ILNP Hi-Fi
Hi-Fi was just released this month by Nevada-based indie polish maker ILNP as part of the Spring 2018 collection. This and six other colors make up the Ultra Metallic "Brights" subset of the collection, foily polishes "formulated with premium ingredients for truly superior metallic finishes and effortless removal."
Described simply as a purple, Hi-Fi is a true medium purple, a kind of amethyst-esque shade also known more officially as web medium purple. As a foil, it's composed of minute, flat, highly-reflective metallic pieces that give it a softly-reflective, finely-grained visual texture that always reminds me of tin foil that's been crumpled and smoothed out. I used to do just that obsessively with Wrigley's aluminum foil gum wrappers (which the company replaced with paper in 2010, btw, in order to make their packaging more cost effective) and a pencil during class in middle school because: a. I was bored, and b. I loved the piecey mirror of the smoothed out foil. But being obsessive about quirky stuff like this is pretty much the raison d'être of every middle school student, no? Maybe it was just me.
Anyway, the foily metallic finish of Hi-Fi is gloriously glowy and loaded with fine, scintillating sparkle, especially in the sun.
Application was quite agreeable. The consistency of Hi-Fi is fluid, light and smooth with a medium viscosity and a silky, self-leveling slip over the nail. Pigmentation is somewhat sheer, especially on the first coat. Two medium-to-thicker coats will net a wearable opacity, but I think the polish looks best in three thinner coats. Any visible brushstrokes that appear during application vanish as the polish dries. Cleanup scatters tiny purple bits far and wide. Hi-Fi dries naturally in very good time to a smooth, shiny finish.
Photos show three coats of Hi-Fi over treatment and basecoat with a topcoat of Seche Vite. Any magenta-ish spots you see are my shirt reflected in the polish.
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I don't seem to gravitate as much toward foils these days as I used to, but wearing this one reminds me of how much I love that special foily radiance and sparkle, and the way the tiny metallic pieces fit together on the nail like a mini mosaic -- at least, that's how I like to think of it. It's a totally different look from the super smooth, chrome-like reflectivity of straight metallics, and foils are much more forgiving to apply and do not show nailbed imperfections like straight metallics do either. I also have Short Circuit (yellow) and Love Me Not (red) from this line to show you, and I'm thinking that I may just have to go back for Blueprint and possibly Sugar Coated (rose) as well.
What about you? Do you like to wear foils? Did you pick up any of ILNP's new Ultra Metallic "Brights"?
love,
Liz
Very cool! Also, wow that purple is not messing around.
ReplyDeleteI still flatten out foil chocolate wrappers - using the flat of my thumbnail gives the smoothest result :)
Yes! Foil smoothers unite!
DeleteThese ILNP foils are actually kind of awesome -- especially the yellow green one, Short Circuit. I had that one on earlier this week when I went to the gym and it was amazing under those lights, all glowy and sparkly and the color was like ZING! Not something you'd wear all the time but it's a real show-stopper when you do have it on, the girls behind the desk at the gym were like, WOW!
However I was really disappointed with the new red one, Love Me Not. It seems like it just doesn't have enough of those little metallic bits in it to make that smooth foily look come alive, so it turns out more like a shimmer than a foil on the nail. Feels kind of like it didn't get enough love in the womb, you know what I mean? Strange. I'm actually kind of surprised that Barbra released it. I won't be doing a post on that one.