Lacquer Slacker Liz: Orly

Showing posts with label Orly. Show all posts

Sunday, April 19, 2015

Orly Orange Punch and Cult Nails Captivated

Orange Punch has long been part of Orly's core line, since before 2009 at least. It was re-released as part of the Hot Stuff collection and then again as part of the Halloween collection for 2011. It's a neonesque safety orange, very bold and very bright. I got this on ebay at some point and it's been languishing in my swatching chute ever since -- it's not very often that I feel the need to wear such an overt, in-your-face orange. But it's overcast, rainy and a bit chilly for April here in NC -- 49℉ at dawn this morning -- and I felt the need to warm things up polish-wise. This one sure did the trick!

Application was kind of amazing, and I mean that in the best possible way because I was prepared for a sheer, runny nightmare of a polish. But no! The consistency of Orange Punch is very fluid with a thinner formula that reminds me a bit of Rescue Beauty Lounge's thin formula except not quite as perfectly self-leveling. It's very easy to work with, not runny as long as you don't overload your brush and goes right where you put it. You can work very quickly with a formula like this. Pigmentation is slightly on the sheer side but not overly so. Two coats will get you color coverage with visible nail line, three coats nets nicely opaque, even coverage. Cleanup is easy with some pigment travel but no residual staining as far as I can tell -- I didn't have much cleanup to do so your mileage may vary. Orange Punch dries naturally in longer than average time to a semi-matte/rubbery finish as befits its neon heritage. Looks great with a glossy topcoat.

Photos show three coats of Orange Punch over treatment and basecoat with a topcoat of Glisten and Glow HK Girl.

Orly Orange Punch

This polish is actually much more feminine and flattering on the nail than I was expecting. It has a sort of dazzling floral charm, and the bright pop of color elongates my fingers. Quite the flirt, this safety orange!

Then, just because I could, I decided to add glitter.

Captivated was released by boutique polish maker Cult Nails as part of the A Day at the Races collection in spring 2011. It's a delicious pinky orange coral glitter bomb, with a coral tinted transparent base in which is suspended a beautiful mix of teensy hex glitters in a ravishing bouquet of colors: gold, pink, orange, coral, some of them iridescent. Coverage with this polish is a function of the glitters as the base is transparent, but I've seen it worn to great effect with only two coats. It is an effervescent sparkler of a polish with a distinctly summertime vibe, great for fingers or toes.

I crossed myself for luck and applied two coats of Captivated over the Orange Punch manicure. The consistency of Captivated is thicker, as suspension bases often tend to be, and a little gel-like but still fluid enough for an easy, self-leveling glide over the nail with a goodly bead of polish on the brush. It definitely took Orange Punch up a notch, giving it a blood orange flush glistening with tiny glitters. I'm thinking the glitter mix would probably stand out better over a deep pink base (as it is here), but it does very well with the orange. I didn't do any cleanup (you can tell, too) so I can't report on that aspect of the polish, but Captivated dries naturally in very good time to a surprisingly smooth finish for a glitter polish. A little bumpy, but not gritty.

Photos show two coats of Captivated over my Orange Crush manicure above with a topcoat of HK Girl. Unfortunately this ended up a rather thick-looking manicure thanks to my heavy hand and the fact that by this time I had nine layers of product on my nails. It thinned as it cured and dried, though, and eventually ended up looking just great!

Cult Nails Captivated over Orly Orange Punch

Cult Nails Captivated, bottle shot

Cult Nails Captivated over Orly Orange Punch

Feels like I've got fireworks on my nails! If you'd like to see what Captivated looks like on its own, here are some great posts: The Polished Perfectionist, Beauty Judy and The PolishAholic. This polish has been out of production for a few years but with a little patience and effort you can still find it in blog and destash sales and it occasionally shows up on ebay, where I got mine.

love,
Liz

Thursday, August 28, 2014

Orly Emberstone

Emberstone was released by Orly as part of the wonderful Mineral FX collection for fall 2011. It has a semi-translucent tabasco/cherry red base packed with irregularly-shaped foily metallic shimmers in gold, hot pink and bright orange. On the nail it's like a fiery metallic coalescence of red, blood orange and hot pink speckled by fine foily flecks of color, with a scintillating sparkle from the shimmers and washes of intense color over the nail that change depending upon the type and angle of light. This color of this polish is so dimensional and dynamic that the only thing I can liken it to is stained glass. All of the exquisite red, orange and pink sunset colors are here, and it shimmers and fluctuates between them exactly like colors do in the glowing coals of a fire.

Application was great! In the bottle, Emberstone looked like it was going to be kind of watery but it turned out to be surprisingly user friendly. The consistency is thin and fluid but not watery. This polish likes to go on in thin coats and it goes where you put it and stays there. Of course if you swipe a cuticle or bit of skin with a heavily loaded brush it will run and flood, but it's easy to work with in spite of that with a smooth even flow over the nail that gives you every chance for a clean manicure. Pigmentation is buildable: sheer on the first coat, nearing opacity and wearable with two and achieving completely opaque coverage with three. Great self-leveling properties, too. Cleanup takes a little extra effort if there's any flooding, which I did experience on a couple of nails (user error), as the pigmentation is quite plucky in spite of the sheerness and it will leave traces of itself tucked into cuticles and threaded over skin if you aren't thorough. The foily shimmers can be a bit recalcitrant too. But overall, this polish delivers an enjoyable application experience, even if you're a little messy like me. And it's very cool to watch the shimmers go onto the nail! Emberstone dries naturally in good time to a smooth shiny metallic finish.

Photos show three coats of Emberstone over treatment and basecoat with a topcoat of Seche Vite.

Orly Emberstone

Hot! Emberstone is every bit as bright and bold and vital in person as it is in these photos and is one of those polishes that you would wear for its own sake rather than as an accompaniment to an outfit or an occasion, I would think. It reminds me of that certain hot red-orange color of rose you sometimes see at the florist that morphs to hot reddish pink at the tips of the petals. After dark under artificial light it becomes less seething and more of a shimmery metallic blood orange. It's at its most startling and brilliant outdoors in bright indirect light, where it glows with rosy maraschino cherry and strawberry red tones.

Generally I prefer chunkier, flakier foils but Emberstone is so intensely radiant and full of energy that I can't help but adore it. It's a beautifully constructed polish, the size of the shimmers and ratio of colors work together synergistically to produce a very provocative, almost shocking color dynamic. And yet, there's an air of transience and delicacy to it also, as if something so profoundly colorful could only exist for a moment before it's gone, like the fleeting poignancy of a brilliant sunset as the last colors glow on the horizon or the dreamy evanescent shapes that appear in the flames of a fire.

love,
Liz

Thursday, July 10, 2014

Orly Rock It

Like Stone Cold and Rock the World, Rock It was released by Orly as part of the Mineral FX collection for fall 2011. It is also a shimmer polish, this time with a deep burgundy-leaning berry/magenta jelly base packed with pink foily shimmer flakes that have a slight pink/orangey gold duochromatic shift to them in certain lights. It appears mostly as a semi-metallic dark but vivid magenta with nuances of crimson and red violet and a beautiful speckled cerise pink glow in indirect light. In direct sun, Rock It blazes with scintillating sparks of hot pink.

Application was fabulous. The consistency of my bottle of Rock It was slightly thicker than the other two I swatched from this collection, fluid and smooth with excellent flow over the nail and a very nice balance between fluidity and viscosity. All three of these Mineral FX polishes have been very well-behaved and a pleasure to apply, but Rock It especially so. It seemed to be made for application with Orly's longish slender brush. The only thing you have to look out for are shimmer-thin areas in the coverage, which will leave bare looking spots when you look at it under direct sun. I thought I'd gotten completely opaque coverage in two coats until I looked at my nails in the sun and saw one nail with a bare-ish area near the cuticle. I added a third coat to that nail, which took care of the issue, and then decided that the color at three coats looked richer and more dramatic, so I added a third coat to all the rest of my nails also. Rock It is the kind of polish where every coat adds a bit more saturation and depth to the look, it's a matter of personal preference whether you stop at two or go on to three.

Cleanup was easy but this is a polish that can tint skin and cuticles upon removal. Extra care taken in application and a good handwashing with soap and water after removal takes care of that issue handily. Rock It dries naturally in good time to a smooth shiny finish. As with Stone Cold and Rock the World, topcoat definitely enhances the color and composition of this polish.

Photos show three coats of Rock It over Seche Rebuild treatment and Pretty Serious All Your Base basecoat with a topcoat of Seche Vite.

Orly Rock It

Rock It is beautifully composed. The interplay between the reflective shimmers within the polish and light is fascinating -- its appearance changes with every new lighting situation, appearing more red and metallic in one place, more berry-colored and shimmery in another, and more red-violet and vampy in another. It's dazzling and dramatic, a truly fierce polish!

love,
Liz

Wednesday, July 9, 2014

Orly Rock the World

Like Stone Cold, Rock the World was released by Orly as part of the Mineral FX collection for fall 2011. It has a deep plummy purple translucent jelly base filled with a massive amount of irregularly shaped golden foily shimmer flecks. The combination gives this polish a coppery burgundy look speckled with gold. The superabundant golden flecks appear in varying colors depending upon how deeply buried they are. At the surface, they are gold, then as you go down you see pink, magenta, burgundy, purple and bronze. Although it's deliciously flecked and speckled in indirect light, I think it's at its very prettiest in full sun, where it scintillates with sparks of color from the flaky shimmers.

Application was nice. Rock the World has a fluid and thin but not runny consistency that is easy to work with. It likes to go on in thin coats that lay down in an even, self-leveling manner. Pigmentation is provided largely by the shimmers, but they are so densely packed into the base that opacity can be achieved in two coats. I did three because I now have an overdeveloped ~~paranoia~~ respect for the power of the macro. Cleanup was easy. The golden flakes of shimmer tend to want to stick around but they give up the ghost after two or three swipes with the cleanup brush. Rock the World dries naturally in average time to a smooth shiny finish. Topcoat definitely enhances the colors and pops the shimmers.

Photos show three coats of Rock the World over treatment and basecoat with a topcoat of Seche Vite.

Orly Rock the World

The combination of a purple or pinkish red colored jelly base with profuse flaky shimmers was very trendy around the time of this polish's release and there are several popular polishes by other brands and Orly itself that are similarly constructed. Zoya Faye and OPI Rally Pretty Pink have a lighter, pinker base. OPI It's My Year has a lighter, more violet tinged purple base. Orly Oui has a deeper violet base and its sister polish from the Holiday Soiree collection, Ingenue has a lighter violet tinged purple base -- very like OPI It's My Year. Sometimes these polishes get lumped together as being TOO similar, and I can see how that could happen. If you want to see some comparisons for yourself, The Polishaholic has a Zoya Faye vs Orly Rock the World vs OPI It's My Year comparison post, here. And Piece of Pie has a comparison of the three Orlys, Oui, Ingenue and Rock the World, here.

I have both Oui and Ingenue in addition to Rock the World, and have a post featuring Ingenue, here. I think these three are distinct enough to warrant having them all, but Rock the World looks better on me than either of the other two. It's combination of reddish purple and yellow gold has a beautiful warm bronzy brown look in some lights that reminds me of the bloom that develops on the surface of scuppernong grapes as they ripen. Scuppernongs, at least the variety that we have here, are green, but there's a duochromatic pinch of green to the golden shimmer in Rock the World too, which is easier to see in the bottle but you can catch it around the edges on the nail in certain lights. In dim indoor lighting, Rock the World has a deep purplish red look with flashes of gold along the axis of light.

For me, despite the number of similarly constructed polishes, Rock the World has a particularly evocative and delicate fleeting beauty that's very autumnal. I wasn't expecting to love this one as much as I do, but the more I look at it the more multifaceted and beautiful it becomes!

love,
Liz