Lacquer Slacker Liz

Saturday, December 28, 2013

Cirque Lichen

Lichen is part of Cirque's recently released Alchemy collection. This is a sophisticated charcoaled olive green shimmer polish with duochrome pigmentation that has an olive to blue green shift, giving the polish a grassy or forest green look in certain light. The shimmers are golden and very lively and overt, and provide Lichen with eye-catching sparkle in direct sunlight. In shade and indirect light, the edges deepen in color with the glowing center giving this polish a lit from within look.

Once again, application was great. Lichen has a creamy liquid texture to it that flows beautifully over the nail. Pigmentation was great as well, with significant opacity in one coat and complete opacity in two. Clean up was easy except that I managed to miss a tiny but significant cuticle swipe on my left ring finger. I hate it when that happens! Lichen dries in very good time to a smooth glowing satin finish with an almost burnished sheen to it. I chose to apply topcoat over this polish, but it is equally lovely without the extra gloss.

Photos show two coats of Lichen over treatment and basecoat with a topcoat of Poshe.

Cirque Lichen

I love this kind of large-particled shimmer, the way it refracts through the green reminds me of the wavy antique/vintage glass panes we have in most of the windows here at Grass Island. Lichen is a rather solemn, serious polish... "somber," is what Fuzzy said but it isn't dour in the least. The duochrome shift is like a shy smile.

What do you say to this green beauty, Eleanor? I know you love greens as much as I do!

love,
Aunt Liz

Friday, December 27, 2013

Cirque Book of Shadows

Book of Shadows was released as part of Cirque's Objet d'Art collection. It's a dreamy diaphanous pale silvery lavender foil polish. Metaphorically, it's a perfect counterpoint to its name, contrasting while simulataneously enhancing. This kind of subtle detail, small but emphatic, is a hallmark of Cirque's sophistication as brand. Love it!

The color of this polish is so delicate. It's really just a blush of rosy lavender. Silver, and most light colors, are usually kind of stark on me. Not so with Book of Shadows. It's a soft, gentled silver, and feels quite at home on the nail. It responds to any ambient light with a Tolkienian elvish gleam, even in the dimmest of environments. In direct sun, it has a scintilating sparkle.

Application was lovely. I am totally smitten with the brush that comes with Cirque's polishes. It's soft and flexible, easy to control and holds plenty of polish without overloading the nail. Book of Shadows went on like a dream with zero issues, no running or pooling or patch pulling. The consistency was lighter and slightly thinner and more fluid that the other Cirques I've tried so far. This polish was meant to be a little sheer and light and the pigmentation reflects that. Nevertheless, I achieved an opacity I was happy with in only two coats. Clean up was surprisingly easy. I was expecting the acetone that I use for clean up to release a bevy of shimmery paricles over the skin but not so!

Book of Shadows dries in very good time to a gleaming foily finish that shows no brushstrokes. It does, however, show imperfections in the nail bed such as ridging.

Photos show two coats of Book of Shadows over treatment and basecoat with a topcoat of Seche Vite to protect the finish and hasten drying.

Cirque Book of Shadows

I adore foils and this one is so lovely and so flattering and applies so beautifully that I simply can't say enough good things about it. Did I mention yet that every Cirque polish has lavender and clary sage essential oils added to its formula? The subtle but perceptible fragrance stays with the polish after it dries, another small detail that makes the experience of this brand such a pleasure.

love,
Aunt Liz

Thursday, December 26, 2013

WingDust Collections Sun Spots over Butter London Dosh

When Stephanie of WingDust Collections sent my order for the lovely Plum Outta Ideas, she thoughtfully slipped a mini of Sun Spots into the package. Sun Spots is a bright happy flower of a polish, it would be very grinchy of me not to share it with you. It has a holographic moss green jelly base carrying a boatload of cheerfully tropical matte glitter hexes and squares in neonesque bright colors: pink, green, yellow and blue, as well as a sprinkling of tiny iridescent hex glitters. It's like the Miami of my imagination, springing out of the Everglades, full of color play and light.

As a base for Sun Spots I decided to use Butter London's Dosh, a bright asparagus green shimmer polish. The shimmers in Dosh are gold and give it a glowing semi-metallic look. The golden green is slightly lighter than the mossy green of Sun Spots, but they are in the same family and it provided a nice base to showcase the bright matte glitters in Sun Spots. I used three thin coats of Dosh over treatment and basecoat for the base manicure.

If you've ever applied a glitter polish from a mini bottle, you know that there isn't much to say about application except dab, dab, dab and dab. Or, in Lizspeak, plosh and spread. Despite the tiny brush, it happily delivered the full range of glitters in good quantity and I didn't go to any special lengths to position them on the nail. Sun Spots dries naturally very quickly to a surprisingly smooth, shiny finish.

Photos show two dabbed coats of Sun Spots over my base manicure of Dosh with a topcoat of Seche Vite to seal it all in.

WingDust Sun Spots over Butter London Dosh

The green base color is more holographic than my pictures show, but you can see a teeny bit of the holo flair peeking out in the last photo. The holo pigments give the base a silver speckled look that I just love, nom nom. Those large hexes are probably the biggest glitters I've ever tried and I'm still not quite sure how I feel about them but I love the hot pink against the green with the bright blue and lime accents. The yellow glitters are a bit harder to see, they get kind of swallowed by the base. Overall I'm rather fond of this little polish. It tickles me -- in a good way!

love,
Aunt Liz