I don't have many mylar flakies, but I wanted to pull them all out and just swatch the heck out of them.
I realize that in my collection, I've acquired a lot of finishes that I just don't seem to get around to blogging: glitters, holos, and flakies. I need to do that. I think my mental block is that some of my holos are super rare (like my OMG and Kaleidoscope collection) or underdone (Tronica - to be shown in its new remedied state) or done a heck of a lot better by other bloggers. I need to just get over myself and jump in.
I'm jumping.
Mylar flakies or schredded flakies are not quite as popular as regular flakies. It's understandable and I'm not a great fan of them, but they have a purpose.
They are cut rather than have a soft organic edge, so they tend to be long and can either fold over as you apply them or stick out.
You can use a tweezers to tweak them, but in my experience wet polish and a tweezers requires a decaffeinated hand to manage. Folding, as you will see, adds dimension and pieces poking out can be a bother.
Moving on, it is a theme, I'll just make this a swatchathon!
A couple of things:
1) I've used white and an alternate color to show both the base jelly of the flakies and a deep color to show how they look over a darker shade.
2) No top coats and only two coats of the flakie, three coats of the base color
3) Mylar flakes exhibit a pretty iridescence that is hard to find in other flakies: they show pink and blue and other shades over light colors, a soft pastel purple, too.
Island Girl Mahalo Dream
The soft almost invisible coral pink base tints my white polish and disappears over Sally Hansen Tenacious Ruby. You can see over the deeper shade it loses that delicate pastel array and turns more metallic. It's the nature of these flakies.
This formula is very nice, it smells a little bit like Kleancolor, so it is a bit off-putting. The flakies aren't too dense, but I didn't have to wrestle to find any.
My sister bought me this while she was in Las Vegas. I gave her directions to the ABC store and she picked me up a few Island Girl polishes. Ain't she great!?
SinfulColors Green Ocean
A perennial favorite. The small square glitters mixed into this flakie makes it more like a glitter at times, but you can see the shreds. Over white it's fairly blah. Over a medium or deep shade you can see the blue iridescence come out very boldly. I've got this over the old Walmart no name green I found during Halloween 2010 or 2009, in a quest to find a base in which to franken the then-elusive Illamasqua Rampage. Times change. It's a solid green that I really like on its own, and have Illa Rampage safely stashed in my Helmer!
This one is available at most drug stores that carry SinfulColors and if it's not available, they definitely repromote the shade.
L.A. Colors no name
I never got my hands on SinfulColors Red Ocean, so when I was in Ross one day and saw this in a pack, I grabbed the pack.
Here you can see the base is a strong pink tint and the flakies iridesce a pretty pink, blue and amber. There is also a small iridescent glitter, so it's not just flakie, it's similar to Green Ocean's makeup. Yay!
You can see some folded bits on my ring finger. Otherwise, not bad at all.
I put it over Borghese Roma Scarlet, a red shimmer, and mattified it:
In a lot of ways matte is a great way to bridge the dark polish and the mylar flakie! It still shows some iridescence in the glitter, but the metallic is less silver and more golden. I have to say I like this one a lot. Though I did munch the pinkie right before the photo. Ugh!
Rosie Sparkle Chronically Late
This is the second attempt at this polish. It's over Borghese Mezzanotte Blue, a dark navy that might as well be black, and at the bottom I've alternated over white.
Over the white it's almost invisible, but there is a beautiful blue opalescence that just kills and I could NOT get a photo of that. The polish needs to hit the right light: in some lights it looks like opal flashes, in others it looks like you've gotten a murky film on your nails.
Found on a blog sale and am not sure if it's a win for me.
I blogged Mezzanotte Blue awhile ago,
here.
OPI I Lily Love You
Finally my favorite. Mainly because of the balance of flakies and glitter. At one coat, there's little to argue with as far as coverage. As you can see the base is a strong pink and the flakies generous.
This is still around eBay, but you can see that there are some dupes out there.
I think I bought this at Transdesign (Nail Supply).
