ILNP XO

XO was recently released by Nevada-based boutique polish maker I Love Nail Polish (ILNP) as part of the Holiday 2015 collection. It's also a new addition to ILNP's "Ultra Metallics" line of polishes composed with superabundant high quality metallic flakies, known previously as "Precious Metals." Creator Barbra describes XO as a palatinate purple. It's a deep, rich true purple in a semi-translucent base that totally comes alive over the profuse amount of silver metallic flakies it contains -- to the point of looking very near to a royal purple in direct light. With a semi-metallic kind of foily, reflective finish thanks to the silver flakies, it displays a flashy scintillating sparkle that reads as magenta and bright purple in direct light and a lighter pink in low light. XO also bears a generous sprinkling of medium-sized holographic particles, which light up in bright sparks of prismatic colors in direct light, with red and green being especially noticeable against the purple. Beautiful and festive!

Application was lovely. The consistency of XO is fluid and dense with flakies. It has a fairly smooth flow over the nail with only a skosh of tumbling on the part of the flakies, which disperse quite evenly around the nail as you paint. One thing I really love about metallic flake polishes like this the immediacy with which they camouflage nail bed irregularities. My ridges completely disappeared under the first coat! They also provide excellent coverage. OX is very nearly opaque in one medium coat, but you'll want two coats to ensure completely even opacity and richest color. Cleanup is surprisingly easy, even with the silver flakes, which will scatter to a certain extent at the touch of acetone but are not overly sticky on skin, nail or cuticle. There is no pigment travel or residual staining. XO dries naturally in fairly good time to a nearly smooth finish with just a touch of that gently pebbled texture from the flakies that is easily smoothed with topcoat.

Photos show two coats of XO over treatment and basecoat with a topcoat of Seche Vite. 

ILNP XO

ILNP XO

ILNP XO

ILNP XO

ILNP XO

ILNP XO

ILNP XO

ILNP XO

ILNP XO

ILNP XO

ILNP XO

ILNP XO

ILNP XO

ILNP XO

ILNP XO

This was a difficult polish to photograph and I don't think my efforts do justice to the nature of the polish, which is more convivial and lighthearted than these pics suggest. The light play in XO is omnipresent but nuanced according to the circumstances in which its viewed. I like it best in low light, where the purple is prettied up by flashes of pink, and outdoors in bright indirect light with all of its silver flakes clearly on display. Unfortunately, neither of these states is particularly well represented here, but you can get an idea of what I'm talking about by viewing Cait's gorgeous photos of this polish in her review of the ILNP Holiday 2015 collection on Polish Hound.

Purple is often associated with royalty, magic, mystery and piety, which makes it especially apt for the spiritual significance of Christmas -- more so, it seems to me, than the traditional red and green we use to denote that holiday and the season. Although a dark shade, and as such considered intellectual and dignified by some colorists, this purple has a playful side courtesy of its of profuse silver flakies, which are not unlike gleaming clouds of snowflakes on the nail. 

love,
Liz