KBShimmer Lady and The Vamp

Lady and The Vamp was released last month by Indiana-based indie polish maker KBShimmer as part of the Fall Blogger Collaboration collection, a series of fourteen polishes, twelve of which were designed from inspirational images submitted by KBShimmer bloggers. This particular polish was created with Lisa of Cosmetic Sanctuary and is described by Christy as "a deep vampy color burgundy red in our Mega Flame finish," a microglitter bomb featuring holographic microglitters in a colored base. You can read Lisa's post about Lady and The Vamp here.

The color here is a translucent dark wine with a strong purple aspect that gives it the look of a Tyrian purple on the nail. The darkness of the color is somewhat counterbalanced by superabundant silver holographic microglitters, which blanket the polish with a dense net of bright prismatic sparks in almost any light. It's downright dazzling in the sun, where the base color appears to brighten to a bold patriarch purple.

Application was great! The consistency of Lady and The Vamp is fluid and very smooth for a microglitter bomb, with a medium viscosity and a remarkably fluent and biddable glide over the nail that goes on naturally in thin-to-medium coats. Coverage is mostly provided by the microglitters, which are dense enough to provide wearable opacity in two coats. I used three for this manicure to avoid any bare-ish spots in the photos, but would happily wear it at two if I weren't taking pictures of it. I did my cleanup as I went along but experienced sticky glitters even so. My advice is to try for as clean a manicure as possible from the get go to minimize any necessary cleanup, and to do your cleanup as you go along while the polish is still wet. Lady and The Vamp dries naturally in very good time to a flat, textured finish that likes a double topcoat or a dedicated glitter-smoothing topcoat for a truly glossy, glitter-under-glass look.

Photos show three coats of Lady and The Vamp over ÜNT Ready for Takeoff peel off basecoat finished with a layer of Pretty Serious Plump Up The Volume plus a layer of Seche Vite to ensure drying of all the layers.

KBShimmer Lady and The Vamp

KBShimmer Lady and The Vamp

KBShimmer Lady and The Vamp

KBShimmer Lady and The Vamp

KBShimmer Lady and The Vamp

KBShimmer Lady and The Vamp

KBShimmer Lady and The Vamp

KBShimmer Lady and The Vamp

KBShimmer Lady and The Vamp

KBShimmer Lady and The Vamp

KBShimmer Lady and The Vamp

I love the glamorous, super-glittery sparkle of KBShimmer's Mega Flame polishes so there was no doubt that I'd love the look of this polish on my nails. I think the color and sparkle are especially becoming on my "Cinderella" right hand, which sports much shorter nails than my left. I try to remember the "jewels not tools" adage for both of my hands, but if I'm going to lapse it's inevitably with my right. Plus all of those right hand nails just seem to tear and crack more easily, so they're always relatively short. Anyway, if you've got shorties yourself, try a sparkly little vamp like this one on them and see if you don't love it!

xo,
Liz