Red, Red duochrome, FrankenDead, and a Quote

This is the E.L.F. "Dark Red" I found at Ross. It was a sad goopy mess, but I added a little Poshe restore and it was really nice.

This photo is of two coats, so it seems "meh, whatever", but when I added a third coat, it was quite dark and lovely. Very nice. I loved the application. And wow, after nursing along other polishes into a state of dryness, this was so nice.

A few days later I added a light coat of Maybelline 125, a sheer cheap polish that's all over the Dollar Tree where I am at right now, it's a sheer white shimmer with a red/gold duochrome. It totally changed the dark polish into this frosty burgundy. Wow. Gorgeous!

My application was better on the red, the white was a mess. I haven't figured out how to really tidy up the edges, so I am relying on application, such as it is.

Last, my next franken-polish! Such a hopeful thing! I really loved my first franken, the pale grayed out periwinkle! It was beginners luck!

I found a Wet n Wild "Crystalique" polish at the Dollar Tree. It was a silver metallic called "Wizard". Very nice, I figured, no brainer. Well, I should have put a little sample together, because the first thing I did was pour into the bottle some L.A.Color purple and green glitter. I was so excited at seeing that, that I forgot to test. Doh! It got drowned. The pigment in the metallic polish is fine and dense. So, lesson one.

But, not to just toss the whole thing out, I added some "Travel to Neptune" pigment from TBK Trading, it's a purple/green duochrome. This was lesson 2: find a good way to add the powder, because I lost nearly as much as I finally got into the bottle. I am thinking about a little funnel, or decanting a bit, my paper funnel I made got a bit of polish and cause a clog.

This didn't go too badly, I could see some duochrome, but I wanted more color, so I decanted a bit of NY Color "West Village" into the bottle. Normally that's a navy, but the base color has a maritime green tint to the blue. (It's gorgeous, I did my nails in it, but was in a rush to go to the barn and schmootzed my thumbnail)

I also decanted some and added some clear to get the pigment and glitter to show. No dice.

I ended up with a very peacocky/tealy metallic with chunks. Epic fail!!!!!!!

I am wearing it.

Slow to dry, well, not any worse than the Revlon Bronze Ablaze, but hearty! It's taken a lickin'. No tipwear, chips or shrinkage.

Of course it is WnW and the top coat is Wnw, too.

 

All in all I am very happy with the color. The other side of that happiness? I really hate the texture. I will probably try to wear it a few times and then add some clear.

Lesson learned: allways do a sample batch. You can't go through polish THAT fast, and while Deborah Lippmann in her blog says that it's fashion forward to have a new look and texture in polish, I am kind of wondering if that's just marketing malarky to sell her polish.

BUT, I've gone a step further! Ha. I think I live up to this quote:

...put away your OLD ideas of how polish should look.

                         -Deborah Lippmann

 

What can I say?

I am trying!

;D