Lacquer Slacker Liz: Finders Keepers Collection

Showing posts with label Finders Keepers Collection. Show all posts

Monday, August 4, 2014

Reprise: Hare Polish Golden Years and Impala Azul Pavão

The Finders Keepers collection released by indie polish maker Hare Polish for fall 2012 is undoubtedly one of my favorite polish collections ever. I love every polish from this collection and have featured each of them here before: Amethystos (twice!), Cast in Bronze, Golden Years, King of Carat Flowers, Oceans of Alloys (twice!), Reverie in Rubellite.

I was blog browsing this morning and came across a post from Debbie aka The Crumpet, the second in a series of posts she's doing about her stash, color by color (with a few extra categorizations that she will explain herself), on video no less. I'm loving these stash videos, Debbie is so upbeat and lovely and full of humor and love for polish that they are just a treat to watch! The video I watched this morning was about the "GREEEEEEEN" portion of her collection, and what should she pull out but Hare's Golden Years. As I watched her twirl the bottle in front of the camera and talk about how beautiful the polish is, I thought I gotta swatch that puppy right now, today! Thus this post.

Golden Years is best described by Nikole herself. "Golden Years is a semi-sheer navy blue jelly packed full of gold glitter in squares and hexes in all kinds of sizes, mysterious iridescent blue glitter, navy blue hexes and delicate gold flecks." Through the navy base, the golden glitters read as green (hence its presence in Debbie's green category), and their different sizes and shapes come through as a shimmering green mosaic accented by brilliant flashes of blue from the iridescent blue glitters and deeper green from the navy glitters. It's deep blue green appearance gives this polish an oceanic feel -- it brings to mind golden treasure at the bottom of a cold reedy sea, an image befitting the Finders Keepers theme.

Hare Polish Golden Years over Impala Azul Pavão

In the past I've worn Golden Years layered over a favorite "undie" polish from Brazil, Impala's Azul Pavão, and I decided to stay with that combo today. Azul Pavão is a translucent deep blue green jelly, a dark teal color that is very sheer. It's great for layering under deep blue or green glitter jellies, it gives them a foundation to build on while remaining translucent enough not to affect the original color too much. It has a fluid, gel-like consistency that can get a little sticky if overworked so I apply it carefully in thin coats. I don't try to build opacity with this polish, so pigmentation isn't an issue and cleanup is very easy. I can't recall if it stains, though. I believe it does. Well, we'll see won't we? Azul Pavão ("pavão" is Portuguese for peacock) dries naturally in good time to a glossy jelly finish.

Photos show two scant coats of Azul Pavão over treatment and basecoat. No topcoat.

Impala Azul Pavão

Once Azul Pavão had dried I applied Golden Years. Now I hadn't touched this polish since the last time I wore it over a year ago and the glitters were still perfectly suspended and the polish hadn't separated at all. Nikole's suspension base rocks! The consistency is fluid, a little oily and dense with components. It has good flow over the nail but the glitters do like to tumble and protrude over the free edge. This glitter jelly is one that you can paint on like a regular polish. You get a copious amount of glitters with each brushful and they disperse beautifully over the nail as you paint. The only place I did any dabbing was along the edges where Azul Pavão needed a bit of covering. The dark blue jelly base is very pigmented and I've seen this polish layered to opacity in three coats, but it's mainly the components that provide the coverage. I used two coats of Golden Years for this manicure. Cleanup is best done as you go along so that you can remove any glitters while the polish is still wet and prevent them from become entrenched on the skin. Golden Years dries naturally in very good time to a surprisingly smooth shiny finish with only the slightest texture from the components.

Photos show two coats of Golden Years over the Azul Pavão manicure above, with a coat of Nail Pattern Baldness Glitter Food to further smooth the surface, followed by a layer of OPI Matte Top Coat (which you'll see in a minute) and finished with a glossy topcoat of HK Girl.

Hare Polish Golden Years over Impala Azul Pavão

There's something of the intrepid explorer to this polish that gives it a sense of mystery and potential danger... like the drama of journeys into the strange unknown, seeking out hidden treasures (or new life and new civilizations).

I wanted to see what Golden Years would look like with a matte topcoat. I actually matted it first, before the final topcoat of HK Girl, because Nail Pattern Baldness Glitter Food dries kind of satiny matte and John liked that look. Here's how it turned out with a layer of OPI Matte Top Coat over that....

Hare Polish Golden Years over Impala Azul Pavão, matte

As fetching as matted glitter is, I think I prefer this one glossy. It just feels more in keeping with the daring heroic import of the polish generally. But the matted version does display the glitters beautifully. John likes it best matted. This manicure was a bit of a "He Picks My Polish" kind of thing. As much as I wanted to revisit Golden Years after Debbie's video, I had other polishes waiting to swatch and so I asked John: glitter or flakies? After an initial protest where he tried to figure out what it was I REALLY wanted from him (so suspicious, this guy!), he picked glitter, which meant Golden Years. If it was up to him I'd have left it matte, but I couldn't resist the glossy.

Now that I've quite thoroughly scratched my itch, it's time to take this polish out on the road for some errand-running to expose it to the masses... or something like that. Sometimes you just gotta show it off, you know? Even if you don't have a target audience in mind. Golden Years is unusual and flashy enough to be hard to miss. Fun times, bring a date!

love,
Liz

ps. No staining, hooray!

Thursday, February 6, 2014

Hare Polish Amethystos over Barielle Grape Escape

Amethystos was released by Hare as part of its Finders Keepers collection for fall 2012, no doubt my most favorite polish collection by any maker ever. I swatched Amethystos once in a batch post back last summer but it deserves its own post because it's just that awesome.

Amethystos is a glitter jelly polish. It has a medium grape purple jelly base filled with a beautiful blend of components: silver square and hex glitters, pink and gold hex glitters in several sizes, small iridescent blue hex glitters and tiny golden shardy shimmer flecks. My favorite, besides those iridescent blue hexes, are the pink glitters, which put a little kitten purr into the abundance of silver and purple.

I decided to use undies with Amethystos and as I've done in the past I chose Barielle Grape Escape for this purpose. It's a good tonal match for the purple base of Amethystos. Grape Escape is part of Barielle's Sugar Rush collection for summer 2009 and is a wonderful well-pigmented creamy medium grape purple one coater. So nice for a base polish! Sorry I don't have pictures of it on the nail but from what I understand it is very similar to OPI Funky Dunky and China Glaze Grape Pop.

Over one coat of Grape Escape I applied Amethystos. This is a beautifully formulated glitter polish with an entirely satisfying application experience. The consistency is fluid and light and though teeming with glitter applies smoothly and evenly over the nail, dispersing a well-balanced medley of components. I had no problems with application save for one instance of glitter stacking and a couple of random glitters protruding over the free edge. Amethystos dries in very good time to a smooth shiny even finish with next to no noticeable texture from glitters.

Photos show two coats of Amethystos over one coat of Grape Escape over treatment and basecoat, topcoated with one layer of Gelous and one of Seche Vite.

Hare Polish Amethystos and Barielle Grape Escape, bottle shot

Hare Polish Amethystos, macro shot in the bottle

Hare Polish Amethystos over Barielle Grape Escape

I always feel like the cool girl at school whenever I wear Amethystos, which is awesome because I wasn't even close to being cool at any school I attended. Something about the combination of purple and silver gives it a youthful appeal. The last time I wore it was to my niece Eleanor's violin recital during a visit to Charlottesville and I caught her 15 year old brother contemplating my nails on the ride to the recital venue. I knew better than to ask him what he thought, but I did take his perusal as a complement to the visually engaging composition of Amethystos.

While my household peeps appreciate my enthusiasm and happily respond to a particular polish when prompted, I miss being able to share in person with Eleanor. Do you have nail compadres in your offline life with whom you share the pleasures of polish?

love,
Liz

Saturday, January 11, 2014

Hare Polish Cast in Bronze over Zoya Dannii

Cast in Bronze was released by indie polish maker Hare Polish as part of its fabulous Finders Keepers collection for fall 2012. This is one of my most favorite collections by any polish maker ever, and includes such beauties as Amethystos, Golden Years, King of Carat Flowers, Oceans of Alloys (also here) and Reverie in Rubellite. I recently picked up Cast in Bronze from Hare's etsy shop and it is a worthy member of such a fantastic collection. I'm so grateful that Nikole continues to make her older polishes available for purchase!

Cast in Bronze is a medium muted orchid purple jelly glitter with beautifully contrasting abundant copper glitters in different sizes of hexes and squares, shy fuchsia microglitters and delicate golden flecks.

For this manicure I began with a single coat of Zoya Dannii, a medium orchid purple shimmer polish, as a base. I like to play it safe with glitter heavy jellies and use a base polish. This helps to ensure opacity and provides a track for the subsequent layers to follow, as I often have difficulty getting a good shape on my nails with these polishes. But I needn't have worried about opacity with Cast in Bronze as I found the base to be pigmented enough to be opaque on its own. How Nikole finds that happy balance of translucency to allow the components to be revealed within the layers of polish while simultaneously providing opaque coverage is a wonder in this world!

Cast in Bronze applied easily and well, with a substantial array of glitters delivered and dispersed by each brushful. I really enjoyed applying this polish, watching the copper glitters spread smoothly across and up each nail. It's one of those where you wish it DID need one more coat, just so you could have the pleasure of continuing to apply it. Cast in Bronze dries naturally in good time to a smooth shiny finish with only a skosh of detectable texture from the glitters.

Photos show two coats of Cast in Bronze over one coat of Zoya Dannii over treatment and basecoat. I added a topcoat of Seche Vite for added shine, to ensure complete drying of all the layers and to ward against potential molestation by malevolent elements....

Hare Polish Cast in Bronze over Zoya Dannii on the nail, Hare Polish Cast in Bronze in the bottle

Hare Polish Cast in Bronze and Zoya Dannii, bottle shot

Hare Polish Cast in Bronze over Zoya Dannii

I love how the copper glitters through the layers of orchid purple take on the appearance of a medley of sunset colors -- orange, pink, flame, rose, salmon!

The addition of topcoat really popped the colors in this lovely and charismatic polish, the orchid purple appeared more saturated and darker and the copper glitters took on an almost pink hue. While not the most complex mix of glitters found in the polishes of the Finders Keepers collection, the colors work together beautifully and smoothly and the various shapes of the coppery glitters provide visual interest that is compelling and wonderful to the eye. Like all of Nikole's polishes that I've tried, Cast in Bronze creates a collage of components that is unique to each nail while unified across the whole of the manicure. I love this aspect of her creations!

I also think Cast in Bronze is a nice fit with Pantone's color of the year, radiant orchid. Not that I aim to be particularly on trend at any point in my polish selections, but there's a certain amount of satisfaction to sporting a look that fits into a current color trend.

love,
Liz