clue about flazéda or Pearl Liaison or even RuPaul's Drag Race before now, I consider myself yet again duly educated by a nail polish. As if this lacquer wasn't doing enough for me already! Seeing lots of colors playing happily together really puts a nickel in my synapses, and Flazeda has them going at full speed.  

As Carrie said in her description of Flazeda, you just can't stop staring. Every time you look at it, it's doing something new. I was out doing errands with this glassy, gleaming beauty on my nails when the sun came out for the first time today, at which point I may or may not have driven right off the road a little bit.

Oops!

love,
Liz