Lacquer Slacker Liz: CrowsToes

Showing posts with label CrowsToes. Show all posts

Sunday, November 12, 2017

CrowsToes Barrel

And finally, I have the third and last polish from the Oogie Boys Trio to show you today: Barrel, by North Carolina-based indie polish maker CrowsToes Nail Color. It's described as "a deep, dank, murky green topped with blue, green and purple sparks."

The color is a dark, cool-toned, slatey bottle green with a silvery aspect and a blackened-style kind of dimensionality on the nail. Now I don't know for sure what all is in this lacquer, but it appears to be a grey-tinted base that's absolutely packed with nanoscale dark green microflake shimmers, dotted with a sprinkling of holographic particles and copious tiny sparkly bits, mostly in blue and green, which, judging from Diana's superb macro shot in her review of the Trio on Snacks On Rotation, may be microglitters. Or they may be more microflake shimmers. Whatever they are, they do sparkle beautifully against their bottle green backdrop, interspersed with even finer pinpoint prismatic sparkle from the holographic pigment, which blankets the polish with a net of bright rainbow sparks in the sun.

Application was fabulous. The consistency of Barrel is fluid and smooth with a medium viscosity and a fluent, silky, self-leveling glide over the nail that is amenable to thin or thicker coats as preference dictates. Pigmentation is sheerish on the first coat but builds quickly to wearable opacity with the second. I actually think it looks best in three coats, the color and effects just seem noticeably richer to me that way. Cleanup is straightforward, mostly a matter of chasing down microflakes. Barrel dries naturally in very good time to an ever-so-slightly textured finish, easily smoothed by topcoat.

Photos show three coats of Barrel over basecoat with a topcoat of Seche Vite. The polish color leans slightly more grey in my pics than it appears in person, where it's more clearly a true bottle green.

CrowsToes Barrel

Having anticipated (wrongly) that it would have that washed-out, watery look on the nail that shimmers like this can have when the shimmer component is too sparse and the color doesn't have enough oomph, I was all set not like this polish. Denied! The color is a rich, shimmering, dimensional, blue-leaning green with a blackened, foresty vibe and the beautiful and seductive but treacherous sensibility of a siren sorceress. A long time ago I read a detective/mystery novel about a female serial killer who always wore a bottle green dress when she went out to hunt her victims, and that's the kind of feel I get from this polish. Vampy, for sure!

love,
Liz

Sunday, April 3, 2016

CrowsToes Hot Headed Red

The last of my Hella Holo Customs exclusives for March 2016!

Hot Headed Red was released last month by North Carolina-based indie polish maker CrowsToes Nail Color as one of three March 2016 custom polishes that Lauri created exclusively for members of the HHC facebook group. This is a red/pink/orange/gold multichromatic polish with a sprinkling of holographic microglitters. Lauri describes it best:

A glowy medium red base that transitions from a magenta, to a red orange, ending in a slightly orange gold, topped off with a delicate veil of holographic sparks.

The fiery sunset colors here are utterly stunning and every movement produces a new transitional aspect. I don't know which I love more, the lustrous rosy ruby with overtones of red violet and flashes of bright pink that is the polish's most prevalent presentation, or the spectacular burnished flame that appears when you angle your nails obliquely toward the light, with its golden highlights and rich vermilion undertones. The gleaming, semi-metallic finish fairly smolders with brilliant shifting colors, its surface scattered with bright infinitesimal prismatic and analogously-colored sparks that add a magical, twinkling touch to the look.

Application suffered from my having a spectacularly off day in that respect, where one maladroit episode quickly segued into another in a relentless comedy of errors, including but not limited to multiple occasions of acetone spillage, transfers of dust and fibers from inadvertent contact with a variety of materials from tissues to towels and one wet-polish collision after another.

Bungling aside, the consistency of Hot Headed Red is fluid, light and smooth with a medium viscosity and a luxurious, creamy glide over the nail. Self-leveling properties are very good and pigmentation is excellent, with opacity in one coat and full bottle color in two. I added a third to ensure the non-appearance of my nail ridges, which tend to reveal themselves under a semi-metallic finish like this. Cleanup was unexpectedly easy, with a just a skosh of pigment travel and no residual staining to speak of. Hot Headed Red dries naturally in fairly good time to a smooth, slightly satiny finish that is actually very cool -- it gives the tiny holographic sparks at the surface a 3-d presence that really pops and I can totally see wearing it this way, without topcoat. Topcoat adds gloss and creates a gleaming metallic luster.

Photos show three coats of Hot Headed Red over treatment and basecoat with a slightly bubbly topcoat of Seche Vite.

CrowsToes Hot Headed Red

I wasn't able to capture a good representative image of the flame/red-orange aspect of this polish, but Ida of Ida Nails It did a fantastic job of doing exactly that in her review, here.

In my opinion, Lauri is the queen of red multichromes. I'd even go so far as to say that a multichrome enthusiast hasn't fully lived until they've done so with Indian Summer on their nails. Hot Headed Red is lighter overall with more pink and much less violet in it than Indian Summer, which is actually more of a deep burgundy-based multichrome as opposed to the ruby of Hot Headed Red, but they are equally breathtaking in their effects.

Hella Holo Customs is a private facebook group that solicits two polish makers for custom polishes every month, which are then available only to HHC members via a special ordering code posted in the group. If you'd like to join, send an email to hellaholocustoms@gmail.com with “join” in the subject line and your facebook profile name in the message.

xo,
Liz

Friday, April 1, 2016

Crows Toes Mintally Unstable

Continuing with Hella Holo Customs exclusives for March 2016!

Like Abracadabra, Mintally Unstable was released this month by North Carolina-based indie polish maker CrowsToes Nail Color as one of three custom polishes created by Lauri exclusively for members of the HHC facebook group. This is a linear holo in a desaturated silvery cyanic blue-green that can lean to celeste or magic mint depending upon the viewing circumstances and the prevailing color shift of its included shimmers. It bears superabundant shifty particle shimmers with a pink to gold transition as well as violet shimmers, veiling the minty base with a glistening mist of pink that varies to pale gold at oblique angles and adding a transparent violet sheen to the finish. The holographic pigment generates pale shifting hues of robin's egg blue, turquoise and aqua in bright ambient light, and in direct sun reveals an on-tone, shimmering prismatic display predominated by a flare of sparkling aqua framing a central lick of gleaming semi-metallic baby pink.

Application was great! The consistency of Mintally Unstable is fluid and super creamy with a thicker viscosity than I am comfortable with so I added a bit of polish thinner at the outset. Once thinned, it had an unbelievably smooth maglev-type glide over the nail, just dreamy, and went on beautifully for me in thin to medium coats coats using a light touch and a well-loaded brush. Self-leveling properties are excellent and pigmentation is very good, delivering evenly opaque coverage in two to three coats depending upon your painting style and opacity preferences. It applies so evenly that it could even be worn as a sheer in one coat. Cleanup is pretty straightforward -- watch out for sticky shimmers! Mintally Unstable dries naturally in good time to a smooth luminous finish. Topcoat accentuates the presence of the shimmers and does not appear to affect the holographic properties of the polish in any way.

Photos show three coats of Mintally Unstable over treatment and basecoat with a topcoat of Seche Vite. Apologies for the scruffy nail environs, they are spoiling for a scrub and a soak.

Crows Toes Mintally Unstable

The wonderful pink shimmers are brighter and a bit more overt in person than you see in the photos -- they really glow! This polish was inspired by a macro photograph of an echeveria succulent.

Echeveria photo by Karina Aldredge (source)

Lauri captured the colors and the delicate dewiness of the subject perfectly! Gleaming, sleek and exquisitely beautiful on the nail, this polish is a harmonious tour de force of carefully selected elements masterfully combined to render a very specific effect. I am in awe.

love,
Liz

Wednesday, March 30, 2016

CrowsToes Abracadabra

Abracadabra was released by North Carolina-based indie polish maker CrowsToes Nail Color as one of three custom polishes for March created by Lauri exclusively for members of the Hella Holo Customs facebook group. This is a private group that solicits two polish makers for custom polishes every month, which are then available only to HHC members via a special ordering code posted in the group. If you'd like to join, send an email to hellaholocustoms@gmail.com with “join” in the subject line and your facebook profile name in the message.

Lauri describes Abracadabra:

A crazy mix of multicolor shifting flakies in a base of taupe flakies, with a generous heaping of micro holo. You will see damn near every color in this one!

I'm not sure that I can describe it better and she is not kidding! On close inspection, if you will your eyes to find a certain color, you will see it. Magenta, blue, spring green, yellow, red, purple, aqua, flame, violet -- they're all there, tiny variously-shaped color-shifting flakes gleaming away, plus an abundance of holographic microglitters with their infinitesimal sparks in all the prismatic colors. Needless to say, this is completely outrageous in the sun, where the effect is of a bazillion strings of Christmas lights twinkling like mad over an underlay of blackened violet. But it is equally if not more interesting in indirect light, where you can see all the glimmering multicolored flakes pieced together in a shimmering miniature mosaic veiled by a net of tiny prismatic sparks. Soul food for magpies, this is big nail polish fun!

Application was most fulfilling. The consistency of Abracadabra is fluid and dense with components, with a thicker viscosity that even so manages a smooth glide over the nail using thin coats and a light touch. Glitter payoff is excellent and remarkably even. The sparkle and reflectivity of the components and the visual texture they create provide eminently wearable coverage in only two coats -- outstanding! I added a third for the photos, but beyond maybe building the density a wee bit it didn't really affect the look. Cleanup with this one is best done as you go along while the polish is still wet. Abracadabra dries naturally in fairly good time to a softly textured finish that is actually relatively smooth, just a hint of barely discernible sandiness. I didn't want any irregular surface reflections distracting from my enjoyment of the explosion of colors beneath, so I applied a layer of glitter-smoothing topcoat, waited for that to set up and partially dry and then finished with quick-dry topcoat.

Photos show three thin coats of Abracadabra over treatment and basecoat with a coat of Pretty Serious Plump Up the Volume followed by a coat of Seche Vite.

CrowsToes Abracadabra

Abracadabra was inspired by a photo of some amazingly gorgeous kush, a subset of strains of cannabis indica originating in Afghanistan, Northern Pakistan and North-Western India. The name coming from the Hindu Kush mountain range.