Elevation Polish Jungfrau

In this post I have Jungfrau from indie polish maker Elevation Polish to show you. Jungfrau (pronounced YOONG-frouw) is a dark denim blue polish containing green microshimmer and black iridescent color-shifting flakies. It is a graceful and elegant polish. I think it makes my fingers look longer too!

Photos show two easy coats of Jungfrau over my Nail Envy basecoat and finished with one coat of Sec 'n Dry.

What I used, left to right: Elevation Polish Jungfrau, OPI Nail Envy, Orly Sec 'n Dry

Elevation Jungfrau, at the window...

Elevation Jungfrau

Elevation Jungfrau

Elevation Jungfrau bottle shot showing green microshimmer

macro shot in the bottle -- I ask you, how gorgeous is that?

Elevation Jungfrau

Elevation Jungfrau

Elevation Jungfrau

extreme close up whoa!

Elevation Jungfrau -- delicious shimmery goodness

Elevation Jungfrau looking dark sans sun

ditto

modified claw

Elevation Jungfrau, featuring nail ridges *snort*

Elevation Jungfrau

I love and adore Jungfrau! I love blue polishes generally, especially dark blue. When I wear them, I have a distinct if fleeing sense of feeling like a competent grown-up. *lol* Perhaps I should wear them more often. I don't know though, there are so many great colors out there. 

Got that right!

love,
Aunt Liz

Hare Polish King of Carat Flowers over OPI Skull & Glossbones

In this post I have another amazing and beautiful polish from indie polish maker Hare. It is called King of Carat Flowers.

Hare describes this polish as "a light-medium grey jelly packed full of a mixture of gold and lilac glitter in both hexes and squares. Mysterious iridescent blue glitter is scattered throughout, as well as delicate gold flecks." To that I would add that once again we have a polish here that is more than the sum of its parts. And rather than a jelly I would actually described the grey base as more of a "crelly," a cross between a creme and a jelly, because this is a fairly well-pigmented grey.

From reading nail polish blog reviews online, I knew that other folks had had no problem achieving opacity with King of Carat Flowers in two coats. However my application skills are iffy mostly. What if I didn't achieve opacity in two coats? King of Carat Flower is SO packed with glitter that I was worried about glitter stacking and dragging if I ended up using more than two coats.

So I decided to use a base polish and layer King of Carat Flowers over that. A couple of weeks ago I received in the mail a wonderful pale grey polish from OPI called Skull & Glossbones that I won on ebay (of course). It turns out to be the perfect underwear for King of Carat Flowers. 

I didn't take any photos of Skull & Glossbones on its own and it's just as well because even though it applied beautifully and dried to a nice glossy finish, my nail ridges got the better of it. Even after two coats, they still showed through. As I've mentioned before, this is a common problem with light colors generally so it wasn't unexpected and the coverage was still good enough for a base layer.

I was nervous enough about applying King of Carat Flowers that my application skills, such as they are, went right out the window. I ended up mostly kind of ploshing and spreading. 

Shall we look at some pics? Let's! Make sure you remember to click on the photos for the blown up versions...

What I used: Hare Polish King of Carat Flowers and OPI Skull & Glossbones. Not pictured (but always used!): OPI Nail Envy basecoat and Orly Sec 'n Dry topcoat.

Hare Polish King of Carat Flowers over OPI Skull & Glossbones

Hare Polish King of Carat Flowers over OPI Skull & Glossbones

King of Carat Flowers bottle shot

Hare Polish King of Carat Flowers over OPI Skull & Glossbones

Hare Polish King of Carat Flowers over OPI Skull & Glossbones -- you can see traces of the lighter Skull & Glossbones around the edge of King of Carat Flowers, such is the result when you plosh and spread rather than paint properly!

Hare Polish King of Carat Flowers over OPI Skull & Glossbones... apologies for the wonded ringfinger cuticle

at the window...

an "at the window" close up, shows the sweet sparkle of King of Carat flowers really well I think...

on the nail macro shot -- kinda cool, eh?

Hare Polish King of Carat Flowers over OPI Skull & Glossbones

Hare Polish King of Carat Flowers over OPI Skull & Glossbones

extreme close up whoa!

Hare Polish King of Carat Flowers over OPI Skull & Glossbones

Hare Polish King of Carat Flowers over OPI Skull & Glossbones

 I wish I could figure out how best to describe this polish so you would know what it's like in person because it (like the other Hare polishes that I've tried) is totally a multi-dimensional experience. No photo is ever going to do justice to this polish. 

Every persons point of view is subjective, meaning its truth belongs personally and above all to the subject, the person holding it. But I think you and I share a common language when it comes to descriptions of things. So I'm going to try and tell you about King of Carat Flowers.

When I was painting my nails with King of Carat Flowers, I asked myself what did my imagination see. I started thinking about a girl with long hair in a meadow full of high grasses and wildflowers, with huge solitary trees here and there. In this story I was creating in my imagination, she is walking through the grass with her hands out, skimming the tops of the flowers. She looks up and sees a man standing by one of the trees. He is watching her. Then it switches to the man's point of view. He sees this beautiful girl walking through the grasses and flowers. He sees how much she loves nature, loves the grass and the flowers and the sky and the sun. This makes him very happy. I knew the girl felt the same way about seeing the man standing next to the tree. In my story, I knew that they were going to meet and talk to each other and that they would fall in love.

What the heck does all this crap this mean?

My feeling is that it means I find King of Carat flowers to be beautiful the way nature is beautiful, the way we feel when we find special beauty in nature. It also means that I find King of Carat flowers to be especially romantic in that it generates the kind of excitement and sense of mystery that surrounds a romantic experience like falling in love.

Practically, it is also an understated and elegant polish. It is not flashy, but it has a private personal almost secret beauty that is priceless.

Hell's bells! Once again, you see how I just go on and on and on when I start thinking too much about one of Hare's polishes. And I'm not sure at all it's the least bit helpful. In fact I suspect it may be UNhelpful. Well I'll just have to bring a few Hare's up with me when I come IN JUST A FEW DAYS *squeal* put them on and let you judge for yourself whether they are as magical and thought-provoking as I think they are.

love,
Aunt Liz

Orly Gumdrop and Pahlish Green & Giggly

Got two fresh springy polishes for you in this post.

The first is from the mainstream (non-indie) polish brand Orly. Now I love indie polishes too much to have a whole lot of favorite mainstream brands, but I do like Orly. I LOVE their bottles, rubberized bottle caps (great for gripping), wands and brushes. And I LOVE that they have a history of creating polishes that are unusual for mainstream brands like duochromes, multichromes, cream glitters and specialty glitters. So I keep an eye out for Orly polishes.

The Orly in this post is called Gumdrop. Gumdrop is a clean slightly green-leaning pastel turquoise cream. In the bottle it actually looks more like a minty green, but on the nail it is definitely a turquoise and calls to mind the famous color tiffany blue, the "official color" of the famous jewelry store Tiffany's New York. (Hey remind me when I come up and we can watch the movie "Breakfast at Tiffany's" with dreamy Audrey Hepburn! It's an older movie but I think that you'd just love it.)

I was actually looking for a minty green when I bid on this on ebay. Even though it is not the minty green I was hoping it was, I'm not sorry I won that auction. It's a fantastic polish, very pigmented and opaque, self-levels nicely and dries to a glossy finish.

Two coats of Orly Gumdrop over my Nail Envy basecoat and no topcoat for these pics. I kept admiring how glossy the finish was so I took quite a few...

What I used: Orly Gumdrop and OPI Nail Envy

Orly Gumdrop -- notice that my nail ridges are visible underneath but not THROUGH the polish, this is excellent performance for a pastel colored polish

Orly Gumdrop

Orly Gumdrop -- delicious shiny blue...

at the window...

Orly Gumdrop

Orly Gumdrop -- loads o' glossy goodness!

Orly Gumdrop

Orly Gumdrop

Gotta say, I'm kind of loving this shiny tiffany blue polish! I bet it would look GREAT on you. Should I bring it?

I had wanted a mint green polish as a layering base for a pastel mint cream glitter polish from indie polish maker Pahlish called Green & Giggly. Right up your alley, eh? Green & Giggly has "a creamy mint green base with violet pink micro flakies, periwinkle satin hex, and pale green squares." There are tiny light green shiny hex glitters in there also. The whole thing is actually a lot more subtle than it sounds, you'll see.

I decided to try Green & Giggly over Gumdrop despite the difference in colors. I figured that at least with underwear I wouldn't have to use a whole lot of Green & Giggly to ensure opacity, plus there'd be the added layer benefit of reducing the visual impact of my nail ridges. I'm finding that four coats of polish or more is best for minimizing the furrowed appearance of my nails.

So over Gumdrop I applied two coats of Green & Giggly and finished off with a coat of Sec 'n Dry...

Pahlish Green & Giggly bottle shot

macro shot in the bottle... BOLO: violet pink micro flakies, tiny green hexes, periwinkle satin hexes, sage green squares

Pahlish Green & Giggly over Orly Gumdrop

Pahlish Green & Giggly over Orly Gumdrop

extreme close up whoa!

Pahlish Green & Giggly over Orly Gumdrop

Pahlish Green & Giggly over Orly Gumdrop in the pen y'all!

Pahlish Green & Giggly over Orly Gumdrop, washed out a little by bright sunlight...

Pahlish Green & Giggly over Orly Gumdrop

Pahlish Green & Giggly over Orly Gumdrop

Pahlish Green & Giggly over Orly Gumdrop

Pahlish Green & Giggly over Orly Gumdrop

I love this sweet softly speckled pastel polish! For a glitter polish it's kind of under the radar, you know what I mean? The amount and colors of glitters are just right. You don't necessarily notice that's it's a glitter polish until you start to get close and really look at it. It's has such a breezy companionable friendly sense to it, like it's a really good pal you'd just love to go out shopping with on a spring or summer day. Hmmm, who does that remind me of, I wonder? Could it be... YOU? 

love,
Aunt Liz

ps. My birthday card was TDF! Loved it!