The base color is a delicate, creamy pale blue with relatively little green and a hint of silvery grey to it, perhaps from the abundance of holographic pigment it carries, giving it a look in ambient light that is similar to the shade beau blue from the Plochere Color System. It's loaded with fine, luminous pink-to-gold shimmers that remind me of the fiery orangey-pink you see in opals and create a glowing pinkish mist along the axis of light, eliciting the illusion of an illuminated nailbed -- very cool! Holographic microglitters twinkle as light travels over them, tiny sparks in pale hues of pink, azure, gold and spring green. In the sun, the color appears to brighten to a vibrant, true baby blue and displays a linear prismatic flare predominated by bright azure that frames a radiant, misty swath of orangey-pink, with the scattered microglitters adding extra sparkle to the look.
Application was fantastic. The consistency of Olivia is fluid and creamy with a medium viscosity and a plush, self-leveling glide over the nail, an excellent, user-friendly formula that goes right where you put it and stays there. Pigmentation is surprisingly opaque on the first coat for such a light shade, and delivers completely even coverage and full bottle color with the second. Cleanup required a little more perseverance than I expected due to stickiness on the part of not only the microglitters, but the shimmers as well. Olivia dries naturally in very good time to a smooth shiny finish. Topcoat does not interfere with the holographic properties of the polish and accentuates the presence and effects of the shimmers.
Photos show two coats of Olivia over treatment and basecoat with a topcoat of Seche Vite.
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| Different Dimension Olivia |
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| Different Dimension Olivia |
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| Different Dimension Olivia |
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| Different Dimension Olivia |
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| Different Dimension Olivia |
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| Different Dimension Olivia |
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| Different Dimension Olivia |
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| Different Dimension Olivia |
I love the name Olivia so perhaps I am predisposed to love this polish, but the color, in ambient light especially (which I think is its best look), is just so pretty and ethereal -- it has a fairy ice princess kind of vibe with the added magic of luminous shimmers and scattered, twinkling holographic microglitters. An excellent wintry light blue that will also wear beautifully in the spring!
love,
Liz
I have been following you for years and I have to ask, where do you find the motivation to post such lengthy posts almost everyday?!?!!? I mean the work that goes into your blog is amazing.
ReplyDeleteThank you for reading, I appreciate you!
DeleteYou've probably noticed that all of my posts follow a certain structure. This structure developed naturally over time, and in the process it became much easier for me to find the right words to describe what I saw in a polish. Now it's a huge part of how I enjoy polish, and it's become something that I honestly love to do.
When I first started reading nail polish blogs, what I most enjoyed were the descriptions and personal reactions of the bloggers. That's how I began, with the idea to include what I enjoyed reading elsewhere. It's not the popular approach, but I don't have mad photography skills or the most photogenic fingers and nails, so I've gone with what comes most naturally to me: exploring a very specific subject -- nail polish -- and writing about it.
It does take time, though. Over the past year, especially, I've thought quite a bit about this. But it won't be easy to find another focus/activity/hobby that gives me the kind of satisfaction I get from blogging. So until that happens, I'm happy to continue writing about polish.