Shifty Duo from Great Lakes Lacquer

Today I have two beauties from Great Lakes Lacquer that have been languishing in my stash waiting for their day to shine: Making Peace With Past Indiscretions and Resolve.

 

Making Peace With Past Indiscretions is a multichrome shimmer that's deep green shifting to purple, with shades of blue and even gold in between depending on the light. It has scattered holo microglitter, too, to add even more interest.

 

I used two coats for my swatch and that was plenty. Straight on in indirect light, it mostly showed its rich green base, with hints of purple at the edges.

 

Start changing the angles and the shifts appear:

 

 

 

Out of the lightbox under direct light, it looked like a gorgeous night sky:

 

Resolve has small shifty glitter pieces that go green to blue to purple along with a holo microglitter scatter in a clear base, so it pairs very well with Making Peace.

 

I put one coat of Resolve over Making Peace and added clear topcoat. Loved this combination!

 

Resolve is so sparkly and it seemed to really enchance the shift in Making Peace.

 

 

 

One more of the combo in direct light:

 

On the one hand, I have so many pretties I haven't worn, so at least swatching them so I get to enjoy them for a little while is a good thing. On the other hand, seeing them on my nails just makes me want to go look for more pretties. We shall see if my commitment to a low buy survives the post-Thanksgiving rush.

Poparazzi Dancehall Queen and Lilac Romance

Though I didn't buy any Poparazzi polishes on my trip last month, seeing the display pics reminded me that I did buy some last year that I never got around to sharing, so I'm going to remedy that for two of them today: Dancehall Queen, a purple multichrome shimmer, and Lilac Romance, a lilac and holo glitter topper.

 

You can see in the photo above that Dancehall Queen has a strong multichrome effect in the bottle. On the nail, it's somewhat less colorful, even at three coats. Granted, I didn't use a black base, which maybe would have helped, but I thought it was dark enough on its own. It's still a nice color.

 

You can see a hint of the color shift at some angles.

 

The outside of my bottle of Lilac Romance got covered in a flaky topper in a shipping incident, and I didn't clean it off particularly well, but the beauty of the glitter still shows through.

 

I added one coat of Lilac Romance plus clear topcoat over Dancehall Queen. This is a very "me" mani. Lilac Romance is dense enough that I think it might be buildable to opaque on its own, and wouldn't that be the best bling. Maybe I'll try it sometime.

 

 

 

 

 

I like these both, and think they're a good value.

Favorite Fakes

My apologies for the lack of posts last week. We finally got a good weather window for me and Mr. Karen to go visit his mom in western Washington, so we took advantage of that and were gone all last week. I did take my laptop, but ended up not even taking it out of its bag. Instead, I did some tasks around my mother-in-law's assisted living apartment and entertained her while Mr. K took care of some financial things for her that needed to get done. She was having a good week, so evenings were filled with family dinners over at my sister-in-law's house. It seemed appropriate to come back here with a post about the nails I wore on an earlier visit last year. I didn't include them in my Nails of 2021 post because I couldn't pick just one picture of them, I liked them so well. They're a set of imPress press-on nails. I put them on sitting in the passenger seat of the car on our drive out. The set (called Goal Digger) has mirror finish multichrome nails in green/blue/purple with fine silver glitter accent nails, which I didn't end up using any of since I liked the multichrome ones so much.

 

These were just entertaining to look at as I moved my hand around. From the side view below, you can see the purple coming out, as well as the little hint of gold at the edges.

 

When the sun hit them just right, they looked a lot like magnetic polish. Still not sure how I managed the green/blue alternating colors here.

 

Finally, a range of colors in the hotel room mirror.

 

I have no idea if these are still available for purchase, but I might have to look next time I'm at a Fred Meyer or Walgreens or Rite Aid. Looking at these photos makes me want to wear this look again.

Great Lakes Lacquer Olive Succulents

Even though I didn't have anywhere to go, I took yesterday off blogging for the MLK holiday (I also took it off skiing since I wanted to avoid all the visitors who came up to the mountain for the long weekend). Today I'm back, not with the swatches of the polishes I used in the Northern Lights mani that are now at least a week overdue from when I'd hoped to get them up, but with a quick look at a polish from Great Lakes Lacquer that I picked up last year: Olive Succulents. It was a custom done for a Facebook group, which generally I try to pretend I don't see because I can't keep track of every group and every box and every collab, but I saw a swatch of this one in the GLL fan group and it just grabbed me, so I joined the Olive Polish group so I could buy it. It has a dusty green base with shifting shimmer and some scatteered holo pigment.

 

Though this wasn't sold as a topper, I had to try it as one since I'd seen swatchers using three coats (or even four thin ones). So I put Essie Exposed, a dusty olive green creme, on my index and middle fingers before I opened my bottle of Olive Succulents. I left Exposed alone on my index for comparison purposes, then added a coat of Olive Succulents over it on my middle finger. My ring finger and pinky got three coats of Olive Succulents by itself.

 

Tipping my hand just slightly got the shift in the shimmer to show; where once there was blue, now there was lilac. It was more visible over the darker olive base, but still showed on its own.

 

 

 

In direct light, the holo particles added some sparkle, but the shifty shimmer was still the star.

 

I'm glad I grabbed this one. The green base makes it more interesting than if the same shimmer had been put in a more mainstream color. I've been tempted by some of the other group customs since I joined the olive group, but haven't gotten them since they haven't been from brands I like as well as Great Lakes Lacquer.

Color Club Lucky Charm

Color Club released a limited edition polish for Black Friday. I skipped it for a few reasons: 1) I was on a no buy for that whole weekend, 2) it was called Black Magic, which was annoying since there was already a Color Club Black Magic (this new one is a multichrome while the old one is a holo), and 3) it was $20 and looked just like some indies that are around $11. However, I wasn't feel so strong when their previous LE was released, Lucky Charm, which was originally going to come out around my birthday in March but ended up being delayed until summer. Now seems like a good time to finally share it. Lucky Charm is a brown-based berry/purple/green/gold multichrome with scattered holo microglitter.

 

Because I always want to try multichromes over a dark base, I put a black creme on my index finger before adding 1 coat of Lucky Charm over that, with 2 coats of Lucky Charm alone on my other digits. I added clear topcoat on all my fingers, too. This is scented; I smelled sugar cookies when it dried.

 

The black base brings out more of the green in the shift, but it also shows on the other nails at many angles.

 

The holo microglitter shows its colors even in indirect light, which was a pleasant surprise.

 

In direct light, the shimmer is more prominent at some angles, though the glitter still shows up.

 

At other angles in direct light, the green fades and the berry/purple takes center stage, still with those holo sparkles.

 

In sunlight, the holo glitter sparks even more, while the shify shimmmer still does its thing.

 

 

 

Shifting in the sunshine:

 

I can't think of another polish quite like this in my collection, so from that perspective it was worth buying (I'm not saying there isn't an indie like this—with so many brands out there now, it's likely there is and I just didn't see it much less buy it).

Pretty Purples from Pahlish and Dreamland

Last month when I swatched Cirque Colors Coronation, I mentioned that I'd treated myself to a few indies recently. Today I've got swatches of the other two pretties I bought around that same time.

First up is Pahlish Twelve Drummers Drumming, a warm purple jelly with shifty multicolored flakies and purple microglitter. It took so much self control to only buy this one shade from the 12 Days of Christmas collection.



I did two coats of Twelve Drummers Drumming; this surprisingly didn't leave me with a visible nail line even though it's definitely a jelly. At some angles, in some lighting conditions, I would catch a glimpse of VNL but I really had to be looking for it. This wasn't bumpy and didn't really need topcoat but I added some anyway just because I wanted to extend the experience of this polish on my nails.







The other treat I got for myself was from Dreamland Lacquer. Because I've been so out of the loop buying indies, this was the first time I'd seen the cardboard tubes they're packaging in now. Very nice and sturdy.



The polish in that tube was Fairytale of New York, a holiday 2017 limited edition. It's a purple/pink/burgundy multichrome with shifting shimmer.



Two coats of Fairytale of New York was plenty; if I'd been attentive, one might have done it. I added topcoat just because I was on a roll.







It read purple much of the time, which I'm of course perfectly happy with, though the pink was just a tilt of the hand away. I even saw it go completely wine/burgundy colored at one point when I took my hand out of the lightbox a bit and tipped my hand back (see below). Very fascinating to look at.



These two purple beauties coordinated so well that I put one coat of Twelve Drummers Drumming on my index and ring fingers on top of my Fairytale of New York swatch hand. Loved this combination!





I'm so happy to have both of these in my collection.