Nine Zero Lacquer February 2016

February 2016 was released at the beginning of last month by Michigan-based indie polish maker Nine Zero Lacquer as part of creator Jess' ongoing Polish of the Month series. This is a delicate medium-light blue holographic polish filled with holographic pigment as well as ultrafine holographic silver microglitter. The color, described as periwinkle by Jess, is softly silvered from the holographic inclusions, giving it a slightly muted appearance in low light and shade, where it reads to my eye as something along the lines of blue bell. In direct sun, the color brightens and intensifies to more of a medium sapphire hue as the polish explodes in a dazzling scattered prismatic display with a visible linear underlay. The holographic properties of the polish are so athletic and responsive that there's almost always some degree of holo activity no matter what the circumstances. To me, the rainbow sparkle is particularly lovely in bright reflected light, where it's limited to a delicate scattered star-like twinkling across the nail. So pretty!

Application was great! The consistency of February 2016 is fluid and smooth with a medium viscosity and a comfortable, self-leveling glide over the nail. It seems to like to go on in thin to medium coats and is easy to manipulate with Nine Zero's slightly bushy flattened flexible brush. A bit of sheerness in the first coat builds quickly to evenly opaque coverage with the second. A couple of my nails had unfortunate encounters with Chi's leash when I took her out mid-manicure, before topcoating (I knew it was risky but when the dog wants out, you take her out!), and I had to add a third coat to repair the damage, but it didn't appear to deepen or otherwise affect the color. Cleanup is fairly straightforward with some stickiness on the part of the tiny microglitters as you might expect. February 2016 dries in fairly good time to a smooth, slightly flat finish that wants a good topcoat to look its best. Topcoat does not inhibit the holographic properties in any way. 

Photos show three coats of February 2016 over Pretty Serious Rock On treatment and Pretty Serious All Your Base basecoat with a topcoat of Seche Vite.

Nine Zero Lacquer February 2016

Nine Zero Lacquer February 2016

Nine Zero Lacquer February 2016

Nine Zero Lacquer February 2016

Nine Zero Lacquer February 2016

Nine Zero Lacquer February 2016

Nine Zero Lacquer February 2016

Nine Zero Lacquer February 2016

Nine Zero Lacquer February 2016

Nine Zero Lacquer February 2016

Nine Zero Lacquer February 2016

Nine Zero Lacquer February 2016

Nine Zero Lacquer February 2016

Nine Zero Lacquer February 2016

Nine Zero Lacquer February 2016

This polish is so lively and sparkly on the nail, photos just can't do it justice. Seeing that pretty prismatic sparkle twinkling away on my nails is like seeing a big happy smile on somebody's face -- you can't help but smile yourself! It's a total mood-lifter. Plus the color is a perfect match to the beautiful fleece bathrobe that Fuzzy gave me for Christmas. Swish! 

Jess really has her formulation for this sort of microglitter holo down. Her spring collection is available for pre-order as I type this, five microglitter holos in beautiful spring colors. If they are as pretty on the nail as February 2016 is, and I have no reason to believe they won't be, I want them all! It'd be like buying myself a big bouquet full of spring flowers, except this bouquet will last!

ttyl,
Liz