Friday, May 17, 2013

Shimmer Polish Julie over Julep Charlotte

In this post I have another Shimmer glitter polish to share. You may remember that my very first blog post featured Shimmer Tiffany. This post features Julie. Julie has a clear base containing a lively rainbow mix of glitter colors with emphasis on purple and silver. There is mix of glitter shapes as well: hex and square. And sizes too: medium, small, and micro. 

Since Julie's color emphasis is purple, I decided to use a purple polish as "underwear." From my stash I chose Charlotte, a warm medium purple creme by Julep. Charlotte is a dream to apply. Like buttah! And opaque in one coat! I did go on and apply another coat  in a futile attempt to soften the himalayan-like quality of my nail ridges. Fortunately by the time I'd applied two coats of Julie plus a layer of matte topcoat on top of the two coats of Charlotte, my ridges were smothered into submission.

A word (or two or three or four) about the application of glitter polishes. It is often difficult. The glitter doesn't spread evenly. Or it sticks together in little glitter stacks and creates a thick lumpy looking surface. Or the brush catches on the little glitter stacks and drags them, creating bald patches. 

Shimmer's polishes don't seem to have these typical glitter polish application problems. I think this must be due to the very high quality of the base that Cindy has formulated for her glitter polishes. The base must hold the glitters in perfect suspension, keeping them from sinking and sticking to each other and allowing a smooth even distribution of glitter by the brush on the nail. Cindy's base does all of this very very well.

When I read an online interview with Cindy where she described working out the formula for the base as "a nightmare" and I had a sudden sense of her grit and stamina as she formulated and swatched and worked through one after another variation of this base. There's the steely determination of the formulator to get that base just the way she wanted it to be on one side, and on the other is the ethereal beauty of the sparkly polishes created with that base. There is a certain symmetry there, you know what I mean?

Or maybe I'm just thinking too much. You didn't come here to READ, did you? No! You came to LOOK! So let's get to it.


products I used for this post's look: Shimmer Julie, Julep Charlotte and Essie Matte About You topcoat


Shimmer Julie and a better look at Charlotte's nice medium purple... did I mention it was opaque in one coat?


macro shot of Julie in the bottle... how many colors do you see? how about shapes and sizes?


nice look for my nubbins, no?


I just couldn't resist taking picture after picture the spectacular glittery goodness of Julie in the bottle...

kinda fascinating


and beautiful


yup


Shimmer Julie over Julep Charlotte with matte topcoat


Shimmer Julie over Julep Charlotte with matte topcoat


Shimmer Julie over Julep Charlotte with matte topcoat


extreme close up whooooa


caught a ray of direct sunlight coming through the skylight in the bathroom


the joyful festive nature of Julie makes this polish very fun to wear

This polish makes my nubbins look like a party. I think I need more polishes from Shimmer, don't you? Will you help me pick some out when I come up for your birthday?

love,
Aunt Liz

ps. In the mood to see even BETTER (hard to believe, I know... NOT) photos of more Shimmer polishes? Cindy maintains a list of all Shimmer polishes HERE... click on any polish name to get to a page full of photos of that polish, then click on any of those photos to get to the enlarged versions of them.

pps. You know I keep a list of all the polishes in my stash. Did you know I also keep a list of the polishes I WISH were in my stash? Well I do. Which list is longer, do you think?

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