Lacquer Slacker Liz: Shimmer Polish

Thursday, May 14, 2015

Essie Petal Pushers and Shimmer Polish Jovie

Petal Pushers was released by Essie as part of the Flowerista collection for spring 2015. Along with Blossom Dandy and Garden Variety, this is makes the third polish from this collection that I've purchased, and I have my eye on collection namesake Flowerista as well. That's a record for me with Essie -- I usually buy my Essies here and there, piecemeal.

Officially described as a "smoky stone rose," Petal Pushers is a medium-light cool creamy grey with blue/purple undertones, sort of a periwinkle grey. I wasn't that impressed by it in the bottle, especially compared to its collection-mates, but now that I have it on my nails I have to say that I love it. Wearable all year round, this is a very lovely shade that is sleek with a soft delicate graceful feel. It has a certain wistful romanticism that tugs at my heartstrings.

Application was lovely. The consistency of Petal Pushers is fluid and creamy with a perfectly balanced viscosity for painting, a velvety glide over the nail and excellent self-leveling properties. It's user friendly to a degree, amenable to thin or thicker coats as preferred and is easy to manipulate with Essie's slender round brush. Co-curricular repairs and patches will show a slight ghosting effect that disappears under topcoat. Pigmentation is excellent and some folks have managed wearable opacity in one coat but I prefer two to ensure most even coverage. Cleanup is a snap with only a trace of pigment travel. Petal Pushers dries naturally in fairly good time to a glossy finish. Sweet!

Photos show two coats of Petal Pushers over Seche Rebuild treatment and Pretty Serious All Your Base basecoat with a topcoat of Seche Vite.

Essie Petal Pushers

Inspired by the color scheme that my personal trainer, Tory has chosen for her upcoming wedding, I decided use Petal Pushers as a base color for Jovie from glitter polish maker extraordinaire Shimmer Polish. Tory's gown from Very Wang is a very pale blue-grey and her bridesmaids are wearing gowns in a range of colors from blush to a color not unlike Petal Pushers. Jovie is described as a pink opal holographic glitter polish. Unlike most of Cindy's creations, this is primarily a topper -- I don't think it can be layered to opacity. It's a delicate, glowing mix of pale pink and translucent glitters, some iridescent, some holographic, suspended in a transparent pink-tinted base. It has faerie-like presence that adds a dainty ethereal touch to any base polish.

Like all Shimmers that I've experienced, Jovie has an eminently user-friendly formula that can be applied like regular polish without the need for any special placement or technique. Glitter payoff is wonderful with just the right amount of components available per brushful for an even, random spread over the nail. I used one easy coat of Jovie over my Petal Pushers manicure and had no application issues. Even the few escapee glitters cleaned up in a trice. Jovie dries naturally in very good time to a shiny, slightly textured finish. To keep the look very soft while accentuating the beautiful components, I added a matte topcoat.

Photos show one coat of Jovie over the Petal Pushers manicure above followed by OPI Matte Top Coat.

Shimmer Polish Jovie over Essie Petal Pushers

Those iridescent glitters really catch the light. I did find myself wishing there were more overt pinks in the mix, but this combo has a softly-hued shimmer on the nail that is really pretty.

Thank you for visiting my blog!

love,
Liz

Friday, January 17, 2014

Zoya Kristen and Shimmer Polish Cassandra

Kristen was released by Zoya as part of its Feel Collection for winter 2011. Zoya describes it as a "gull gray nail polish with a mild bluish hue." Don't think so. I've looked at this polish six ways from Kevin Bacon (I know, but it just came out that way) and the only place I can get it to look remotely like that description is directly beneath a low wattage incandescent light bulb. To me, Kristen is what I think of as baby blue or powder blue, a whitened sky blue, almost a pastel. In some lights it shows up with pale grey overtones and in others with pale periwinkle overtones, so it does have a slight chameleon-like aspect to its nature. But most of the time you're looking at a milky light blue.

I found this polish a bit finicky to apply for a couple of reasons. One is that it lacks the self-leveling quality that I find to be necessary for a polish to apply evenly and well on my furrowed twisty talons. Another is that it tends to drag and harbor bubbles, both of which have the potential to defeat even the most Herculean efforts to obtain a smooth unblemished finish. Kristen is an unforgiving polish -- minor defects and funky patches that occur during application can't be repaired or smoothed over on the fly without it being glaringly apparent. Bummer!

Probably the biggest obstacle to good application of Kristen for me is how unfortunate I think it and similarly pale colored polishes look on my nails. Which actually has nothing to do with the polish itself. It's all about my perception. When I apply a polish that feels uncomfortable on and try to blog about it, it produces a angsty sense of vulnerability, of having overextended my resources. So it is with Kristen and I'm sure you didn't need to know somewhat self-conscious detail that accompanied this epiphany but such is the nature of digression. "Skip a bit, brother... "

Suffice to say that I didn't have a lot of fun applying Kristen. This is actually my third attempt at an acceptable manicure with this polish with no learning curve in sight (a la Butter London HRH) and I'm still not comfortable with how it looks. On the bright side, coverage is excellent with complete opacity obtained in two coats, a minor miracle with a near-pastel polish. Kristen dries naturally in good time to a smooth shiny finish. Topcoat is helpful in smoothing out any unevenness and improving the look of this polish generally.

Photos show two coats of Kristen over treatment and basecoat with a topcoat of Seche Vite, with apologies for complete lack of clean up.

Zoya Kristen

After going to all of the trouble to get this polish on, you know I wasn't going to leave it au naturel. I decided to try a coat of Shimmer Polish Cassandra over it. Cassandra is one of my favorite Shimmers, a mix of white iridescent glitters in a clear base. It's heartstoppingly beautiful glitter polish, and I renewed my love for it as I applied one easy coat over Kristen....

Shimmer Cassandra over Zoya Kristen

This combination made me feel a bit better about Kristen, the iridescent glitters over the light blue looked so pretty. I then decided to take it one more step further by adding a matte topcoat, in this case the one by OPI, which is excellent btw. Thin but very smooth and easy to apply with a perfect matte dry down. Love the results....