Lacquer Slacker Liz: Ever After Polish Playing With Fire

Wednesday, January 24, 2018

Ever After Polish Playing With Fire

Playing With Fire was created by Rachel of Ohio-based indie polish maker Ever After Polish especially for the "Gem & Gemstones" January 2018 edition of Polish Pickup. Inspired the black opal, it has a black jelly base packed with orange, red and green color-shifting flakes as well as tiny blue holographic hex glitters and even tinier green microglitter squares.

This is a deeply cool lacquer! There are so many blue holographic glitters in there that the base, which is a translucent black, almost takes on a bit of a midnight blue/indigo vibe. The translucence of the base allows great light penetration, and all of the component colors are easily visible. Copious irregularly-shaped metallic flakies, which range in size from tiny to medium, gleam brightly as light travels over them, predominantly in variations of flame with bright green and gold being the rarest, surrounded by a galaxy of twinkling sparks in all kinds of blues from ultramarine to azure to deep turquoise.

Application was a little tetchy. The consistency of Playing With Fire is fluid and packed with components, with a thin-to-medium viscosity and a fluent, self-leveling flow over the nail. Component pay-off is excellent. You definitely feel the flakies as you apply, and I experienced tumbling with occasional stickups and attempted protrusions over the free edge. A light, careful touch will minimize this, and you can gently press any stickups down while the polish is tacky. Pigmentation is very good. Some sheerness on the first coat builds to wearable opacity with two, but I like the look at three better. Be sure to wrap your tips with every coat to avoid any sheerness there. With all of the potential for sticking components, I did my cleanup as I went along and had no issues. Playing With Fire dries naturally in good time to a shiny, gently textured finish that's mostly smoothed with topcoat.

Photos show three coats of Playing With Fire over treatment and basecoat with a topcoat of Girly Bits Glitter Glaze.

Ever After Polish Playing With Fire

This is an awesome fantasy polish! The radiant black opal colors translate incredibly well and stand out beautifully in the black base, just like the real thing. The look of those flame-colored flakies with the bold blue sparks of the glitters just slays me -- so stunning! I thought the formula was excellent considering its component load, and any extra care needed during application is absolutely worth it for this amazing look. Here's the inspiration pic Rachel used for Playing With Fire: