KBShimmer Stalk Market

Stalk Market was released by Indiana-based indie polish maker KBShimmer as part of the Mega Flame collection, launched in tandem with the Spring 2016 collection in mid-March this year. The Mega Flame release comprises a series of seven polishes with superabundant ultrafine holographic microglitters suspended in tinted jelly bases. Creator Christy describes Stalk Market as a "near celery green yellow... not quite yellow, not quite lime." It's yellow foot is more firmly planted that the green, I think, making it less of a celery and more of a slightly desaturated chartreuse yellow, something along the lines of mindaro from the Xona.com color list. It's an unusual and, to my mind, very fashion forward color, subdued enough not to be confused for an aspiring neon but not so muted that it doesn't retain a certain clean springtime freshness that's crisp and wearable.

Of course there's nothing subdued about sidewall to sidewall holographic microglitters, which emit a prismatic sparkle at the least bit of provocation. Here in my shrouded office, Stalk Market's sparkle is alive and well, predominated by sparks of yellow, green and orange, and direct sun generates the expected but ever dazzling rainbow explosion. In fact, the sparkle in direct sun is so extreme that it freaked out the macro on my camera and I only managed to capture one decent sun shot!

Application was seriously fabulous, I loved every minute of it. The consistency of Stalk Market is fluid, smooth and biddable with a medium viscosity and a light, easy slip over the nail. The formula is outstanding, so eminently paintable that it's almost like it actually wants your manicure to be perfect, if you'll pardon the anthropomorphism. I very nearly managed a completely clean paint job on a shaky hands day! Coverage is provided by the microglitters, which go on so evenly that you could wear it at one coat as a sparkly sheer. Two coats provides wearable opacity, but I used three for the photos. I did what little cleanup I had to do as I went along, but I did go back and shape up some of my cuticle lines after I was done and was able to remove microglitters from the nail fairly easily. Hooray! Stalk Market dries naturally in very good time to a gently textured finish, sufficiently smoothed by a single layer of topcoat. If you're going for a "glitter under glass look," you may want to add another or use a non-quick dry topcoat.

Photos show three coats of Stalk Market over treatment and basecoat with a topcoat of Seche Vite. 

KBShimmer Stalk Market

KBShimmer Stalk Market

KBShimmer Stalk Market, you get the idea....

KBShimmer Stalk Market

KBShimmer Stalk Market

KBShimmer Stalk Market

KBShimmer Stalk Market

KBShimmer Stalk Market

 

KBShimmer Stalk Market

KBShimmer Stalk Market

KBShimmer Stalk Market

KBShimmer Stalk Market

KBShimmer Stalk Market

Needless to say, there's a world of light play to this microglitter bomb that is all but missing from my photos. Not sure what the deal was with my camera's macro, it usually manages to focus a lot better than it did in the sun shots. Plus I was sporting major lobster fingers in the indirect light photos, to the point where I felt compelled to desaturate the color a little bit before I was comfortable using them. Just know that the yellow-green color is a tad more vibrant than what you see here. 

Not my best polish photography ever. Bummer!

But in person, the sparkle on this puppy is just tremendous, I love it! I have to pick up my car at the shop later today -- do you think my service manager Brandt at Performance Subaru will appreciate my manicure? *lol* Given all the work I had done on that vehicle, he better!  

ttfn,
Liz