Thursday, January 19, 2017

Colors by Llarowe Did You Know You're My Hero?

Did You Know You're My Hero was released in April 2016 by Colorado-based indie polish maker Colors by Llarowe (CbL) as part of the Tribute to a Wonderful Friend subset of the Spring 2016 collection. The base color is a light milky blue along the lines of a traditional sky blue or Crayola's cornflower blue. Superabundant colorshifting microflake shimmers with a pink-to-gold shift give it a substantially duskier quality, creating a look that ranges from a medium greyed periwinkle in the shade to an iceberg blue in brighter ambient light. The microflake shimmers are quite overt, easily visible in their pink iteration as a glistening pink mist along the axis of light that shifts to antique gold in certain viewing circumstances. Direct sun amps up the intensity of both the base color and the shimmers, which transform to a splashy field of bright pink sparks. 

Application was ok. My bottle of Did You Know You're My Hero was unusually thick, an anomaly I'm sure. It needed multiple additions of polish thinner accompanied by vigorous shaking and allowing it to stand for a while to get it to a paintable state. Thinned, it had a fluid, full-bodied consistency with a medium viscosity and a smooth, very even glide over the nail. It did thicken a little on the brush with exposure to air, but closing it up and shaking returned the fluency. Pigmentation is excellent for such a light color -- it acts almost like a one coater, but a touch of sheerness requires a second for complete opacity. Cleanup is mostly pretty easy, although the microflake shimmers do like to cling. Did You Know You're My Hero dries naturally in very good time to a flat finish that wants a glossy topcoat to look its best. 

Photos show two coats of Did You Know You're My Hero over KBShimmer Love You Strong Time treatment and KBShimmer Fillin' Groovy basecoat with a topcoat of Seche Vite.


Colors by Llarowe Did You Know You're My Hero?


Colors by Llarowe Did You Know You're My Hero?


Colors by Llarowe Did You Know You're My Hero?


Colors by Llarowe Did You Know You're My Hero?


Colors by Llarowe Did You Know You're My Hero?


Colors by Llarowe Did You Know You're My Hero?


Colors by Llarowe Did You Know You're My Hero?


Colors by Llarowe Did You Know You're My Hero?


Colors by Llarowe Did You Know You're My Hero?


Colors by Llarowe Did You Know You're My Hero?


Colors by Llarowe Did You Know You're My Hero?


Colors by Llarowe Did You Know You're My Hero?


Colors by Llarowe Did You Know You're My Hero?

There's a sparkling, iridescent quality to those microflake shimmers that really give this polish kind of a glass fleck look, no? The very dusky quality of the color out of direct sun rather surprised me. Based on photos in various reviews of this collection, I was expecting the polish to look generally like it does in the sun. It turns out to have much more of a mercurial nature, going from dusky and greyed in the shade to bright and radiant in strong direct light. 

love,
Liz

2 comments:

  1. Replies
    1. There is another polish from this collection called Helen that is very similar -- the same pink shimmers in a slighter greener blue. I've got it my swatching chute and will be interested to see if it shares the same changeable quality that this one has.

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