Lacquer Slacker Liz: Nails Inc

Sunday, October 5, 2014

Nails Inc Piccadilly Circus and Butter London Disco Biscuit

Piccadilly Circus is part of core line from British polish maker Nails Inc. It's been around in the UK since November 2011 at least. I don't know very much about Nails Inc -- this is only the second polish of theirs that I've acquired, the other being the famous Baker Street, and I got both of them at auction on ebay. But they're available at Sephora and judging by the quality of both of these polishes I'd sure like to try more of them. For whatever reason, though, you just don't see much about them in the polish enthusiast blogosphere.

Nails Inc describes Piccadilly Circus as a deep cerise pink, but if any polish has a chameleon's soul it is this one. At the outset it seems to belong in the same family as OPI Get Cherried Away and Butter London's Queen Vic, but it has more variations in appearance than either of the other two. Piccadilly Circus is like pink, burgundy, berry, purple and red all rolled into one polish, each color available at the slightest change of ambiance and sometimes appearing on different nails at the same time, as you'll see in the photos. It's a fascinating deep saturated berry color with the capacity to appear both bright and dark. It has enough blue in it to take on a purple appearance and enough red in it to look like a burgundy-leaning red. Deep shades of magenta and fuchsia wash through it as well. It's a beautiful enigmatic color shifter that's like swirling a glass of cordial in the light.

Application was awesome. Piccadilly Circus has a fluid and smooth consistency and glides evenly over the nail like heavy silk. Pigmentation is out of this world. Like Baker Street, Piccadilly Circus is a one coater. I used two coats only to finesse some lines that weren't quite up to par after the first coat. The only drawback to such excellent pigmentation is staining upon cleanup and removal. I haven't removed it yet so I'll have to add any observations about that in a postscript, but I can tell you that it's a bear to cleanup. At the touch of the cleanup brush, the pigment dissolved immediately into the acetone and ran around the edges and cuticle of the nail, leaving a fine reddish pink stain as it did so. No amount of swabbing with the brush would remove it completely, so if you notice unusually pink nail environs in the photos, that's a nail that I did cleanup on. Luckily this polish is very easy to work with otherwise, so I didn't have that much cleanup to do, but oy! Piccadilly Circus dries naturally in good time to a smooth glossy finish.

Photos show two coats of Piccadilly Circus over treatment and basecoat with a topcoat of Seche Vite. Do note all the color variations in these pics, despite the fact that they were all taken at the same time in the same space.

Nails Inc Piccadilly Circus

Isn't it amazing? I happen to love all of its iterations, they're all so rich and luxurious, and love how it changes all the time. Very cool! I decided to make the most of this polish and layer Butter London Disco Biscuit over top of it. They seemed like an interesting, workable match in the bottle.


Nails Inc Piccadilly Circus and Butter London Disco Biscuit, bottle shot

Disco Biscuit was released by Butter London as part of the Spring/Summer collection in 2012. It has a hot pink jelly base with aspirations to neon packed with iridescent blue ultrafine microglitters. The base is almost too sheer to wear alone -- it takes a minimum of three or four coats and if you have any length on your nails you'll still be able to detect a nail line.

In the infancy of this blog, I featured Disco Biscuit layered over a Impala Marilyn, a hot pink, which worked out great. You can see that post here. Layering it over Piccadilly Circus worked out even better, I think. Because of the complexity of Piccadilly Circus, the hot pink jelly-ness of Disco Biscuit turned it into a deep, incredibly rich purplish magenta, from which the electric blue iridescence of Disco Biscuit's ultrafine microglitters POP like blue stars in a deep magenta sky. From afar, they give the look an eerie blue glow. It's crazy good!

Photos show two coats of Disco Biscuit over the Piccadilly Circus manicure above. Disco Biscuit dries naturally to a gritty finish that is topcoat hungry, so to smooth it I used two coats of Essie First Base plus a topcoat of Seche Vite.

Butter London Disco Biscuit over Nails Inc Piccadilly Circus

I love how this turned out -- I can't wait to try layering Disco Biscuit over a true purple polish!

love,
Liz

Tuesday, May 27, 2014

Nails Inc Baker Street

In nail polish culture, Baker Street by Nails Inc is an icon of sorts. It is to bright blue what China Glaze Ruby Pumps is to red. Of the many online reviews I've read of Baker Street, I've only come across one that wasn't entirely favorable and most are unapologetically effusive. So I'm thrilled to finally have my very own bottle of this blazing blue beauty and now that I've got it on my nails I can justifiably say that there is indeed substance beneath the fervor.

Baker Street is a medium-toned well-saturated electric cobalt blue. The color is rich and profoundly vivid, with a neonesque intensity. At the same time, there's a sleek creaminess to it that keeps it from being totally stark or harsh or garish. Still, it's hard to imagine a blue of this depth being any brighter than Baker Street is. Fuzzy called it "improbable." *lol* Fuzz tends to get spooked by insufficient subtlety and however wonderful this polish is, subtlety is not within the scope of its raison d'être.

Application was dreamy. The consistency is fluid, smooth, creamy and dense. It has just the right balance between fluidity and viscosity to make for a very satisfying, easily controlled application experience. I had wondered whether the cap, which is relatively wide, would be awkward to hold, but surprisingly I adapted to it almost instantly. The formula is so outstanding you could probably hold a can of beans with a wand attached and manage a fine looking manicure no problem. Pigmentation is excellent with near opaque coverage in one medium coat and complete opacity in two. I experienced no streaking or patching of any kind. Cleanup is easy and straightforward with no staining of cuticles or nail environs left behind. Baker Street dries naturally in good time to a smooth, slightly rubbery-looking finish that loves a nice topcoat to make the most of the sublime blue color.

Photos show two coats of Baker Street over Seche Rebuild treatment and Butter London Nail Foundation basecoat with a topcoat of HK Girl. Mortifications du jour: acetone residue left after cleanup and, yes, those glitters you see lodged in my cuticles and elsewhere are mementos of yesterday's CrowsToes Heartless manicure. My apologies!

Nails Inc Baker Street

One of the nicest things about Baker Street besides the spectacular color is how beautifully it finishes up. The silky smooth, perfectly even, inscrutable depth of color is just so satisfying to the eye and makes for a truly impressive manicure. I can see this as a refreshing pop of color with charcoals, greys, browns, black or white as well as a happy companion to bright prints and similarly bold vibrant colors.

It's also one of those polishes that as good as it looks in the bottle, it is infinitely more magnificent on the nail. Baker Street is my first experience with Nails Inc. If this is an indication of the general quality of their offerings, count me in for more of them!

love,
Liz