Lacquer Slacker Liz

Friday, January 3, 2014

Chirality Kale

Eleanor, I have one of your favorites for today's post! It's Kale, that lovely dark green scattered holographic polish from indie polish maker Chirality. It's a bit darker looking than Asymptote although they are about the same "weight" in terms of saturation, and it has more yellow in it, and more black. But it has the same fabulous composition in terms of holographic pigment, with the larger particle size and scattered prismatic display. It's delicious to see the way the holo pigments provide a nuanced illumination of Kale's coloring, the way it blooms in the presence of any light source.

Kale, like Asymptote and every other Chirality polish that I've experienced, is a pleasure to apply. The consistency is creamy and dense and very smooth. Kale is essentially a one coater, but I did two just because I could -- that's how much I enjoy applying a Chirality polish! It's just incredibly satisfying. Kale dries naturally in very good time to a smooth shiny finish with a little bit of a jelly's squishiness to it.

Photos show two coats of Kale over treatment and basecoat with a topcoat of Seche Vite, I think. It may have been Poshe. In any case, I took these outdoors under overcast morning skies and you can still see a bit of the color bloom. Yet again, apologies for the flaky fingers. I took some salt scrub to them and lotioned them up with Curel Hand & Cuticle Therapy Cream but it didn't seem to help much. I guess I'll just have to let the flakiness run its course.

Chirality Kale -- note: the octagonal bottle is Chirality's older style, they are round now...

Chirality Kale

Just to show everyone what Kale is capable of holo-wise, I took a few photos in the kitchen under the halogens...

Chirality Kale

For lovers of green polish, especially unusual greens, Kale takes you right to your happy place. Wearing it makes you feel like you're truly doing justice to your affection for the color. The subtle chromatic nuances provided by the colors in the holo flair are like jelly to the bee, baby!

Amanda's price point on Chirality polishes sweetens the deal even more. They're only $8 compared to $10-13 and up for other indie holos. And she now has a store on big cartel in addition to her etsy shop. Once you've tried one, you'll know... Amanda makes some of the most exquisite scattered holographic lacquers around, on the same scale as Adina from a england (and that's saying a LOT, especially since Chirality is a hand-poured indie).

Although it's very hard to choose a favorite from my little herd of Chirality polishes, I think I share your predilection for Kale, Eleanor. Even Fuzzy was all over it... "what's that? what's that one? oh, that's nice!" when I walked in the room wearing it. If the Fuzz loves it, you know it must be something special!

In my sights for future purchase: CU2+, Bloodshot and The Symbiote.

xoxo,
Liz

Thursday, January 2, 2014

Zoya Noel

Noel was released by Zoya as part of its Gems & Jewels collection for holiday 2011. According to Zoya, Noel is a "faded denim blue with subtle hints of gold and silver in a dense foil finish." Hmm. To me, Noel is a medium-toned bright cerulean blue shimmer polish with hints of teal in certain lights and superabundant ultrafine cyanic and silvery shimmers.

I don't see denim, which I think of as having a bit of grey in it, and although Noel isn't super saturated the color is bright and not what I'd consider faded. After seeing my photos I do think there may be a leetle tiny bit of gold in Noel, but it's not at all overt like it is in Zoya Crystal, to which Noel is often compared. The abundance of silver shimmers in Noel may give it a metallic look to some, but it's more of shimmer to my eye. Likewise, I think of a foil as having larger sized metallic components that give it a speckled appearance when viewed closely while the shimmer in Noel is super fine.

Ok, I'm done nitpicking Zoya's description now.

Application of Noel was lovely. It has that sort of creamy liquid but dense consistency that is a pleasure to work with, easily controlled, goes where you put it and stays there. Because of the shimmer load, it can show brushstrokes but they are fairly minimal and don't interfere with the appearance of the polish on the nail. Pigmentation is very good, with complete even coverage in two coats. Noel dries naturally in good time to a smooth, shiny finish.

Photos show two coats of Noel over treatment and basecoat with a topcoat of Seche Vite. My fingers continue to peel and flake -- I used to use Comet all the time to clean bathrooms and it never wreaked this kind of devastation back then, wth? In any case, my hands need and should have daily appointments with some nice salt or sugar scrub but I'm a cranky old bat and am tired of my homemade stuff. Wah, Matlock! Also, I didn't realize until I saw the photos that reflections from my pink shirt would show up in them, my apologies.


Zoya Noel -- that pink is a reflection from the shirt I'm wearing....

ditto

Zoya Noel

Zoya Noel with pink shirt reflection

Zoya Noel

Zoya Noel, with bonus doink!

Zoya Noel

Because similarities in color to Zoya Crystal are often referenced in reviews of Noel, I painted up some samples of each on a swatch palette to show you. They are definitely in the same color family but besides the differences in construction between them, Crystal is less pigmented. Swatches show two coats of Noel and three coats of Crystal.


Zoya Noel, left, and Crystal in the bottle

Zoya Noel, left, and Crystal, right -- bottle close up

left: two coats of Zoya Noel, right: three coats of Crystal


left: two coats of Zoya Noel, right: three coats of Crystal

You can really see the similarities in color here as well as the difference in shimmer size; Crystal has larger, chunkier shimmer particles and an especially speckled look due to the golden shardy bits. They are both beautiful polishes though, don't you think? Despite the close color resemblance, to me they are more different than they are similar and speaking for myself, I need them both!

love,
Liz

Wednesday, January 1, 2014

OPI My Favorite Ornament

My Favorite Ornament is part of OPI's collaborative Mariah Cary Holiday 2013 collection. This collection is LARGE, eighteen polishes in all, with a variety of finishes such that you need a nail polish glossary to get through them all. Collections this big immediately provoke my Monty Python "run away, run away" response and I found myself going glassy eyed scrolling through marathon blog posts (gotta give them polish bloggers PROPS for getting the whole darn thing swatched in one post) of photos. So it is surprising that I ended up with any of them. I blame My Glamour Boutique on ebay and her wonderful 99¢ start auctions for this one!

My Favorite Ornament is a true glitter polish with fine white gold microglitters in a clear base producing an overall blond/champagne glitter bomb look. Apparently I find this particular in-between precious metals color of microglitter irresistible, because I have a whole slew of it in my collection... Essie Beyond Cozy, Butter London Fairy Cake, China Glaze I'm Not Lion, Butter London Tart With A Heart and Pretty Serious 88mph. Given that gold doesn't usually agree with my cool-toned complexion, I guess this is my subconscious at work once again trying to reconcile irreconcilable differences. It's got a point, though. These do work much better with my pinkage than straight gold.

Application of My Favorite Ornament was a pleasure once I re-familiarized myself with OPI's pro-wide brush. Do you think I'll ever learn? Doubtful. Microglitter is not the thing you want to be swiping all over the place, but that's pretty much what I did for the first few nails so prepare for glitters free agenting themselves around my nail environs in the photos.

The consistency of this polish has a little bit of the stiffness that usually accompanies a glitter-crammed lacquer, and I added a squirt of thinner to help myself avoid brush overload and glitter stacking on the nail. The density of the glitter is a plus in the opacity department, however, with considerably great coverage after only one coat. I did two to circumvent VNL in the photos but would have rested at one for normal wear. My Favorite Ornament dries naturally in good time to the familiar gritty textured matte finish that I'm fond of and that really does resemble the gritty finish of a frosted ornament.

Photos show two coats of My Favorite Ornament over treatment and basecoat with no topcoat.

OPI My Favorite Ornament

I like this a lot. Surprise! (Not.) It has a light floaty whimsical feel to it that also manages to be festive and elegant. I read a comment on a polish blog where the commenter said that it looks like snow and champagne got together and had a sparkly little baby! *lol* Agreed! I noticed that it seems to generate a more golden reflection in low light than it looks to have straight on (see the two thumb with bottle pics above)... interesting.....

By the way, Happy New Year to everyone reading. I wish you all truth and joy throughout this and every year!

love,
Liz