Like Abracadabra, Mintally Unstable was released this month by North Carolina-based indie polish maker CrowsToes Nail Color as one of three custom polishes created by Lauri exclusively for members of the HHC facebook group. This is a linear holo in a desaturated silvery cyanic blue-green that can lean to celeste or magic mint depending upon the viewing circumstances and the prevailing color shift of its included shimmers. It bears superabundant shifty particle shimmers with a pink to gold transition as well as violet shimmers, veiling the minty base with a glistening mist of pink that varies to pale gold at oblique angles and adding a transparent violet sheen to the finish. The holographic pigment generates pale shifting hues of robin's egg blue, turquoise and aqua in bright ambient light, and in direct sun reveals an on-tone, shimmering prismatic display predominated by a flare of sparkling aqua framing a central lick of gleaming semi-metallic baby pink.
Application was great! The consistency of Mintally Unstable is fluid and super creamy with a thicker viscosity than I am comfortable with so I added a bit of polish thinner at the outset. Once thinned, it had an unbelievably smooth maglev-type glide over the nail, just dreamy, and went on beautifully for me in thin to medium coats coats using a light touch and a well-loaded brush. Self-leveling properties are excellent and pigmentation is very good, delivering evenly opaque coverage in two to three coats depending upon your painting style and opacity preferences. It applies so evenly that it could even be worn as a sheer in one coat. Cleanup is pretty straightforward -- watch out for sticky shimmers! Mintally Unstable dries naturally in good time to a smooth luminous finish. Topcoat accentuates the presence of the shimmers and does not appear to affect the holographic properties of the polish in any way.
Photos show three coats of Mintally Unstable over treatment and basecoat with a topcoat of Seche Vite. Apologies for the scruffy nail environs, they are spoiling for a scrub and a soak.
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| Crows Toes Mintally Unstable |
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| Crows Toes Mintally Unstable |
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| Crows Toes Mintally Unstable |
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| Crows Toes Mintally Unstable |
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| Crows Toes Mintally Unstable |
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| Crows Toes Mintally Unstable |
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| Crows Toes Mintally Unstable |
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| Crows Toes Mintally Unstable |
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| Crows Toes Mintally Unstable |
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| Crows Toes Mintally Unstable |
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| Crows Toes Mintally Unstable |
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| Crows Toes Mintally Unstable |
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| Crows Toes Mintally Unstable |
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| Crows Toes Mintally Unstable |
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| Crows Toes Mintally Unstable |
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| Crows Toes Mintally Unstable |
The wonderful pink shimmers are brighter and a bit more overt in person than you see in the photos -- they really glow! This polish was inspired by a macro photograph of an echeveria succulent.
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| Echeveria photo by Karina Aldredge (source) |
Lauri captured the colors and the delicate dewiness of the subject perfectly! Gleaming, sleek and exquisitely beautiful on the nail, this polish is a harmonious tour de force of carefully selected elements masterfully combined to render a very specific effect. I am in awe.
love,
Liz
CrowsToes really did a splendid job crafting those three polishes for that group, didn't they? And you did a wonderful job swatching, photographing and characterizing them! The brand is a favorite of mine and I am glad so many women experienced their first CrowsToes from this exclusive offering. Taking for granted they have gorgeous polish, I have also always admired their logo. One of my favorite birds is the crow and I love that logo, with the sooty crow silhouetted and slightly blurred against the hazy light. Along with the enhancing, well-chosen font, that logo has always struck me as so effective, so perfect. Another feature I like is how they feature the name of the polish on the back label. I never tire of looking at the design on their bottles. Great polish, great design - what's not to like!
ReplyDeleteThank you, my dear. These HHC CrowsToes creations are fantastic, it's almost eerie how perfectly Lauri captured the inspiration for each of them. Just amazing. I'm so glad I purchased these!
DeleteI am so with you on CrowsToes' logo and labelling. "CrowsToes" has always struck me as an imaginative, mysterious, intellectual and delightfully sinister sort of name, carried though meticulously in the logo and labels, which have not changed a bit in the years I've been buying CrowsToes. There's a lot to be said for that kind of continuity! And I adore that nifty, spiky little font -- spooky but with a self-aware sense of humor.
My favorite Crowstoes is probably Hellhound and I really need to get another bottle of it. I sold my original bottle to someone who really wanted it, and now, unusually for me, I miss it. I love that polish, a paragon of multichromes.
Hahah, I am fangirling over your description of their labeling! LOL
DeleteI know many companies feel they need to revitalize and energize their business by changing their branding but I hope CrowsToes stays with this look.
Hellhound is gorgeous. I don't know what I was thinking when I didn't get it. That, and another - Finnnally, It's Hoodie Time!. I have seen the latter offered on destashes, but I am always too late. Someone else has snagged it.
Heheh, if I mention any of this (missing out on not getting a polish), my sis does the eye-roll thing and looks around at my wall racks. Everyone in my circle is convinced I have every possible shade of polish possible. Little do they know!
Give them a narrow-eyed look and say, "You know nothing, Jon Snow!" *lol*
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