Red to Green Shifting Comparison: Clarins ILNP Liquid Euphoria

Wanted to toss out a a comparison I posted on the Makeup Alley message board and get it archived here.

Thanks for the indulgence.

Some background. It is warranted, trust me.

Back in the 90's, long before I was into nail polish, (maybe the early 00's) there began what is now known as red to green multichrome. It is a mica pigment that shifts from red into green, with a lot of time spent in a warm amber orange mode. 

When it shifts, it produces a gorgeous Christmas green and if you really push, you can get into blue. On the red side it will go to purple. It's stunning. 

It isn't a holographic, there is no flame, it just reflects a whole shade change of color, not a rainbow. It seems to have a longer range for its "rainbow" than a holo.

So there was Clarins 230, discontinued in 2008 according to my research, prior to that there was a Blue Cross Liquid Euphoria line, not sure when that one was discontinued, but it was gone by the time I got into it.

For several long dry years, there was a yearning for these pigments. They weren't around.

Then the auto paint and pigment industry became a source. I don't know the particulars, but suddenly people were mixing their own and it was kind of crazy. This was mostly started right after the spectraflair pigment burst on the holographic scene. 

Next thing indies were tossing out Clarins 230 dupes like crazy. Even Max Factor came out with one.

I grabbed a ton. Blog sales were my main avenue. It was like buying gold in a down market for me. The price of Clarins 230 stalled out, no longer a 3 figure deal, you could get it around $40 (I should have grabbed more!).

Then it seemed to be in short supply since about 2015. I never even noticed, it was the Rise of the Indies and holos/flakies/duochromes/glitter reigned supreme. Some red-green shift action mixed in with other stuff was barely a thing.

It wasn't the thing, it was just a thing to add to a polish.

Truth be told, it was even treated disinterestedly by many. Understandable. Taste is taste. And holos, flakies and other color shifting pigments were eye-popping. 

Now, apparently it's hard to find again. I browsed some pigment stuff, but if you want the real deal on pigments, you need to hit the amazing blog Polish and Pigments (I've linked a search)

It's daunting now, because once again this pigment is supposed to be rare. Clarin's is back up to three figures and only a handful of auctions are listed on eBay.

What happened? I do not know.

Meanwhile ILNP came back out with a polish called The Magician, a red/green color shifting polish.

I wanted to compare old and new. Mica versus manufactured (though I don't know what that might actually mean).

Left to right:

Clarins 230

ILNP The Magician

Blue Cross Liquid Euphoria Nirvana

These are all over a navy blue.

Difference? Not a lot. I think Nirvana is more dense. Nice!

Here are the bottles:

Same order.

Finally, the shift:

This is the money on this shift: the green. 

Left to right:

Blue Cross Liquid Euphoria Nirvana

ILNP The Magician

Clarins 230

I think, again, the Blue Cross is the stunner: more dense with the shimmer and therefore more green.

I think The Magician holds a strong second with Clarins pulling up in third, though it's nearly a trifecta. 

Where to find
Clarins 230 is now very expensive again and more scarce on eBay.
Magician is still very much available (after a frenzy of buying because it was thought to be limited edition, but more pigment was found).
Nirvana? Well, if you luck out and find it, then lucky you! 

Thanks for reading my little nail polish journal!

Clarins 212

Clarins made some beautiful polishes, but they stopped being much more than a skin care company before I got in to polish, so I don't have a personal history with them.

There are a lot of their old polishes floating around eBay, various price points.

Clarins 212 was one of those polishes I thought I would never find; always have on my wish list and never fulfill. Suddenly it showed up again. Voila. I snapped it up. Fast.

Clarins 212 Violine Celeste

Two coats, no top coat.

Older chemistry, but the formula is pretty fabulous. I have to admit that it dried very well and wore well.

Its's a gorgeous violet purple packed with blue shimmer.

In my book, backup worthy.

Thank you for reading my little nail polish journal!

Breathing Life Back Into Clarins 220

I posted about this polish over 2 years ago here.

To be honest, I was a bit optimistic about it's real usefulness. Every time I tried to wear it...well, as the song goes "it'll end in tears", so I just put it aside.

Then last fall I started evaporating polishes to see if thinner would help. Thinner is just that: the solvents that are in a polish so that the pigments will work. It's a work in progress. Too much thinner means there is no body, no viscosity. I will sometimes add clear and thinner, but in experiments where I've filled it back to where it was with thinner, it's not a win.

So I've got a few coming up that will show more of this, but I've taken Clarin's 220 and done that.

In the process, polish gets sticky, brush sticks, top opens leaving brush, sometimes the brush dies, this one did, so I've rebottled them.

Here's Clarin's 220 over white

It still has the pink shimmer, but the gold flake seems to have vanished. Weird. (Well, they are just super hard to see)

It's a pretty apricot, a think I have little of, and it's also now a polish that is actually wearable because it dries.

You can see in the bottom photo that there is a secret shimmer that is quite difficult to capture.


I stamped it, too

This shows mostly my still rusty technique more than anything. But you can see that it's a pretty, soft apricot that needed some help or it would be toast.

I don't know what evaporated exactly. I think the Toluene would have, but not sure about the rest of the "baddies" in there.

I suspect that the camphor did a bit, too.  In any case, it's a better polish.

Thanks for reading my little nail polish journal!

Ebay Redux

A while ago I posted a blog post with tips for buying on eBay.

I feel like it might need a little update.

For a start, eBay has amped up their protection plan to include shipping. This is a pretty fantastic step.

There still is a 45 day countdown clock on filing a dispute, so keep that in mind.

In addition to Toolhaus.org as a great site to see how a seller's feedback shakes down, you can also check out WatchedItem.com to see who else has their eye on "your" loot. I just discovered that one, and I can say it will give you a good idea if a lone item will get rained on with bids or not.

I want to give a personal example of looking under rocks, trusting your collector's gut, and being willing to take a chance.

I saw this auction:

I edited to provide some privacy for the seller.

Notice it's unlabeled. Except for the brand name. There was no list of polish names or numbers in the auction text or the title.
Also, this particular seller has a high feedback number, it's very good percentage-wise and she doesn't sell in this category very much at all. Did I hit the trifecta?

I examined the photo closer:

A pair of muddy burgundies. Though you can see some shimmer, and on the left hand side you can see a telltale bit of something in the shimmer.
Hmmmm.

The auction went onto my watch list.

It ended with NO BIDDERS!

I emailed her and asked her to do a Buy it Now and she did. I bought it in a matter of minutes.

Got the package and among four bottles of Clarins 220, Patient Pink, blogged here, sat two bottles of 230.

Two Fracking Thirty!

What?
No!
YES!!

Do not be afraid of eBay. Do NOT succumb to scalpers. Be patient that it will pop up.

Check new auctions - You never know what you will find.

Check outside/broader categories - sellers goof when they list.

Check brands, misspellings, and oddball words that might be in a polish name. You never know what will pop up.

Everyone is looking for "230".
Apparently I was the only one gazing into the "Clarins" search with any regularity.

This was a complete fluke.

Keep an eye out for polishes whose MUA hotness has waned, suddenly they are lounging on eBay at low prices with no takers. I've got a eye on one that a couple years ago people were agonizing over, now the seller has a pile of them and no takers.

Patience. Be alert to wish lists and keep an eagle eye out. "You never know" is the take home lesson here.

Think sideways, upside down and through the back door when searching.

Yes, I could have paid $30 for a muddy burgundy, but the photo showed promise.

It was a risk. I know that. I might be blogging about my collection of obscure Clarin's.

But I'm not.
hee!

A Pink Worth the Patience

I purchased Clarin's 230 on a fluke.

It wasn't cheap, but I wanted it.

No regrets. Ever.

Then someone literally opened up a hidden trove of these and for a while in 2011 and early 2012 the market was flooded.

I ran across a seller who didn't put the name in the title and listed 230 along with a couple of bottles of 220 as a bonus for $27.

I missed the auction, but emailed him and he relisted as a Buy It Now and I grabbed it.

So, this is either a freebie or a $9 polish, depending on how you look at it. Of course it sounds better that I got 230 for $9, but in reality the extra bottle just lowers my "dollar cost averaging" for nail polish purchases.

hehehe.

Clarin's 220 or Patient Pink.

I've not looked on eBay of late so I can't say what the going rate is these days, but this is one of those polishes that's been hovering on the brink of "dump it" for a while.

It's a frosty, glistening iridescent apricot that is thin, slow to dry and rather frustrating to work with: it balds, it doesn't build very well on ridge-y nails like my ring finger.

It does have such a rich, luxurious air about it, it's milky and yet has that glow. I know frost is anathema right now, but this one really is quite gorgeous.

It needs a great base coat, a good deal of time between coats and a quick dry top coat for me.

I will add that a ridge filler and even an aqua base or perhaps a matte top coat as a base wouldn't be amiss.

Is it worth it?

Here's the bonus that is hard to see on the nail:

Golden flakes!!!

I think these are along the line of Essie's As Gold As It Gets.

These are not cut shards, but have that "grown in a lab" feel about them, which is what I adore about flakies.

I think, for me, since this is such a pretty polish, I will try to make it work. It might, as I think about it, be fine as a one coater over something like an Essie apricot creme.

Thanks for reading my little nail polish journal!