Lacquer Slacker Liz

Monday, September 25, 2017

Top Shelf Lacquer Buzzed

Today's Top Shelf Lacquer Drunken Creme Fall Holo is Buzzed, officially described as a "light teal." It's a creamy, cyanic medium turquoise with a muted aspect in ambient light -- a subdued, indistinct quality also known among polish enthusiasts as "dirtied." It reminds me of verdigris. As with the other Drunken Creme Fall Holos, the holographic effects are subtle, giving the polish a touch of effervescence in indirect light and a dusting of delicate turquoise and gold sparkle in the sun with a vestigial prismatic flare.

Application was wonderful. If you've read any of my reviews of other polishes from this collection, you know how highly I think of the formulas and this one is exactly on par. The only thing that's possibly more impressive than the quality of the formulas is how consistently maintained this quality is across the collection. Fluid, light, and silky smooth with an eminently-paintable, thin-to-medium viscosity and a fluent, self-leveling slip over the nail -- in my opinion it's as perfect as a polish can be! Buzzed has very good pigmentation that will give you evenly opaque coverage in two coats with easy cleanup. It dries naturally in very good time to a smooth, shiny finish.

Photos show two coats of Buzzed over basecoat with a topcoat of Seche Vite.

Top Shelf Lacquer Buzzed

I like this polish much more than I thought I would. Muted shades often turn muddy against my skin tone, but this is bolder and more distinct on the nail than I expected from looking at it in the bottle, with a sleek presentation and a high-end feel. Nice!

love,
Liz

Sunday, September 24, 2017

Picture Polish Macaron

Like Riviera, Macaron is one of six new Collaboration shades released this month by Australian boutique polish maker Picture Polish. It was created with Laetitia of the French blog iLaeti and ilaeti on Instragram according to her design, officially described as a "raspberry red jelly scatter holographic." You can read her post about it and see her beautiful photos here (translation by Google).

The color is indeed an absolutely perfect raspberry shade, a vibrant, juicy pinkish-red with aspects of cerise and bright corally cues. It has a translucent but profoundly pigmented jelly base that shows off the color brilliantly -- it is intoxicatingly saturated and euphoric on the nail, like sun streaming through a piece of raspberry-colored stained glass. Superabundant holographic flakies fleck the finish and light up in glowing shades of bright red, red-orange, fuchsia and deep pink as light travels over them, creating a mobile, analogously-hued prismatic flush with a warm, dimensional and particularly luminous quality in ambient light that only intensifies in the sun.

Application was delicious. The consistency of Macaron is fluid, light and buttery with a thin-to-medium viscosity and an effortless, self-leveling glide over the nail, a fluent, highly mobile formula that slips on like silky lingerie. Pigmentation is excellent for a jelly, but the glass-like transparency requires at least two coats for full bottle color and three is even better to avoid any areas of sheerness. Cleanup provokes some pigment travel, but trace staining is mostly minimal. Macaron dries naturally in very good time to a smooth, shiny finish. Topcoat actually seems to intensify the holographic effects of the flakies in this polish.

Photos show three coats of Macaron over basecoat with a topcoat of Seche Vite.

Picture Polish Macaron

This is a fresh little gem of a lacquer and a marvelous new addition to the considerable canon of Picture Polish reds. It's bursting with jubilant, vivacious feminine energy and the lush prismatic bloom is just drop-dead gorgeous. Must-have!

love,
Liz

Saturday, September 23, 2017

Top Shelf Lacquer Sloshed

It's another Top Shelf Lacquer Drunken Fall Creme Holo, this time in yellow. I am always fascinated by yellow polish even though my skin tone is not a complementary showcase for it. The unorthodoxy is what attracts me, I think, and I like the idea of yellow as an original, edgy, provocative color for nails -- done well it can be most impressive in that respect (Different Dimension Buttersweet Symphony anyone?).

This particular yellow from TSL is called Sloshed. Described as a mustard, on me it is more like a variation of arylide yellow, a dun-colored, earthy shade with a subtle grey-green tint along the lines of straw or flax. It reminds me of ocher and the color of the land in photos of the African savanna during dry season. Creamy and smooth, the holographic pigment is detectable as a hint of effervescence in ambient light, and direct sun engenders a field of delicate yellow sparks with a vestigial prismatic flare.

Application was excellent. Sloshed has the same fluent, buttery, insanely-paintable formula as the others in this collection, all the more outstanding considering that this is a yellow, notorious for NOT having great formulas (although the quality of indie yellows is making that less and less of a rule). Pigmentation is very good, delivering evenly opaque coverage in two coats. Cleanup is easy. Sloshed dries naturally in very good time to a smooth, shiny finish.

Photos show two coats of Sloshed over basecoat with a topcoat of Seche Vite.

Top Shelf Lacquer Sloshed

As I suspected it might, my skin looks like death next to this quintessentially earthy shade but that doesn't stop me from admiring it. For those who wear earthy colors like this well, I think it's a goldmine. I've never been to a rocky desert or canyon country, but I imagine this would fit in perfectly with that kind of palette. It is low-key and effortlessly sophisticated on the nail, with the kind of "signature color" sensibility that I've found to be a hallmark of great yellow polishes. A superb lighter shade for autumn.

Savanna, Tarangire National Park in Tanzania, East Africa.

love,
Liz