Some people go out on Black Friday and buy things like TVs or Blu-Ray players or digital camera or clothes or whatever. But what did I do this year? Well, I hit up Walgreens and Ulta for some new polish, of course! I was especially looking for the new Luxeffects holiday polishes by Essie. I ended up with 3 of the shades: As Gold As It Gets, Shine of the Times, and A Cut Above.
I also picked up a couple of OPI shades at Ulta (it was buy 2 and get a base coat or top coat for free, too!), one of which was Birthday Babe. This is probably an older or permanent shade, but its silvery sheen caught my eye. For some reason, in the store, I thought it had a bit of a holographic element. Call it triptophan trauma or something because, alas, this was not true. Birthday Babe is just kind of a run of the mill, opalescent silver. It’s pretty but not spectacular.
Until you combine it with A Cut Above! All of the shades in the Luxeffects collection are meant for layering. For instance, As Gold As It gets is a sheer microglitter and Shine of the Times is a flaky. But if you ask me, the true standout of this collection is A Cut Above. I don’t think I’ve ever seen a pink glitter in quite this tone before. It’s so deliciously retro and reminds me of those 1950s tinsel trees. But layered over the silver of Birthday Babe it reminded me of mercury glass more than anything. Here, see for yourself!
Totes gorg, right? So I just did two coats of Birthday Babe and three coats of A Cut Above. While the glitter is of mixed sizes and there are lots of larger round pieces, the base is kind of goopy which makes the glitter a bit difficult to distribute evenly. So if you use a basecoat with this shade, make sure it’s good and dry before you apply this glitter.
What really gives this the mercury glass look is the tiny glitter. The base of A Cut Above is actually clear but when the metallic glitter is suspended over a metallic silver like Birthday Babe, the tiny sized glitter almost gives the whole thing a slight pink sheen. I was initially hoping that I could get this glitter to completely cover my nail in 3 coats, but I quickly figured out that wasn’t going to be the case. But never mind because I like the mercury glass effect even better! It’s a standout that’s definitely been noticed by several people. And I like that Essie saw fit to include a shade like this in a holiday collection. I’m not big on red and green polish in general so, aside from all the golds, holiday collections generally leave me slightly miffed. A Cut Above definitely loves up to its name!
Glossy Expectations 