Colors by Llarowe Annie
Annie was released in June 2015 by Colorado-based indie polish maker Colors by Llarowe (CbL) as part of the Overboard collection inspired by the 1987 romantic comedy film of the same name. It's described as a "light tiffany blue creme," referring colloquially to the iconic light-medium robin's egg blue color associated with and trademarked by Tiffany & Co. jewelers of New York. The color is produced as a private custom color by Pantone,
with PMS number 1837, the number deriving from the year of Tiffany's
foundation. As a trademarked color, it is not publicly available and is
not printed in the Pantone Matching System swatch books. Yet every mainstream polish maker and lots of indies as well produce their own variations of a tiffany-esque blue, and it's a particularly popular color for spring manicures.
CbL's interpretation of this famous cyanic blue leans ever-so-slightly to sky blue, especially in the bottle, with a lighter, less dusky kiss of green than either robin's egg or orthodox tiffany blue. On my nails, it develops into a more aqua-infused hue than it appears in the bottle, and looks to me to be an almost perfect tiffany rendition. I wish I had a box or catalog to compare it to! Clean, fresh and creamy, I find it to have a somewhat tropical, poolside, Floridian vibe, in the sun particularly, where it shows at its brightest.
Application was most agreeable. The consistency of Annie is fluid and very creamy with a thin-to-medium viscosity and a buttery glide over the nail. Self-leveling properties are outstanding for a polish with this much white in it -- I was very pleased not to see my nail ridges, even with first coat. Pigmentation is very, very good. There's a bit of patchiness to the first coat that evens out completely with the second to produce coverage that is smooth and opaque. I had it in mind that adding a third coat might give the closest approximation to the look of Tiffany's clear-coated boxes and bags, so that's what I did and am very happy with the results. Cleanup is easy. Annie dries naturally in good time to a beautiful glossy finish.
Photos show three coats of Annie over treatment and basecoat with a topcoat of Seche Vite.
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| Colors by Llarowe Annie |
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| Colors by Llarowe Annie |
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| Colors by Llarowe Annie |
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| Colors by Llarowe Annie |
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| Colors by Llarowe Annie |
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| Colors by Llarowe Annie |
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| Colors by Llarowe Annie |
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| Colors by Llarowe Annie |
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| Colors by Llarowe Annie |
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| Colors by Llarowe Annie |
The color here isn't quite as accurate as I'd hoped it would be. It's a good rendition of the bottle color, but in person it's a skosh greener and duskier on the nail than it looks in these photos. My old Canon A3000 Powershot used to do a particularly good job with this kind of shade, but it would have made my natural pinkage appear bright red and I definitely do not miss having to lighten and desaturate every photo in order to have my fingers approximate a natural color.
Anyway, Annie is a very pretty version of tiffany blue and feels just right for spring -- it kinda makes me want to put on my Maui Jims and drive around with the windows down!
love,
Liz
Always a gorgeous color. And, yes, this and related polishes shout Spring going into Summer! Get out the sandals! LOL, and here I sit with Chanel Malice on my nails!! One of my eyes has recently developed some material in it and is causing that eye to see central blurry (uncorrectable) vision, with the possibility of it getting worse (really messes with depth perception!) so I decided to put on Malice so I could see it still in all its glory. I'm loving it but I'm giving it one more day and then back to seasonal colors again. I have SO many Spring polishes that are untried that I have been wanting to get to but this Tiffany-esque color has taken hold. That being said, I have read that Tiffany uses several different colors in that range for their various packaging items. Someone posted several Tiffany packaging items, two different-sized boxes, a ribbon and a small bag, and each was a different color, albeit all skirting around 'Tiffany Blue'! I guess Tiffany gets their packages from different companies and each has their own interpretation of that blue? One hears about how difficult it is to produce the same color in different batches - I (and I am sure, others) have encountered that problem, but I do wonder if it is more a case of careless human intervention or elements no longer available or used.
ReplyDeleteWell, okay, that got off-topic! Anyway, it is gorgeous!
I'm so sorry about your eye and vision issues, Lara. Is it macular degeneration? Fuzzy has that, and also has had surgery for cataracts. Is your other eye unaffected? Is it possible that it will kick in, perhaps help with the blurriness? Is it absolutely relentless? The idea that that you might not be able to enjoy Chanel Malice, or any one of your favorites, in the future breaks my heart, I can't stand it. :(
DeletePantone's dye-ratio index blueprints the color but not the application, and materials take dyes and inks differently depending upon their makeup, the process used and any finishing elements such as clear-coat and such, so there's bound to be some color variation in Tiffany's packaging and marketing materials. I'm sure it's a big issue for both Tiffany and its suppliers -- when a color is as iconic as Tiffany blue, continuity is absolutely key. I'd guess that they have parameters of acceptance and probably do reject materials that exceed them. You'd certainly have to have very high visual discrimination skills to do that kind of job!
Thank you for your concern! The eye surgeon won't be able to see me until the 22nd but the photo from my regular eye doctor showed some stuff in the macular area. My left eye is unaffected, thank goodness. But I do have a problem with depth perception. Really don't like driving much anymore (this, after having gotten a really nice car last November!) and doing a clean mani is more challenging. Small areas get duplicated? So seeing if I am doing okay up at the cuticle area during a manicure can be frustrating. However, I am not dwelling on the future implications. I'll wait for that until after seeing the surgeon! I do read every day and do notice more trouble with that. I only hope I can always read. I do remember one of my aunts. She also was a huge reader, ever had a real library in her house (this was just so impressive to my young book-loving self!) but she developed some eye problems to the point where she was legally blind. Reading had been her mainstay and I recall what a tragedy I thought it was. Lately, I have found myself looking at my racks of polish and wondering.... But apparently, that hasn't done anything to curb my polish buying. Sheesh, just had two Enchanted Polish bottles show up yesterday! I don't know if that is just a part of my live in the moment attitude or denial!
DeleteBTW, I love how creamy this crème polish looks on you. I do love the various finishes such as holo, etc., but there is something about a pretty crème polish beautifully laid on that melts me. Maybe it is the minimalist in me, I like the simplicity of it - no hiding behind fancy tricks! I do totally get the frustration of having ridges and using cremes - I have furrows on a few nails myself. I often use Gelous and then Seche Viche and then another coat of Gelous to defeat my ridges! Ugh, I never had any problems with my nails before menopause! And, yeah, I've tried all the vitamins and supplements with no effect. :)
ReplyDelete*lol* Speaking of relentless... there are aspects of aging that certainly do suck! I won't even start up about menopause.
DeleteI share your love for the utterly delicious creaminess of a creme finish! No other finish has that clean graceful elegance of presentation. I wish I knew how to better photograph them to capture them in a pristine state. They're quite unforgiving.
It's like detailing a black car. Black paint will tell you everything about where it's been, what's rubbed up against it, what fool opened a car door into it or bonked it with a grocery cart or smacked it with a soccer ball, what sort of road grime its accumulated, what sort of trees have dripped sap on it, etc. Likewise, a creme will tell you everything about how it was applied, how its topcoat was applied, how linty the towel that dried it was, how dusty the house is (huge problem here, HUGE), etc. As immaculate as a polish may look to the naked eye, it is never truly immaculate, as a macro lens will effortlessly reveal. So frustrating! I don't know how bloggers who swatch and photograph whole collections of cremes do it!
My ridges are like crumple zones in plate tectonics, they affect all of my nails and they're genetic. I'm a keen user of ridge-filling basecoats, which do help to a degree, beyond which I rely on a polish's self-leveling properties. If I can still see ridges after three coats, that polish is just not for me. I'm frequently envious when I see photos of sheer manicures over flawless nails, so delicate and beautiful! My natural nail color is a bit yellowed anyway, and when you add polish staining to that, well, let's just say NO SHEERS FOR YOU! I've tried to attain a similar effect with camouflaging basecoat, but it just doesn't cut it.
As Fuzzy likes to say, either it's alright or it's too bad! Thank goodness for humor and perspective, eh?
My sides almost hurt from laughing so much about black car troubles - guess what color my new car is?! But, wow, when it is all shiny and polished! And so true - crème polish is the same way. I go all gooey when I see a gorgeous crème on beautiful nails photographed beautifully. (BTW, do NOT sell yourself sort on that - I love all your photos, you do great!) I do like to see stamping but I sometimes almost cry when I see that pure, clean, brilliant crème being covered up with a stamp.
DeleteUh... whoops! Well, that wasn't a slam against black paint. Black cars are actually extremely rewarding to detail because if you treat the paint like it should be treated the end result is, as you well know, fabulous. The hardest color to detail is undoubtedly white. As opposed to black, white paint won't tell you squat. Your eyes have to work SO HARD to do a white vehicle, and unlike darker colors you can put a world of work into it and then when you're done you can hardly tell that you did anything more to it than wash it. Pwah! So I applaud your color choice -- keep that baby garaged or carported, avoid drive-through and diy carwashes, and don't let anyone with a rotary polisher near it! In any less than expert hands those things can and will swirl up a car finish in the blink of an eye. No silicone-based tire dressing either -- that crap will sling up off the tire into the panel joins and sit there congealing and collecting road grime forever.
DeleteBTW, I appreciate your kind words about my pics so much, thank you!