Lustrous Lacquer: Brash

Monday, October 21, 2013

Lustrous Lacquer 10:58 AM What's in a finish

What's in a finish? - Creme

I don't know about you, but when I first started my obsession with nail polish I had no idea how many finishes there are or what the difference between them. A few finishes are pretty self-explanatory while others seem to be variations of a different finish. I've decided to put together a series of post explaining the different characteristics of each finish. Partly for myself, so I can remember, and partly for anyone else who has a hard time remembering the difference between a scattered holo and a linear one.

Let's start with the most popular finish Creme. Almost every nail polish company out there has a core line of creme finish polishes. I say almost because some indie polish makers might not offer this finish.

Brash Purple Prime

A creme finish polish is a pure color polish, meaning there are no additives for shimmer or sparkle. Known for its great shine and smooth finish, creme polishes can be sheer or opaque.

China Glaze Peachy Keen

I would have to say that most of my polish collection consists of creme finishes because they’re truly wearable for any occasion. In addition, versatility is a big plus as this finish offers the most color options to choose from – perfect if you’re like me and change your polish a lot!

Thanks for stopping by and checking out my first installment of this series. I hope you stick around and check out the future ones as well. Next time I'll be talking about Matte polishes. In the meantime I'd love to hear your thought on creme finish polish. Do they make up most of your collection too?

Monday, August 26, 2013

Lustrous Lacquer 9:50 PM Pure Ice

Brash Purple Prime

*Nothing to Disclose*

Today's NOTD post is a new to me brand called Brash. I found this brand of polish at Payless Shoes and it retails for $2.99. There are a small variety of colors to choose from but today I will show you Purple Prime.

This color was extremely hard to photograph and wanted to look blue no matter what I tried. I had to do a little tweaking in my photo editing soft wear to get a color accurate picture of the bottle. Fortunately, the sun came out and the pictures of my nails decided to play nice. I forgot to take a picture of the bottle outside when the sun was still up. Seems to be the story of my life these days.

Purple prime is a deep rich grape purple that dries to a creme finish. The application was a tad streaky with the first coat and I learned quickly not to play around with it too much in order to get an even coat. Full opacity was achieved with two coats. Now even the polish was streaky on the first coat it still flowed off the brush nicely. Not like a lot of my white polishes where it seems like the polish dries as soon as it hits the nail.

Incandescent light with flash

This color is different from anything I have in my collection so far, which surprised me since it seems like such a basic color. All my other deep purples have a shimmer or foil finish to them. In real life, it is a hint darker but this is the closest to color accurate I could get without editing.

Here is a close-up shot so you can see the richness of this color. I'm working on my close up one finger shots so bear with me on this, its a work in progress.

And because I have a hard time wearing just one color of polish I added Pure Ice Over You for a little bling. Of course, my thumb which isn't pictured turned out the best as far as the gradient goes. At first, I wasn't a big fan of this color combination but now I love it. The only thing I would change would be to have the little purple glitters show up a little more. They seem to be overpowered by the blue hex glitter.

So what do you think of Purple Prime? Have you tried any of the Brash polishes yet? Thanks for reading my post. Feel free to leave a comment. I love getting feedback from other polish lovers.