Blue-Eyed Girl Lacquer Special Selection

Special Selection was released the first week of February this year by Georgia-based indie polish maker Blue-Eyed Girl Lacquer as one-half of the month's Destination Duo. Each month Julie teams up with a guest polish maker to create a Destination Polish Duo inspired by a photograph of a certain place. This month's collaborative partner was Carrie of Contrary Polish. Their inspiration photo was taken by Carrie at the Sundance Film Festival. I'll be showing you Carrie's polish in another post.

Officially described as a black cherry jelly with gold microflakes, gold microglitters, ultrachrome flakies in a copper/gold/fuchsia spectrum and ultrachrome flakies in a green/pink/gold spectrum, the base color of Special Selection is a deep variation of ruby similar to Crayola's Gem Tone ruby with aspects of rich magenta for a look along the lines of vivid burgundy. The translucent jelly formula allows plenty of light to penetrate and refract off of a profusion of glitter and flakie components, creating a rich, dimensional visual texture full of sparkle and glints of fuchsia, hot magenta, cerise and gold. In the sun, the holographic microglitters add a veil of bright prismatic sparks to the mix.

Application was studied. The consistency of Special Selection is fluid, full-bodied and a little sticky with a thicker viscosity to which I added a generous amount of polish thinner to get a density more commensurate with my skills. Once thinned, it had a light, fluent, self-leveling flow over the nail with excellent component payoff. The glitters and flakies dispersed easily and randomly with no stacking or stickups and only a few protrusions over the free edge, easily pushed back onto the nail with a tip-wrapping swipe of the brush. Pigmentation is very good, with evenly opaque coverage achieved in two medium or three thinner coats. I did most of my cleanup as I went along to avoid sticky glitters and flakies and had no issues. Special Selection dries naturally in good time to a flat, gently textured finish. For a glassy smooth finish, I double-topcoated with a layer of gel effect topcoat followed by quick dry. 

Photos show two coats of Special Selection over treatment and basecoat with a topcoat of Pretty Serious Plump Up the Volume and finished with another of Seche Vite.

Blue-Eyed Girl Lacquer Special Selection

Blue-Eyed Girl Lacquer Special Selection

Blue-Eyed Girl Lacquer Special Selection

Blue-Eyed Girl Lacquer Special Selection

Blue-Eyed Girl Lacquer Special Selection

Blue-Eyed Girl Lacquer Special Selection

Blue-Eyed Girl Lacquer Special Selection

Blue-Eyed Girl Lacquer Special Selection

Blue-Eyed Girl Lacquer Special Selection

Blue-Eyed Girl Lacquer Special Selection

This is a seriously glamorous, ornate polish. The look is rich and decadent with boatloads of Old Hollywood-style panache, an interesting take, visually and philosophically, on the Sundance Film Festival photo. 

Julie pulled inspiration from the bits of red and burgundy in the photo for her creation. The dimensional visual texture and abundant light play within the polish generate a certain high end, haute couture kind of quality that adds excitement to the look. Gorgeous!

love,
Liz