Emily de Molly Crestfallen

Crestfallen was released by Australian indie polish maker Emily de Molly in July 2015. It's a beautiful medium-dark grape or royal purple linear holo, on the blue end of the red-blue purple spectrum but clearly a purple, not a violet. Swimming within are abundant pink flake shimmers that gleam brightly when the light hits them just right and add a stunning overt pink sheen to the look of the polish. In direct light, the finely-milled holographic pigment generates a perfect linear flare with a brilliant ultramarine inner flame edged by thin sparkling bands of prismatic colors. In the shade, the holo effects serve as a dimensionalizing element, nuancing the base color with shifting hues of blue, violet and bright Munsell purple.

Application was just awesome. Crestfallen has a wonderful, eminently paintable formula with a fluid, creamy consistency and a medium viscosity. It has a buttery glide over the nail with a bit of pull to it, and likes to go on in thin to medium coats from a well-loaded brush. Self-leveling properties are outstanding and pigmentation is excellent with completely even opaque coverage achievable in two coats. I had to add a third to disguise a couple of dings I got while refilling my bottle of Seche Vite with wet nails, d'oh. Cleanup is easy and straightforward. Crestfallen dries naturally in good time to a smooth, shiny finish. Topcoat accentuates the presence and effects of the shimmers.

Photos show three coats of Crestfallen over treatment and basecoat with a topcoat of Seche Vite. Please excuse the scruffy skin, too much cuticle remover! That big mid-Atlantic storm is passing through at the moment so it's heavily overcast and the skylight in my lightbox bathroom is covered with snow and ice. There wasn't quite enough light for my camera to focus accurately and pitifully few of the photos I took turned out well. So you're not only getting blurrier pics that usual today, you're getting fewer of them. Downer! Should have jacked up the ISO.

Emily de Molly Crestfallen

Emily de Molly Crestfallen

Emily de Molly Crestfallen

Emily de Molly Crestfallen

 

Emily de Molly Crestfallen

Emily de Molly Crestfallen

Emily de Molly Crestfallen

Emily de Molly Crestfallen

A note about the colors here. As you can see, there's a lot of blue in these images. While this may be characteristic of Crestfallen's holographic effects in (relatively) bright indirect light, it isn't as typical of the polish in person as the photos make it seem. In person, Crestfallen is by and large gratifyingly, regally, richly purple and its holo flare in direct light replete with prismatic colors. It is much more intricate and subtle than it appears here. Sam of Fashion Polish does a much better job of capturing that facts of the matter in her excellent swatch photo of Crestfallen, here.

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Liz