Wheel Y12: Indie Glitters from Polish Revolution

I knew the maker behind the now-gone indie brand Polish Revolution; we're still Facebook friends but the nail polish community we interacted most on is long gone, victim of the admin having some life changes and not handing it off to anyone else. It might have died on its own by now even if she had; FB and Twitter and other social media have taken over from the more intimate spaces I and others once frequented online. At least I have these polishes to remember those good times.

I didn't have quite enough non-crelly glitters from Polish Revolution to fill out this wheel, so slipped in one from Pretty Jelly, an indie brand I only have a few shades from picked up in swaps back when that was a more common thing.



(all 3 coats of glitter plus clear topcoat)

1. Polish Revolution The Fire Sermon
2. Polish Revolution Unicorn Johnson
3. Polish Revolution What Alice Found [love the color combination in this one; has just the right amount of gold to pop against the purple]
4. Polish Revolution You Better WERK
5. Polish Revolution Having a Kiki
6. Polish Revolution Glittoris [so much square glitter in one place ... very special]
7. Polish Revolution The Hyacinth Girl [I swatched this over dark green here]
8. Polish Revolution Bad Ass Mother Trucker
9. Polish Revolution Reading is Fundamental
10. Polish Revolution Underground Movement
11. Polish Revolution The Sea Was Boiling Hot
12. Polish Revolution Looking Glass Logic
13. Polish Revolution F'ing Classy
14. Polish Revolution Glitter Herpes
15. Polish Revolution What the Thunder Said [this has round glitter in it that I neglected to get out of the bottle due to my forgetting it needs to be fished out]
16. Polish Revolution Surprise
17. Polish Revolution Vajazzle
18. Polish Revolution Scared of Clowns
19. Polish Revolution Puffy Taco [a lot going on here and it works]
20. Pretty Jelly Wildflowers


Bottles 1 through 4 (since the labels cover the polish, I did side views, too):





5 through 7:





8 through 10:





11 through 14:





15 through 17:





18 through 20:

FingerPaints Film Noir Collection

I intended to do a Nail Wheel Wednesday post yesterday but my brain is still lagging; I neglected to bring the notebook with the color names with me to work and then was too tired to write after I got home. Next week I hope I'll have settled back into my normal routine. Today I've got the FingerPaints Film Noir Collection, which debuted at Sally Beauty in August but which I've still seen in some stores recently. All four polishes in this collection dry to a matte finish: Petal Obsession, Beautiful Mystery, Hollywood Decadence, and Film Noir.



Petal Obsession is a pastel pink. This didn't seem to want to self-level; I used three coats for my swatch and still had some uneveness in the finish. I added on coat of Hollywood Decadence on my accent nail; this has turquoise, gold, and warm pink glitter in a clear matte base.





Beautiful Mystery is a light blue; this went on a bit more smoothly than the pink did. Again, I did a one coat accent nail with Hollywood Decadence.





Film Noir is a very deep red wine; this had the best formula of any of the matte cremes. Accent nail once again got a coat of Hollywood Decadence. If you built it up, you could wear Hollywood Decadence on its own; I just liked it layered as that shade of gold doesn't flatter me.





When I swatched Polish Revolution Literary Wasteland, I mentioned that I thought The Fire Sermon would look good layered over deep base colors, so I tried it over Film Noir (and added topcoat, too). I think I found my go to autumn mani for this year right here.



I like this FingerPaints collection much more than Enchanted Mermaid from July.

Polish Revolution Literary Waste Land

Today I have the most recent collection from indie brand Polish Revolution: Literary Waste Land, a group of five glitters inspired by a T.S. Eliot poem. Left to right: The Fire Sermon, The Hyacinth Girl, Unreal City, At the Violet Hour, What the Thunder Said.



The Fire Sermon is an autumnal mix of different sizes of rust and orange hex glitter, some of it holographic, and color shifting square glitter plus yellow orange shimmer in a black jelly base.



I swatched The Fire Sermon on its own at three coats plus topcoat and thought it looked good that way, though I can imagine it looking equally good over various deep base colors, like black or wine or brown.





The Hyacinth Girl has a clear base packed with various shades and sizes and shapes of lilac glitter, square green glitter, iridescent glitter, and lavender shimmer.



I used two coats of The Hyacinth Girl plus topcoat over a dark green LCN shimmer I bought when I was in Minsk at the end of April (there's no shade name on the bottle, at least not in English, but Googling the product number leads me to believe it's called Green Emerald). This combination makes me think of summer, though I bet over a lime or lilac base it would feel more spring-like.





Unreal City has charcoal, grey, sky blue, and dark orange glitter in a cool toned grey crelly base.



I swatched Unreal City at three coats plus topcoat. Looking at it from a seasonal perspective, I'd slot it in winter, near the end, when the snow has gotten a bit dirty and is starting to melt, revealing bits of color from items buried beneath.





At the Violet Hour is a dusty lilac crelly with a rich mix of glitter and shimmer in shades of lavender, purple, and green, including some holo.



At the Violet Hour also took three coats plus topcoat for my swatching purposes.





What the Thunder Said has blue, pinkish red, lilac, and holographic glitter in a black jelly base; the special touch here are the large round charcoal holo glitters.



I use three coats of What the Thunder Said plus topcoat for my swatch. I did not have much success coaxing the circle glitters out to play; it was possible but I lacked the patience on this particular day. It's fun to look at even without the circles, though.





I felt a bit bad about rushing through my swatching of What the Thunder Said and not giving it a chance to show it's full circled glory on my nails, so I gave it some extra attention by adding a coat of The Hyacinth Girl, which actually coordinated quite nicely.





I quite like these polishes; you can tell that there's a lot of care and thought that went into them—the glitter/shimmer combinations strike a great balance between having enough variety to be interesting but not so much that they look messy.

The collection is available from the Polish Revolution etsy store for $9 per full size bottle.

Alessandro Blue Nuit and Polish Revolution F'ing Classy

A while back, Alessandro sent a bottle of polish for me to review in Blue Nuit, a navy blue creme. It's quite pigmented; I used only one coat for these swatches. After I had the color on, I really wished I'd used a base coat so the imperfections in my nail surface would be more camouflaged (I generally don't use base when swatching since when I do have block of time to swatch, I don't want to waste it trying things I already know about, like bases), so I added topcoat to smooth things over (a second coat of Blue Nuit would have done the same, but I wanted you all to see how good coverage was with one coat).





In most lighting conditions, Blue Nuit does look blue—very dark blue, but blue, not black, which I appreciate. In very subdued lighting, it is pretty indistinguishable from black, but in those conditions, there's probably something else going on to distract you from your nails, like a movie or impending sleep.

I don't wear cremes plain very often, so I looked around my swatching boxes for something to jazz up Blue Nuit. I found Polish Revolution F'ing Classy, a mix of small purple, aqua, silver, and holo glitters. Most are hex glitters but there are some small squares scattered in there too. Here's one coat of F'ing Classy over the Alessandro (no added topcoat):



I then added a second coat of F'ing Classy and some topcoat (because at this point I had glitter piled on top of glitter). Saying I liked this would be understating it by quite a lot. I wanted to abandon the rest of my plans for the swatching session and try F'ing Classy over about a billion more colors; maybe someday I'll schedule that in.





I haven't seen Alessandro in any stores around me yet, but they can be purchased from the Alessandro International website for $9.50 per 10 ml bottle.

You can get F'ing Classy and other fun glitters from the Polish Revolution Etsy shop for $10 per 15 ml bottle.

The Alessandro polish shown in this entry was provided free for review purposes. The content of the entry was not dictated by the provider, and I get to keep the polish for my own use. I purchased the Polish Revolution color.