Enchanted Polish Rainstorm

Rainstorm was released last month by California-based indie polish maker Enchanted Polish as a limited edition custom collaboration shade with Laetitia of the French blog iLaeti. You can read Laetitia's post about her polish and see her gorgeous photos here (English translation by Google). Described as a "stormy grey/blue with holographic flakies," the color is a dark, chromatic grey with aspects of navy and indigo, darker than slate, similar to the color marengo. In natural ambient light it has a charcoal look, but bright direct light, especially sunlight, brings out the blue in it. It's filled with shardy little variously-shaped silver holographic flakies, giving it a finely stippled appearance and veiling it with scattered, twinkling prismatic sparks in direct light.

Application was a little tetchy. The consistency of Rainstorm is fluid and somewhat grainy from the holographic flakies, with a thicker viscosity to which I added polish thinner at the outset. Thinned to a medium viscosity, it had a fairly even, self-leveling flow over the nail with noticeable tumbling and stickups on the part of the flakies, unusual for this kind of component in my experience. Pigmentation is very good, delivering evenly opaque coverage in two coats. Cleanup is straightforward, no pigment travel and little to no residual staining. Rainstorm dries naturally in average time to a shiny, sharply-textured finish that was only smoothed by a double topcoat of gel-effect and quick-dry.

Photos show two coats of Rainstorm over treatment and basecoat with a layer of Pretty Serious Plump Up the Volume gel-effect topcoat and a layer of Seche Vite.

Enchanted Polish Rainstorm

Enchanted Polish Rainstorm

Enchanted Polish Rainstorm

Enchanted Polish Rainstorm

Enchanted Polish Rainstorm

Enchanted Polish Rainstorm

Enchanted Polish Rainstorm

Enchanted Polish Rainstorm

Enchanted Polish Rainstorm

Enchanted Polish Rainstorm

Enchanted Polish Rainstorm

Enchanted Polish Rainstorm

Enchanted Polish Rainstorm

The color is fabulous, a dark, urbane blue-grey with an indigo lean that matches Laetitia's inspiration photo (below) beautifully.

I was surprised and a little perturbed by the texture of the holographic flakies, which are almost like tiny shards of glass and made it difficult to get the kind of smooth application you'd expect from a well-known brand like EP. It was all good in the end, though, and this deep sophisticated scattered holo is a nice break from lighter, brighter summer colors. 

love,
Liz