This is a two-fold post, dear readers; not just a post about my glittery mermaid manicure, but an entry about my longstanding quest to find the perfect purple polish. I own a lot of them, but they are mostly shimmers, glitters, and duochromes; however, it has been hard to find what I consider the perfect purple creme: the exact color of a Post-It Note.
In my travels searching for this polish I stumbled across L’Oreal’s new Spring collection at my local Walgreens and snatched up Royalty Reinvented (along with Revlon’s Royal, funnily enough). It appeared close enough in the bottle, perhaps a few shades lighter, but it was still in the same color family as my beloved Post-It purple:
macro shot of the bottle.
On the nail, it applied slightly thickly and almost too unwieldy to use until I added six or eight drops of polish thinner; then it became much easier to handle. While it stayed where I put it, it had some clumping issues pre-thinner, and despite its thick nature did not self-level. One coat was streaky and a mess; two coats leveled it out almost completely and was perfectly opaque.
Even with a coat of Seche Vite, I experienced some denting about half an hour later, which may be because of the thick coats I ended up having to use (also, I’m notorious for brushing on thick coats when I’m in a hurry to do my nails). However, for all of that, it ended up drying to a super shiny finish, and, on the nail, dried several shades darker — similar to the color I wanted originally.
Despite its application issues, I really do love this creme; I will give it a 3.5/5. If I knew I’d never wear it again the score would be lower, but I can’t help but think of what Royalty Reinvented will look like under all of my flakies, glitters, and other special-effects topcoats!
My previous manicure was done in an attempt to use some of my older polishes that don’t get as much love (or sunlight, since they all live in a drawer) — I wanted something pretty and flashy to combat the foggy, misty days New Orleans had been under, and so pulled out China Glaze’s Optical Illustion, from their fantastic Prismatic Chroma Glitter collection.
Optical Illusion is a primarily teal-colored base that has a duochrome shift to blue and silver, but it is also sprinkled with different colors of glitter throughout (which you can easily see in the above picture). The glitters so pictured show up just as well on the nail as they do in the bottle. Optical Illusion is one of my favorites in the collection (for once, I own an entire collection; I blame Sally’s B2G2 sales!), and made my nails quite shiny and sparkly, and, yes, mermaid-y:
In two coats, Optical Illusion is about 95% opaque (I can see some bald spots up there in the picture) and the duochrome shift is pretty strong in this polish; it is certainly the most dramatic of the collection. I had many compliments on my manicure. The only downside is that Optical Illusion is VERY thirsty, and even a coat of Gelous under the usual Seche Vite did not help give it a smooth finish. To that end, nor did Optical Illusion suffer any shrinkage.
I love this polish. I give it a 5/5 — China Glaze did something special with this collection, and I adore it, even if it’s a bit old hat by now.
Thanks for reading!
Cosmopolishtan 
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