Tuesday, January 5, 2016

Pahlish The Word of Bagheera

The Word of Bagheera was released in July 2015 by Arkansas-based indie polish maker Pahlish as part of the Jungle Book Trio, a mini collection inspired by the 1967 Disney animated film The Jungle Book. It's named after a quote from the character of Bagheera, the wry and avuncular black panther who rescues the abandoned infant "man-cub" Mowgli and serves as his guardian in the Indian jungle. 

Described as a deep violet linear holo with bright purple sparks, this is a well-saturated blackened indigo creme holo that is packed with finely-milled, high-quality holographic pigment, giving the color the capacity to shift between a more violet Persian indigo and an imperial blue depending on the circumstances in which it's viewed. As you'd imagine, the creamy base is serially nuanced with all sorts of shifting indigo-type shades in violet and dark blue, producing a quiet dimensionality and richness that I associate with the characteristics of fine heavy silk fabric. Direct sun generates a sparkling, perfectly prismatic linear flare floating over a central semi-metallic flash of blackened violet sparsely decorated with glistening flecks of bright purple, shading to near-black at the edges of the nail.

Application was lovely. The consistency of The Word of Bagheera is fluid, creamy and dense with a plush glide over the nail that has a bit of pull to it. This polish is quite quick to set up and surface dry, so dawdling over application is not appreciated -- it went on most easily for me in medium coats from a well-loaded brush. Self-leveling properties are excellent and pigmentation is very good with even, opaque coverage in two coats. Cleanup is fairly straightforward with moderate pigment travel and a bit of residual staining. The Word of Bagheera dries naturally in very good time to a smooth, mostly shiny finish that looks its best with a glossy topcoat. 

Photos show two coats of The Word of Bagheera over treatment and basecoat with a topcoat of Seche Vite. Apologies for the scruffy nail surrounds and poor cleanup!


Pahlish The Word of Bagheera


Pahlish The Word of Bagheera


Pahlish The Word of Bagheera


Pahlish The Word of Bagheera


Pahlish The Word of Bagheera


Pahlish The Word of Bagheera


Pahlish The Word of Bagheera


Pahlish The Word of Bagheera


Pahlish The Word of Bagheera


Pahlish The Word of Bagheera


Pahlish The Word of Bagheera


Pahlish The Word of Bagheera



Pahlish The Word of Bagheera


Pahlish The Word of Bagheera


Pahlish The Word of Bagheera


Pahlish The Word of Bagheera

I had some trouble trying to capture the changing faces of this moody, elegant shade. It didn't help that the sun was in and out of the clouds on this cool January day, sometimes flooding my "lightbox" bathroom (where I take my photos most of the time) with intense, direct sun through the skylight, sometimes weak sun, just enough to cast shadows and trigger the polish's prismatic display, sometimes just the bright natural light afforded by an overcast sky (my personal preference for photographing nail polish). Complicating the matter even more thoroughly is the fact that I only know the features of this new Sony RX100 M2 well enough to make a lot of mistakes trying to utilize them. 

Suffice to say that bright natural light of any sort seems to bring out the blue in The Word of Bagheera, with the blackened violet preferring to reveal itself in low and artificial light. In that sense, I guess, it's almost the perfect kind of indigo, hovering between blue and violet with a foot in each camp. It's a handsome polish, and despite its moody qualities there's an urbanity and graceful, reserved sense to it that I really like. Very flattering and easy to wear. 

hasta,
Liz

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