Lacquer Slacker Liz: The Last Queen of France collection

Sunday, March 9, 2014

Reprise: Hare Polish Rococo Grandeur

I've been itching to wear this polish lately for some reason and so you get to see it once more. If you'd like to visit the earlier post, you can do so here.

Rococo Grandeur was released by indie polish maker Hare as part of Nikole's The Last Queen of France collection for spring 2013. It has a whitened baby blue jelly base full of pink and gold hex and square glitters of various sizes and textures and teeny pale blue shimmers. It's a lovely soft composition, dainty almost but also ornate. The color palette is beautiful for spring but as is characteristic of Hare polishes this one stands on it's own merits any time of the year.

The formula for this polish polarized a lot of Hare fans. Even thinned down, the texture of it is thick and fluffy. The amount of glitter it contains seems to bulk it up even further. There's no way I would try applying this one without undies, both for reasons of achieving opacity and creating balanced, even shapes with polish across the nails.

I chose Zoya Kristen to use as my base for this manicure. I know, I know. I had a little trouble with Kristen when I swatched it recently. Well, I try to make up for my failings in finesse and physique with passion and determination so I was all over giving Kristen another go. I only did one coat of it and didn't take pictures so the pressure was off and Kristen went on not actually nicely, I would say, but satisfactorily, and without the angsty internal dramas or whimpering of before. So, hey, it was GREAT! And Kristen's a nice match for the base of Rococo Grandeur.

Over my satisfactory coat of Kristen I layered two coats of Rococo Grandeur. I got opaque coverage with just one coat, really, but I wanted those pink and gold glitters to peek out from layers so I added the second. Once you have the track laid down by a base polish, Rococo Grandeur is not difficult to apply. It's still a bit bulky and feels uneven going on, and you can get the occasional glitter stack up or protrusion over the free edge, but it's also nice and fluid (given I'd added polish thinner to my bottle) so you can do a little manipulation of the glitters on the fly to handle these issues. The glitter distribution and spread is as wonderful and effortless as any Hare I've experienced. Rococo Grandeur dries in excellent time to a smooth and shiny finish that is also textured, but not gritty, from the glitters it contains. I added a coat of Gelous to even everything out and settle it and then a topcoat of Seche Vite for further settling and extra gloss.

Photos show two coats of Rococo Grandeur layered over Seche Rebuild treatment, Butter London Nail Foundation basecoat and one coat of Zoya Kristen, with a coat of Gelous followed by a coat of Seche Vite to top it off.

Zoya Kristen and Hare Polish Rococo Grandeur, bottle shot

Hare Polish Rococo Grandeur, macro shot in the bottle

Hare Polish Rococo Grandeur over Zoya Kristen

I just love this polish! It's so sweetly romantic and is full of the grace of innocence, I think. In person, the reflective glitters twinkle on the nail in low light in the most exquisitely feminine way, it's just lovely. And in direct light, the tiny blue shimmers, which you can see best in the last photo and also the macro shot on the nail, come out to play.

The first time I swatched Rococo Grandeur for the blog it was full blown spring and I was struck by what a beautiful accompaniment it was to the season. Now, with March having come in like a lion and polar vortexes wandering through, it still feels right. It reminds me of how I've imagined the drawing rooms of Victorian Literature to be, and young girls practicing the piano and how a well-kept home is such a soothing, unruffled comfortable port in a storm.

love,
Liz

Tuesday, May 14, 2013

Hare Polish Rococo Grandeur over Sation Love is in the Heir

I am on a roll with my Hare Polishes, no? Keep talking while the flavor lasts!

In this post I have for you Hare Polish Rococo Grandeur, another polish from their series The Last Queen of France, over Sation Love is in the Heir. Rococo Grandeur is a pale blue "crelly" (cross between a creme and a jelly) with soft pink and golden square and hex glitters in different sizes and a teensy bit of blue microshimmer. Sation Love is in the Heir is a powder blue polish with silver microshimmer. I chose it to wear under Rococo Grandeur because it matched Rococo's base so beautifully. Here they are in the bottle...

Hare Polish Rococo Grandeur and Sation Love is in the Heir

they look great together, eh?

Hare Polish Rococo Grandeur bottle shot

Rococo Grandeur is as glitter laden as the next Hare glitter polish. The effect, though, is extraordinarily dainty. The colors are one reason for this. Pale blue, pale pink, gold -- very feminine and soft. Then there's also the combination of glitter sizes and styles (matte and shiny) and the ratio of styles in the mix. The petite shiny pink and golden glitters in the milky pale blue base set a beautiful stage for the larger matte pink glitters. I've said it before, the creator of Hare, Nikole, is a GENIUS polish maker.

What? I haven't shown you any on the nail pics yet? Gosh, my bad! I've said this before too, once I start thinking about how to described a polish from Hare, I go on and on and on.

First let's see a few quick shots of Sation Love is in the Heir. I loved the wee bit of silver shimmer sparkling in this blue and I loved that the color was such a good match for Rococo, but I probably wouldn't wear this alone. It's just too sheer. Here are three coats, taken at night with flash...

Sation Love is in the Heir -- you can see how my nail ridges show through the polish... there is a product called "ridge filer" that supposedly evens out the nail surface so polish won't look like this, but I've tried four different ridge fillers and my ridges just laughed at all of them...

Sation Love is in the Heir, with nail ridges

ditto

Sation Love is in the Heir, close up showing more nail ridges, an air bubble, some small hairs (gross!) and a leetle bit of silver shimmer

last shot, Sation Love is in the Heir

Ok, now for the main attraction: Hare Polish Rococo Grandeur. I took these photos outside in the pen...

Hare Polish Rococo Grandeur, shady shot

Hare Polish Rococo Grandeur

Hare Polish Rococo Grandeur, close up

macro shot, on the nail -- see all the different pink and golden glitters? you can even see some that are layered under the second coat of Rococo Grandeur

Hare Polish Rococo Grandeur

modified claw with wrinkly wounded cuticles (eww), but beautiful complex Rococo Grandeur polish

My apologies for the state of my cuticles. I can't seem to groom them without inflicting wounds and leaving flakes. Sigh. All I can hope for is that practice makes perfect, maybe my technique will eventually improve.

A few words about the removal of Rococo Grandeur (or any glitter polish). It was difficult. I tried removal on one nail with just a cotton pad soaked in remover. Epic fail. So I resorted to the "tin foil" method. The tin foil technique is the only guaranteed way to remove glitter polish easily. Well, it's not exactly easy. But it does work. The way I do it is I take five cotton pads and tape each of them into a cone shape that will fit over the tips of my fingers. I take five small strips of tin foil and curl them into tubes that will fit over the cones. With a disposable plastic syringe, I suck up some pure acetone and squirt it into the cones. I put one cone with tin foil wrapping on each finger of one hand and squeeze the tin foil so the cones are snug against my nails. Then I wait for 5-10 minutes. I remove the cones (and find glitter and polish free fingernails, woohoo) from one hand, squirt in a bit more acetone, and apply them to the other hand and again wait 5-10 minutes. After I remove the cones from that hand, I wash my hands with salt scrub.

That's how I remove glitter polish. Works every time.

The next polish I'll be showing you will not be a Hare Polish. Shock. But it will be glittery!

love,
Aunt Liz