Dreamland Makai
Like Mauka, Makai was released last month by Missouri-based indie polish maker Dreamland Artisan Nail Lacquer as a limited edition July 2016 custom polish exclusively for members of the Hella Holo Customs (HHC) Facebook group. Described as an aqua green linear holo with holo flakies, the color is a medium-light translucent turquoise, a dreamy aquatic shade that is like the sunlit tropical sea of your imagination. Superabundant silvery holographic microflakes stipple the finish, adding dimensionality and a beautiful shimmering quality to the look in ambient light, where there are hints of a prismatic bloom from deep within the polish. In direct sun, they explode into a dramatic blanket of prismatic sparkle with a dispersed, analogous-hued linear flare that travels up and down the nail with a curl of your finger. Fantastic!
Application was blissful. The consistency of Makai is fluid, smooth and slightly fluffy from the copious microflakes with a medium viscosity and an easy, self-leveling slip over the nail. Excellent formula, user friendly! Pigmentation is sheer, but builds to a wearable opacity in two to three coats depending on your painting and coverage preferences. I used three coats for this manicure. Cleanup is easy. Makai dries naturally in very good time to a silky smooth, shiny finish. Topcoat does not interfere with the holographic properties of the polish in any way, and actually seems to add sparkle to the microflakes in ambient light.
Photos show two coats of Makai over KBShimmer Love You Strong Time treatment and Pretty Serious All Your Base basecoat with a topcoat of Seche Vite.
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My camera rendered the color with a decidedly blue hue -- in person it is slightly more green. Makai is a Hawaiian word meaning "toward the water," often used when giving directions, and that's exactly where I could imagine going with this shimmering, summery lacquer on my nails! The balance of green in the turquoise gives it a more oceanic feel than your typical pool blue, but it definitely has that poolside vibe to it.
Wouldn't this make a fabulous base for some mermaidian nail art?
xo,
Liz
Gorgeous! Thanks for the beautiful review!
ReplyDeleteIt was my pleasure, thank you!
DeleteLOL, I knew once I saw your photos of this polish, the itch of regret for not buying the pretty would rear its head! I have been seriously cutting back on buying polish (well, here and there, one jumps onto my account...). I have a love/hate attitude toward these groups that feature a set of limited polish every month. When I first see them, usually my first response is I don't need them, thank gawd. Then I start seeing swatches, and usually still able to resist. Finally, I see your swatches / photos and, yeah, it's Why didn't I... !!! Eventually, I do calm down and tell myself I.don't.need.all.the.polish! Hahah, I have found the best thing is to go mingle with the polish I have! Socialize with them a little, picking this one and that one up, gently twirling it to let it show off its particular awesomeness, giving a little shake if it's gone to sleep and separated since it's last handling (entirely my fault!).
ReplyDeleteOn one of the FB groups I am in (PAA), someone new asked if there was a site or somewhere to learn how to make polish (not the kind you add eyebrow powder to base) or learn how to and what to mix to achieve certain results. Someone answered it is just a matter of experience mainly. I can understand why someone who has spent a lot of money and time experimenting with the different pigments and elements that go toward making beautiful polish would not be inclined to just dump all that knowledge out there. I feel there should definitely be a long apprenticeship learning period regarding what combines with what to make That (and don't be surprised if it doesn't, because, you know, every day can be different!).
I hear you! I'm somewhat ambivalent about facebook polish groups as well, including the individual brand fan groups. While they are a fun place to post my blog reviews because there is so much enthusiasm and interest and my blog gets a lot more visitors than it does otherwise, the activity in my newsfeed is often overwhelmingly polish group related. I don't fully participate in a lot of them (my bad), and then end up feeling a little panicky about who is offering what specialcustomlimitededition where.
DeleteI probably have enough untried polishes to last my blog through most of the rest of this year, and I'm feeling their weight. I could destash a great deal of polish if I wanted to, and was recently considering destashing all of my Zoyas. My relationship with my collection is constantly changing, and these days I am much less likely to want to keep so many, if only because I know there will always be new developments in artisinal polish making and new polishes to try.
I've never felt inclined to try making my own polish. I don't have the kind of creativity you need to do that kind of thing, nor am I well enough organized. But I would love to follow a polish maker through the process, or even just spend a couple of days with a polish maker doing whatever is on the schedule to have the opportunity to ask those burning questions and try to see the process through their eyes.
Haha Lara, I love the way you phrase this- socializing with the polishes. I do this too!! I find remembering the gorgeous polishes I already own especially effective in defusing desperate lemmings. Not entirely, but enough to take the ravenous edge off :)
DeleteAs for making your own polish, you can find home beauty books on Amazon, etc that describe the process! Most everyone does buy bases of various viscosity and mixes pigments and components into them. You can tell newbie, you really shouldn't attempt to mix your own base unless you're a chemist.
I once looked into making polish- so many polish ideas that I'd love to manifest! But meh, I have too many creative interests as it is, and as Liz said, it really is a tremendous investment of time and space (not to mention money) to acquire all the wonderful, unique materials. Instead, I've begun gathering the cheap polishes that I never wear in lieu of indies, and one day when I have time I'll knock myself out frankening (hopefully not literally). I have loads of drugstore polishes that I bought for a single pretty aspect, but then they just fall flat and sit unloved next to all these spectacular indies. So, I'll reuse and remix them to satisfy my creative whims. Win-win for me!! :D
Liz, like all polishaholics, I often find myself gazing at the racks of polish trying to decide the big question - Which one??? Hahah, it's difficult enough picking which color palette, then there are all the various hues and then the different finishes! A daunting task indeed! But it keeps me out of the polish stores - real stores or online! I still have a little sanity left - enough to be able to talk myself out of a BUNCH of polish! But, Liz, you swatch such consistently beautiful polish and your photos are so gorgeous that I find some coming home to me. Can't be good all the time, now can we!
DeleteYeah, I need to destash. I have a tray of them I mean to. But...
Marisa - I understand the desperate lemming thing! I thought I would never have Chanel Malice and, after years, finally got it for a decent price. I had bought polish after polish trying to get a similar one that would satisfy me, but none did. What's funny is that from six feet away, you wouldn't know the difference between them! But these exquisite polishes are for yourself, in an intimate, up-close pas de deux!
Having that awful lemming for years can drive ya nuts! That's when I throw myself at my polishes, begging them to take that edge off. And, bless their little hearts, they usually do! With a subtle wink of shimmer and a kaleidoscope shift of multichrome, yes, they transfix me. :)
I also have no drive to create polish. I can only imagine the investment it is, in time, money and space. But I know there are women who are undaunted by such thoughts - they just get the itch to create it and, by dinghy, they're gonna do it! More power to 'em! I'll never be (and have never wanted to be) one of them but I hope one day I'll see splendid, brilliant polishes by them!
Hahah, Marisa, if I ever tried to franken polishes, I'd end up with a muddy-looking mess!
Liz, YES - me, too. I would love to see a video of a maker going through the process. Or, as you say, be in their presence. Just because I love to see beautiful things being created. Maybe if I signed a super secret, locked down non-disclosure agreement... LOL.
Ooh I just love the matching/opposite words: towards the water, towards the mountains. My name is Latin meaning "of the sea", and if I ever need a nom de plume (and who knows, I might!), I'd choose the last name Sylvan, "of the forest", also Latin. I like patterns, especially subtle ones.
ReplyDeleteYour macro of this is achingly beautiful- this silver flakies look pearlescent, and like tiny swimming water creatures! This makes me feel like floating the river in this hot day. Crazy gorgeous! Darn you, HHC,haha!! ;)
That's exactly what I thought about those flakies, that they were like little fishes or bubbles coming up through the water.
DeleteBeautiful, clever names for a duo, aren't they? Of Mauka and Makai, I expected to love Mauka much more and wasn't really feeling Makai in the bottle. But it turned out that Makai was the one that really thrilled me, it's just so dynamic on the nail and the color is incredibly refreshing. Fantastic polish!
Pattern recognition is a rhythmic visual aptitude. I bet you have it in spades!
I realized today why the word Mauka felt familiar- there is a new art gallery on Higgins St in Missoula with the very name! I pointed this out to Kellen on our way home from our morning hike, and we agreed it was a very apt name for a business in the Missoula valley.
DeleteMy Myers-Briggs personality is INFJ, and apparently one of our strengths and loves is finding patterns and connections large and small in the world. I've certainly found this to be true! Sometimes I have to make lists just to keep my mind from doing incessant roll call of recent discovered connections :)
Deeply cool folks up there in Missoula.
DeleteI took the Myers-Briggs several times in the late 80s, and went back and forth between ENFJ and INFJ. Safe to say that I am sufficiently more introverted now than then. Pattern recognition was key to doing my job well when I was a production editor at Duke Press. That job utilized many of my native aptitudes. I loved it!