Lacquer Slacker Liz: greige

Showing posts with label greige. Show all posts

Tuesday, July 5, 2016

Emily de Molly Four Weddings and a Manicure

Four Weddings and a Manicure was released last month by Australian indie polish maker Emily de Molly as one of three custom limited edition polishes for June 2016 that Hayley created exclusively for members of Hella Holo Customs (HHC) Facebook group. HHC is a private group that solicits selected polish makers for custom polishes every month, which are then available only to members via a special ordering code or link posted in the group. It's easy to join! Just send an email to hellaholocustoms@gmail.com with “join” in the subject line and your facebook profile name in the message.

This particular polish is an exquisite light greige holo bearing ultraholo microglitters, pink microflake shimmers and gold particulate shimmers. The base color is a bone or very pale taupe grey, cool-toned and creamy with a pearly pink aspect and a delicate golden flash. Finely milled holographic pigment floods the polish with shimmering nacreous hues of cream, lavender and misty azure, spangled by tiny sparks in pastel prismatic colors from the microgltters.

Application was delightful. The consistency of Four Weddings and a Manicure is fluid, light and smooth with a thin-to-medium viscosity and a silky, self-leveling slip over the nail. For a component-laden polish, it is exceptionally easy to work with -- no dragging or patching or component misbehavior of any kind and accomodating to thin or thicker coats according to your painting preferences. Pigmentation is excellent, which surprised me because for some reason I was expecting this to be sheer. It's actually very close to being opaque in a single coat, with completely even opaque coverage in two. Cleanup, for me, was kind of disasterous. The tiny microglitters, loosed by acetone, went everywhere! You will see them happily ensconced about my nail environs in the pics. I recommend minimizing the need for cleanup by going for as clean a manicure as possible from the outset. Four Weddings and a Manicure dries naturally in very good time to a finish with a gentle pebbly texture from the microglitters, completely smoothed by one layer of topcoat. Topcoat does appear to inhibit the holographic properties of the polish in any way.

Photos show three coats of Four Weddings and a Funeral over Pretty Serious Rock On treatment and Pretty Serious All Your Base basecoat with a topcoat of Seche Vite.

Emily de Molly Four Weddings and a Manicure

Utterly gorgeous! The gold shimmers create an underlying sheen over which the holographic effects and microglitters are suspended, adding a lot of depth and dimensionality to the look. In person, it is quite sleek and lively with all kinds of light play, so graceful and flattering and sparkly! I adore it!

And I love the name, too! Hella Holo Customs members participate in the development of the polishes that they solicit in all kinds of ways, including submitting inspirational photos and suggested names. Whoever came up with Four Weddings and a Manicure is a polish-naming genius!

In case you're interested, here's the photo for this lacquer that the group sent to creator Hayley for inspiration:

Hayley got this so right, it couldn't be any righter! Beautifully done!

ttyl,
Liz

Tuesday, February 23, 2016

Il Était Un Vernis #imanatural

Like #justmytype, #imanatural was released in December 2015 by France-based boutique polish maker Il Était Un Vernis as part of the #HASHTAG collection. As co-creator Bé puts it in her post about #HASHTAG on Vernis En Folie, #imanatural is the soft polish of the series, inspired by the coziness of an oversized mohair sweater and drinking hot tea beside a fireplace. It's a very desaturated greige holo of similar weight to gainsboro grey but more chromatic, with a schnoogle of beige's creamy warmth. In addition to holographic pigment, it bears ultra fine golden particulate shimmers, visible upon close inspection and adding an understated gleam of pale gold along the axis of light. The two components work together seamlessly to dimensionalize the polish, giving it a graceful, plush quality on the nail.

Application was par for Il Était Un Vernis, which is to say: wonderful! The consistency of #imanatural is fluid, light and creamy with a thin-to-medium viscosity and a fluent buttery flow over the nail. It is amenable to thin or thicker coats, self-levels like a dream and is generally a delight to work with. Pigmentation is very good, with sheerness on the first coat building easily to wearable opacity after the second. I used three to ensure full bottle color for the photos. Cleanup, should you require it, is easy and straightforward. #imanatural dries naturally (ha) in very good time to a smooth shiny finish.

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

Il Était Un Vernis #imanatural

Bé and Stéphanie utilize holographic pigment in their creations quite differently than many other indie polish makers. For them, it seems to be a kind of compositional grace note, employed with a characteristic restraint that results in discreet, artfully-constructed lacquers with color being the primary attraction. In #imanatural, it is used in company with ultrafine golden shimmers to reveal the perhaps unconsidered subtexts to what is already a fundamentally subtle hue. No small feat! But there is clean uncluttered comfort here, and the grace of understatement, as well as evocations of bone-colored beach sand, natural unbleached linen and the magical phenomenon of early sunlight filtering through a misty fog and touching its droplets with gold.

Above and beyond its palate-cleansing, decorator neutral functions, #imanatural has an uncommonly generous soul, giving the wearer an opportunity to slow down and mindfully absorb the palliative simplicity of the moment. It's an embodiment of one of the reasons we practice this particular variety of physical adornment, and I for one am grateful for the reminder.

live to love another day,
Liz

Wednesday, January 27, 2016

Emily de Molly Cracks in the Walls

Cracks in the Walls was released by Australian indie polish maker Emily de Molly in August 2015. This is a pale sandy tint of silver grey, sort of a greige or pale silvery taupe -- a classically neutral color until you make a linear holo out of it and it evolves into something much more complex and magical. It has the slightly tarnished, smoky aspect of titanium with creamy nude undertones. Abundant finely-milled holographic pigment effects a glowing, pearly, semi-metallic look, and washes the base with delicate misty hues of violet, blue and pink. Floating within are the tiniest of silver holographic microglitters, so small that you don't even see them until the light hits them, igniting minute prismatic sparks with a starry twinkle over the nail. In direct sun, there's the brilliant fully-delineated holographic flare that you would expect from a silvery holo, amped with extra sparkle from the microglitters.

Application was dreamy. The consistency of Cracks in the Walls is fluid, light and creamy with a medium viscosity and a smooth, even glide over the nail. It is amenable to thin or thicker coats and self-levels beautifully. Pigmentation is sheerish but buildable, rendering opaque coverage in two to three coats. Cleanup is easy and straightforward with a touch of stickiness on the part of the microglitters. Cracks in the Walls dries naturally in very good time to a silky smooth finish. Topcoat does not inhibit the holographic effects in any way.

Photos show three coats of Cracks in the Walls over Pretty Serious Rock On treatment and Pretty Serious All Your Base basecoat with a topcoat of Seche Vite.

Emily de Molly Cracks in the Walls

I am totally digging the lustrous quality and shifting hues of soft grey/nude-tinted linear holos such as this that seem to be appearing in number on the indie market over the past six months or so. Though similar, each is has its own distinct luster and orient, the way that pearls do, with degrees of reflectivity and iridescence. Cracks in the Walls, with its unusual inclusion of tiny twinkling microglitters, is a particularly lovely variation of the genre. In low light especially, the shading of the color around the prismatic flare had this fetching, delicately-scorched quality that just sends me!

love,
Liz

Thursday, October 8, 2015

Carpe Noctem Cosmetics Taupey Tips

In my ongoing leisurely exploration of what I’m now calling the YNBB (Your Nails But Better, modified from Mannequin Hands) polish genre -- pale neutral nudes, basically -- I have for you today Taupey Tips from Michigan-based indie polish maker Carpe Noctem Cosmetics. From the online reviews I’ve read, I gather that this was released as a stand alone polish in January 2014 at the latest and reformulated, I believe, early this past summer. It is a greige or pale milky taupe linear holo. I find this shade particularly lovely. It’s a beautifully balanced mix of ash grey and sand that hints at pinkishness, warmer than cement but still cool overall, a delicate shell-like hue that is profoundly graceful on the nail. As a pale creamy holo, the effects are naturally subdued, rendering a vestigial prismatic display in pastel colors under direct sun. But my favorite effect of the holo in this polish is the nacreous look it confers upon the finish in indirect light, a perfect partner to the shell-like aspect of the coloring. It gives this pale neutral an exquisite glistening quality that adds a certain freshness to its soothing, gentle elegance on the nail.

Application was very nice. The consistency of Taupey Tips is fluid and supremely creamy with an even, buttery glide over the nail and very good self-leveling properties for a white-based shade. There is a certain amount of built-in translucence to this polish that is actually quite stunning as it has the endearing quality of camouflaging polish staining while still permitting visible nail line at two coats. But if you’re into opacity, that can be accommodated by adding an additional coat, which I did. The first coat went on with some streakiness thanks to my ever-annoying nail ridges, but the second coat evens up the coverage beautifully. Cleanup is easy. Taupey Tips dries naturally in very good time to a glossy finish. Topcoat will help to eliminate any lingering unevenness in the surface.

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

Carpe Noctem Cosmetics Taupey Tips

A very pretty creamy neutral holo, no?

Sadly, Fuzzy does not share my affection for the YNBB variety of polishes. Apparently she finds them amorphous and nebbishy. “Neither here nor there” were her exact words. Well! At least she has a well-defined, if exclusionary, aesthetic.

love,
Liz