ILNP Mona Lisa

Mona Lisa was released by Nevada-based boutique polish maker I Love Nail Polish (ILNP) as part of the Fall 2015 collection in September 2015. Described as a mocha brown holographic polish, it falls under ILNP's Ultra Holo line of polishes specially formulated with superabundant variously-sized holographic particles, from fine to shardy flecks. The brown is of a raw umbery kind, sort of a lighter sandy taupe along the lines of beaver or coyote brown, a cool, graceful shade veiledwith silver from the holo pigment. You can think of this as the taupey brown version of ILNP's Maiden Lane from the same collection, and like its stablemate Mona Lisa is strongly holographic in even the dimmest of circumstances with similarly permeating prismatic nuances to the base color, most notably an ethereal translucent violet. Blanketed with scattered prismatic sparkle, it also generates a dazzling, fully linear holographic flare in bright light, direct or indirect, with a well-defined retinue of rainbow hues floating over a central lick of gleaming semi-metallic pale golden brown and shading to a rich coffee at the edges of the nail. 

Application was awesome. The consistency of Mona Lisa is quite fluid but not runny, and very smooth with a thinner viscosity and a silky, self-leveling slip over the nail. Pigmentation is slightly sheer but builds quickly to wearable opacity in two medium coats or three thinner ones, either of which the user-friendly formula happily accommodates. I used three coats for this manicure. Cleanup is easy and straightforward, with a little stickiness on the part of the larger holo flecks. Mona Lisa dries naturally in very good time to a gorgeous glossy finish.

Photos show three coats of Mona Lisa over treatment and basecoat with a topcoat of Seche Vite. The massive holographic bling rather overwhelmed my camera!

ILNP Mona Lisa

ILNP Mona Lisa

ILNP Mona Lisa

ILNP Mona Lisa

ILNP Mona Lisa

ILNP Mona Lisa

ILNP Mona Lisa

ILNP Mona Lisa

ILNP Mona Lisa

ILNP Mona Lisa

ILNP Mona Lisa

This polish is Decked. Out. I mean, it's like there's a miniature milky way on each nail! Mona Lisa is so holographic that it was more or less impossible to espy the true nature of the base color in my lightbox bathroom and I actually had to go outside in the rain to see it. It's lighter and more milky that the caramelized coffee shade that you see at the edges of the nail in the photos, a gentle medium-toned taupe with a soft pink cast that when not ablaze with prismatic sparkle is speckled with shardy silver flecks.

Doesn't ILNP have the prettiest polish names? And they always seem to suit the polishes so perfectly -- another application of Barbra's creative genius, which seems to suffuse everything she does with this brand. 

love,
Liz