Lacquer Slacker Liz

Friday, June 26, 2015

Elevation Polish Shinjuku Golden Gai

To continue my Elevation Polish roll, today's feature is Shinjuku Golden Gai, released as part of the Streets of Japan collection in the beginning of May this year. This polish was inspired by a memory of a sign from the historic Golden Gai neighborhood in Shinjuku, a ward of Tokyo.

Lulu describes Shinjuku Golden Gai as blood orange with a slight duochrome shimmer, "the blood orange that a cartoon would be." It has a vibrant, creamy salmon-colored base bearing boatloads of ultrafine duochromatic particle shimmers with a blue to violet/pink shift. On the nail in natural light, it transitions seamlessly between a salmony coral and a radiant hot pink, and you can see the blue/violet shimmers gleaming along the axis of light. This is an incredibly well-composed polish with intense, luminous coloring and a dreamy soft-focus dimensionality. It's like Lulu took a sunset and made a polish out of it!

Application was delicious. The consistency of Shinjuku Golden Gai is fluid, smooth and dense with a silky flow over the nail and excellent self-leveling properties. It goes on super smoothly and is amenable to very thin coats. Pigmentation is very good with wearable opacity in two coats, although I used three to ensure most even coverage for the photos. Cleanup is a snap. Shinjuku Golden Gai dries naturally in good time to a slightly flat finish that wants a good topcoat to look its best.

Photos show three coats of Shinjuku Golden Gai over Pretty Serious Rock On treatment and Pretty Serious All Your Base basecoat with a topcoat of Seche Vite. Apologies for the incipient hangnails and other nail surround scruffiness!

Elevation Polish Shinjuku Golden Gai

Shinjuku Golden Gai reminds me a lot of CrowsToes Tequila Sunrise in composition, with differences in color and translucence but similar effects from the presence of duochromatic shimmers. The two share a certain exotic fruity Edenesque/tree of knowledge vibe -- luscious, radiant, potentially dangerous -- that is far more suited than an apple to a fruit of such a pivotal importance.

Golden Gai in the Shinjuku district of Tokyo is famous for its nightlife and its architectural and cultural interest. Composed of a network of six tiny alleys connected by even narrower passages, this small area contains over two hundred bars, clubs and eateries. The tiny matchbox establishments are typically only few feet wide and some can hold only four or five customers at a time. Most are two-storey, having a small bar at street level and either another bar or a tiny flat upstairs, reached by a steep set of stairs. The buildings are generally ramshackle, and the alleys are dimly lit, giving the area a very scruffy and run-down appearance. However, Golden Gai is not a cheap place to drink, and the clientele that it attracts is generally well off.

It is architecturally important as a window to Tokyo's still fairly recent past, before the economic boom that occurred following World War II, when large parts of the city resembled Golden Gai's extremely narrow lanes and tiny two-storey buildings.

Shinjuku Golden Gai by day (source)

and at night (source)

The bars of Golden Gai advertise themselves with an eclectic mix of artwork and enigmatic logos in neon, ranging from cats and acoustic guitars to painted lips and nudes. Lulu's memory of one such sign, a cartoon of a blood orange with tears on it, provided the inspiration for today's polish. (source)

Elevation's Shinjuku Golden Gai and the tiny fragment of old Tokyo that inspired it are equally fascinating, no? How awesome would it be to explore this tucked away neighborhood while wearing the namesake polish?

love,
Liz

Thursday, June 25, 2015

Elevation Polish Melbourne

Back again today with another bottle of win from Elevation Polish! So loath was I to remove yesterday's When the Cherry Met the Spoon that I wore it for two whole days -- twice as long as I usually wear a polish -- and even then I didn't want to take it off. I had to mentally dangle today's polish in front of me like a carrot on a stick, but it was still a hard sell at the outset. That all changed once I began applying it, however.

The polish is Melbourne, just released as part of the Street Graffiti collection earlier this month. Described as a medium blue with microshimmers in gold, green, blue and silver plus a light sprinkling of holographic pigment, this is undoubtably the closest nail polish equivalent to denim that I've ever come across. I'm telling you it couldn't be closer to denim if it sprouted red tags and a button fly! It's medium-dark slightly cloudy sapphire swimming with an analogously-colored mix of softly gleaming microflake shimmers that give it the perfect dimensional speckling of washed dark blue twill. I even experienced that tingle of joy that you get when you slide into your best-fitting jeans and they zip to perfection (yes, it's been a while but I haven't forgotten). I thought no polish would be able to thrill me after When the Cherry Met the Spoon, but I was wrong. I hate to fling superlatives around again so soon, but Melbourne is the most delicious of any blue polish from Elevation I've tried. It's not flashy, although there is a pretty sparkle in the sun from the scattered holo pigment, but it is utterly awesome.

I was so busy falling in love with the look of this polish that I can hardly tell you how it applied except that I found it slightly thicker than I thought it would be. I added a couple of squirts of polish thinner, but those who prefer a denser consistency probably won't feel the need. It's very creamy and smooth and the microflake shimmers, though superabundant, are tiny enough that they don't interfere with application at all. Pigmentation is excellent. If you plan for it, you can easily achieve even, opaque coverage in one coat. I didn't, so I used two. Cleanup is easy and straightforward. Melbourne dries naturally in very good time to a silky smooth, shiny finish with a gorgeous flecked visual texture that complements the denim color beautifully.

Photos show two coats of Melbourne over treatment and basecoat with a topcoat of Seche Vite.


Elevation Polish Melbourne

Elevation Polish Melbourne

See what I mean? Is that walking talking tasty or WHAT?! God help me, I'm in love with my own finger nails!!

I recommend a purchase at your earliest opportunity. Your blue polish collection isn't complete without it. That is all.

xo,
Liz

Wednesday, June 24, 2015

Elevation Polish When the Cherry Met the Spoon

When the Cherry Met the Spoon was released by indie polish maker Elevation Polish as a stand-alone lacquer earlier this month. Originally a small batch prototype from February this year, it's undergone reformulation in the interim and is now part of Elevation's core line. I adore the name of this polish! It reminds me of the English nursery rhyme Hey Diddle Diddle, itself having a possible origin in Scottish Jacobean courtier and poet Alexander Montgomerie's 1597 poem, The Cherrie and the Slae. I don't know for a fact that When the Cherry Met the Spoon shares this pedigree, but I wouldn't put it past Lulu's interdisciplinary skills to reach back through 18th century Mother Goose into 16th century allegorical poetry for inspiration!

Described as a berry red by Lulu and other reviewers, to my eye it's more purple than that. It's close to the red violet Crayola color Jazzberry Jam. Lulu has a certain magic with purples that is renowned, and this may be the lushest, richest, most dazzling Elevation purple I've yet experienced. Unfortunately, its true nature is also the most frustrating to try and capture with a camera. When the Cherry Met the Spoon has a deep, well-saturated red violet jelly base swimming with ultrachrome flakies in jewel-tone colors, charcoal flake shimmers and a sprinkling of holographic pigment. In indirect light and shade, it has a decidedly black cherry appearance, with only an occasional gemstone-like flash from the ultrachrome flakies within to hint at its ultimate glory. But direct light kindles up an opulent sparkling dimensional near purple, deep and absolutely radiant in its intensity, with the components add twinkling multicolored sparks and gleaming flashes of color that fire from varying points like some exquisite piece of jewelry being turned in the light. It's beyond gorgeous and I cannot get enough of it!

Application was fantastic. The consistency of When the Cherry Met the Spoon is fluid and dense but not the least bit sticky. It has a velvety glide over the nail with a slight detectable texture from the components but no stacking, stick ups or protrusions to distract from the application experience. Pigmentation is excellent for a jelly. This polish appears nearly opaque after one coat but keep in mind that it is a jelly with an inherent degree of translucence. Two coats nets deeper, richer color with more even coverage and substantially more depth. Three coats deepens the color a tiny bit more and turns out to provide the most dimensional look of all. I used two coats for all nails but one, where I had an unfortunate occurrence that necessitated a third coat, but the next time I wear this I'll go with three coats all the way around. Cleanup is fairly straightforward but as with any polish as well-pigmented as this one there will be some pigment travel. All in all, I was very pleased with how nicely this polish applied and how easily it cleaned up. When the Cherry Met the Spoon dries naturally in very good time to a shiny finish with hints of visual texture from the components, particularly the ultrachrome flakies. Topcoat mostly levels this out and enhances the visibility of all of the components as well.

Photos show two coats of When the Cherry Met the Spoon over treatment and basecoat with a topcoat of Seche Vite. As I mentioned, I couldn't quite manage an accurate likeness of how it appears in person (it leans a skosh more purple than what you see here), and the dynamic sparkle all but escaped me completely. It is so much more beautiful and majestic than the photos show!

Elevation Polish When the Cherry Met the Spoon

Featuring a lacquer like When the Cherry Met the Spoon really brings to the fore the application and photography skills that separate a dabbler like me from nail polish bloggers of substance and standing. Of such bloggers, my favorites of the swatches I've seen are Savannah's on Addicted to Polish at two coats, and Jenny's on Lavish Layerings at three. Both come far closer than I have to reproducing the appearance of this amazing polish in person. And if you're wondering how When the Cherry Met the Spoon differs from the original small batch prototype, Ida has a great comparison of the two on Ida Nails It.

My photography aside, this is a stunning polish. The rich glowing garnet color, speckled with charcoal flake shimmers and gleaming ultrachrome flakies and strewn with multicolored pinpoint sparks of light from the holographic particles, is to die for. Truly outstanding! If you love a lavish, deep, saturated shimmer polish with sumptuous, soft-focus sparkle and a dynamic interplay with light, you'll be wanting to add this to your stash. It's a gem!

love,
Liz