Lacquer Slacker Liz: Nubar

Showing posts with label Nubar. Show all posts

Thursday, October 17, 2013

Addendum: Nubar 2010 over Zoya Chyna

With Zoya's PixieDust polishes such as Chyna, you have the opportunity to create a different look distinct from the intended matte texture by adding topcoat. It takes a couple of layers of good topcoat to actually tame the textured finish and make it smooth and glossy, but once you get there you are rewarded by exponentially greater sparkle from the glitter by encasing it in topcoat, a glitter under glass look.

Another distinct look for Chyna is to add an iridescent flakie topper like Nubar's 2010. 2010 has clear suspension base swimming with polychromatic glitter flakes that flash green, blue, orange and yellow depending upon the angle of light and the color of the polish underneath it. It's a great way to change up the look of any kind of polish, and I think it looks awesome over Chyna. It gives it a wonderful coppery "glowing embers" look. The more layers you add, the more foily-looking and reflective it looks and the smoother the textured surface becomes.

2010 applies easily and smoothly and dries quickly to a shiny finish. These photos show one coat of Nubar 2010 over a Chyna manicure of two coats. At this point, the finish retains a bit of Chyna's texture but is shiny and otherwise smooth.

one coat of Nubar 2010 over Zoya Chyna on the nail, Nubar 2010 in the bottle

one coat of Nubar 2010 over Zoya Chyna

The following photos show two coats of Nubar 2010 over the Chyna manicure. I did not feel the need to apply any additional topcoat as after two coats of Nubar 2010, the surface is smooth and glassy and all traces of Chyna's texture are gone.

two coats of Nubar 2010 over Zoya Chyna

Nubar 2010 over Zoya Chynatwo coats of

two coats of Nubar 2010 over Zoya Chyna

This would make awesome Christmas gift wrap, no?

In person, the flakies in 2010 are even more colorful and overt that the pictures show, it's kinda dazzletastic. I love the way the flakies over Chyna's textured surface give the impression of rippling water or heat shimmer, this kind of visual interest just sends me!

love,
Aunt Liz

Tuesday, September 24, 2013

Nubar Purple Beach

So Eleanor, today I have a fantastic duochrome (duo, two + chrome, color) polish to show you. It's called Purple Beach and it's by Nubar, a California-based progressive salon quality polish maker dedicated to producing polishes that are carcinogen and cruelty free and vegan friendly. This polish came to me via Thithi of ::pretty::tough::nails:: as part of our recent swap. Thanks again, Thithi!

Purple Beach has one of the typically found duochrome shifts, purple to green, but that is only thing about this polish that is typical. The shift in Purple Beach is unusually athletic and agile, and at any given moment you can see both purple and green on the nail. In addition there are a range of related colors visible depending upon the source and angle of light. The primary color is a graceful medium silvery purple, which I love. It's very sleek on the nail. There's also a more vivid and robust purple and a wealth of greens from grey green to a dark forest with a blue tint to a mossy yellow green to a magnificent brownish bronze.

The consistency of Purple Beach is quite fluid, almost runny, with a streaky brushstrokey application on the first coat. As the second coat goes on, the streakiness disappears. Full opacity is achievable in two coats, with the brushstrokes slowly melting into a unified somewhat metallic look as the polish dries. Purple Beach dries naturally to a shiny finish. It's not a very forgiving polish. Due to the sensitivity of the chromatic shift, any smudge or dent or uneven contour in the nail bed is readily apparent, as you will see. I had to redo one thumb entirely from scratch after a rub up against the Seche Vite bottle.

Photos show two coats of Purple Beach over treatment and basecoat with a topcoat of Seche Vite. We are having a rainy day here for the first time in a while -- great for the local flora but not so great for picture taking. Thus the photos are somewhat... not dark, but dim. My apologies.

Nubar Purple Beach

This is some deeply cool polish and I am digging it. There are lots of excellent well-written reviews of Purple Beach online and I read quite a few of them. Here's a bit from one of the posts I enjoyed, a review by The Phalanges Files from 26 May 2011: "The duochrome shift is so obvious without the need for finger cirque du soleil or magical lighting, and even the base purple color has this lovely hazy, nebulous quality to it. Nubar did a fantastic job here."

"Finger cirque du soleil...." *lol* So many polishes with claims to duochromedom (sure, it's a word) require all kinds of finger manipulation and squinting to actually see a color shift. Purple Beach is like one of those "beach read" paperbacks you take on vacation, easy and fun to read.

love,
Aunt Liz

Wednesday, August 28, 2013

Nubar Stylish Peacock and Shimmer Polish Wendy

Stylish Peacock by Nubar is a medium-dark saturated dusky teal blue creme polish, flawless and perfect in every way a nail polish could be. The formula is well-pigmented and fluid, no bubbling or patching, with complete opacity in one coat. It dries naturally to a smooth glossy finish. I ask you, what more could you want from a polish? Beauty? Well it's got that too, provided you feel the same way about teal polishes as I do.

It's a bit of a chamleon, this polish. In natural direct and indirect light it is a stunning creamy blue teal. It is much darker and greener in shade and under incandescent light it morphs into a murky green. Blue, green, drama... did I mention it's a one-coater?

Stylish Peacock makes me want to go to bynubar.com and BUY ALL THE CREME POLISHES! I wouldn't mind some of those glass fleck Venetian Glass polishes either... or a few from the Risque Reds... plus must have that delicious Caribbean Coral I've been lemming forever and speaking of lemmings how about Contempo from the Modern Mattes collection, all three of the Nubar Jeans collection, and at least half of the Fortress collection. Yup, I have a problem.

Photos show one coat of Stylish Peacock over treatment and basecoat plus a topcoat of Seche Vite.

Nubar Stylish Peacock

SO nice!

Now because I can't leave well enough alone and had a hankering for orange and purple glitter, I decided to layer a coat of Shimmer Polish Wendy, a colorful copper and purple glitter melange, over Stylish Peacock. Photos show exactly that plus a topcoat of Seche Vite.


Shimmer Polish Wendy over Nubar Stylish Peacock

Shimmer Polish Wendy over Nubar Stylish Peacock on the nail, Shimmer Polish Wendy in the bottle

Shimmer Polish Wendy over Nubar Stylish Peacock

I love and adore Shimmer Wendy. The colors are fantastic, they make my eyes so happy! I could look at it all day. Imagine if you could paint anything you wanted with polish... tiles, the sink, your shower stall, the toaster, the refrigerator, a CAR! Man, I would love to have a Shimmer Wendy sink....

One of the things I love about Shimmer's glitters is Cindy's genius with the mix. Her mixes of colors, sizes and shapes, their proportions and ratios to each other, are so visually satisfying and stimulating. I love to go to her website where she maintains collections of looks done by polish enthusiasts of all her different Shimmer polishes, here, and just look at them.

I wore Wendy over Stylish Peacock for a day and then added a matte topcoat to see what it would look like.

Shimmer Polish Wendy over Nubar Stylish Peacock, matte topcoat

Cool, no? I like it very much. Ok, I think that's enough peacock for one post. Hope you enjoyed it!

love,
Aunt Liz