Lacquer Slacker Liz: Impala

Showing posts with label Impala. 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, January 16, 2014

Hare Polish Oh What Fun it is to Love over Impala Marilyn

Oh What Fun it is to Love was released by Hare Polish as one of three polishes in its Bohemian Holiday collection for holiday 2013. I love that Nikole does these small collections! I originally ordered a different polish from the same collection but this one came instead and when I wrote to Nikole about it she was so sweet and gracious, told me to keep this one and she'd be sending me my original order the next day.

Oh What Fun isn't a color I typically gravitate toward, it's a medium toned slightly muted and creamy barn red crelly polish with gold circle, square and hex glitters, white square and hex glitters and a generous infusion of golden shimmers. The red has a strong pink aspect to it that I chose to capitalize upon by layering Oh What Fun over Impala Marilyn, a deep vivid pink crelly one coater (you can see swatches of it on its own here and here). The combination of the two is a little darker and brighter than the bottle color of Oh What Fun, and it reminds me of rhubarb pie! Yum!

Application of Oh What Fun was great. The consistency was fluid and a bit sticky so I added a squirt of polish thinner and periodically tightened the cap and gave it a shake during application to refresh the fluidity and keep the brush from getting sticky. I got a full range of glitters with each brushful and they dispersed across the nail in that random but generally even way that Hare's glitters do. The dots are new to me, this is my first polish with circle glitter and I'm finding them quite fetching!

Pigmentation was also great. I really didn't need the Impala Marilyn underneath for opacity's sake because Oh What Fun provides sufficient coverage for opacity in two coats on its own. Oh What Fun dries naturally in very good time to a smooth shiny finish with slight detectable glitter texture.

Photos show two coats of Oh What Fun it is to Love over one coat of Impala Marilyn over treatment and basecoat with one coat of OPI RapiDry topcoat (trying it out because I had it on hand, nothing to write home about... it's very thin and reminds me of Orly's Sec 'n Dry) followed by a topcoat of Seche Vite.

Hare Polish Oh What Fun it is to Love over Impala Marilyn on the nail, Hare Polish Oh What Fun it is to Love in the bottle

Impala Marilyn and Hare Polish Oh What Fun it is to Love, bottle shot

Hare Polish Oh What Fun it is to Love, macro shot in the bottle

Hare Polish Oh What Fun it is to Love over Impala Marilyn

I'm quite pleasantly surprised by Oh What Fun it is to Love! I really like the rhubarb/berry red color and the gentle collage of components on the nail. The gold glitters gleam through the layers of polish while the white glitters show as varying shades pink. Once again Nikole has achieved that perfect balance of translucence and opacity that makes this sort of polish so easy and fun to wear.

Although this is not a color I usually find myself drawn to, it's very flattering with my coloring. I own many red. red orange and orange polishes but Oh What Fun makes me aware that there's a noticeable dearth of this and other soft variations of pink in my collection. Hmm. Food for plotting!

love,
Liz

Saturday, August 10, 2013

Hare Polish Reverie in Rubellite over Impala Marilyn

Fuzzy has a thick wool blanket she keeps in the living room thrown over the back of the sofa. It's all the beautiful warm fire colors, dark red, magenta, berry, red-orange and orange, with braided fringes on each end. Do you remember it, Eleanor? She's had it since your mom and I were little. We called it the sick blanket because whenever we were sick and had to stay home from school we would lie on the sofa and she would tuck that colorful blanket around us.

Well if that blanket was a nail polish, it would be Reverie in Rubellite by Hare.

Reverie in Rubellite (great name for a band... or a racehorse!) is a wonderful rich deep berry colored jelly polish filled with medium and small orange hex glitters, square fuchsia microglitters and shardy golden flecks.

On the nail, with its translucent berry colored base, the shimmering orange and fuchsia glitters and the gold flecks, Reverie in Rubellite images the brilliance of turning leaves in the fall or a fire burning low on a hearth. It's so lovely it melts my heart to look at it.

For this manicure I decided to layer Reverie in Rubellite over Impala Marilyn, a vivid magenta creme/jelly hybrid that dries naturally to a glossy shine. It's also even and opaque in one coat. One coater equals no brainer in my book! I applied one coat of Marilyn over my basecoat duo and let it dry. Reverie in Rubellite has a tendency to get a bit sticky if overworked, so I applied it as carefully and quickly as I could, with coat of Seche Vite to finish.

In the photos my fingers show a shocking amount of acetone residue from manicure clean up. I got all worked up about Reverie in Rubellite and forgot to prep my hands before taking pictures. Ignore the grotesquerie of the digits, look at the fabulous nail polish instead.

This is one coat of Reverie in Rubellite over one coat of Impala Marilyn with Seche Vite.

Impala Marilyn, one coat!

ditto

Impala Marilyn and Hare Polish Reverie in Rubellite, bottle shot

Impala Marilyn on the nail, Hare Polish Reverie in Rubellite in the bottle

Hare Polish Reverie in Rubellite, macro shot in the bottle


Hare Polish Reverie in Rubellite over Impala Marilyn

Hare Polish Reverie in Rubellite over Impala Marilyn

LOVE!

Hare Polish Reverie in Rubellite over Impala Marilyn

This polish is gorgeous. I love it so much! I can't wait to wear it in the fall when the air is crisp and clean and you can see your breath when you leave the house in the morning, when the leaves are aflame with color and coming in from the chill makes your skin tingle with happiness.

love,
Aunt Liz