Thursday 3 July 2014

Doctor Lacquer - Kaleidoscope World Collection

If you haven't purchased this lot yet....I COMMAND YOU TO DO SO!


  


Behold the eight Holographic Neon polishes in the Kaleidoscope World Collection from the wonderful Doctor Lacquer!



I have mentioned these polishes a few times. Ever since I saw the promo pictures of the Holographic Neon version on Doctor Lacquer's feed on Instagram, I knew I had to have them. I didn't even care about the price, I knew I was coming into some money, and I also knew from browsing reviews that they would be amazing! THEY ARE. Dear God...these are some amazing polishes...and this lot came to me with a wee story that will be attached at the end of this monumentally pic-heavy post.


First up, we have Betalain!

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Betalain is a warm, red-toned purple with a healthy dose of linear holographic pigment. The colour definitely leans more towards the 'red' end of purple than the 'blue' end - typically I prefer blue-toned purples simply because of my skintone, but I do rather like this one.


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The formula was simply amazing! They are quite sheer and do require several coats, but honestly the dry-time makes it a breeze. In fact, every single one of these polishes dried with amazing speed!


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You can see 4 thin coats above and in all of the following pictures - yes, I still have some visible nail line, but this is merely because the polishes are very sheer and I wasn't willing to play around with a 5th coat.

Indoors in Artificial Light

 Interestingly, all of these polishes are named after certain pigments and proteins found in nature! Though they are not physically mixed with their particular matching pigment or protein...I imagine that would yield interesting results. Betalain is apparently part of the 'red pigment' family and is found in a very concentrated form in Beetroot! The things a polish lover learns.


Indoors in Artificial Light


Next up is: Hemoglobin!

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Hemoglobin is a very pretty, blue-toned pink holographic neon polish. The colour is on the more 'cool' side of pink, but not in any way a purple.


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Formula, again, was outstanding and four coats dried quickly to a satin finish - I didn't add topcoat to any of my swatch photos, but it really does bring out that linear holo.


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I found Hemoglobin to be one of the more opaque shades in the Collection and while I did use 4 coats, I could have easily gotten away with only 3 and not had a great deal of visible nail line.


Indoors in Artificial Light

Doctor Lacquer does mention trying these polishes over a white base if you really want the colours to pop. I tried this. I was frustrated because they became INCREDIBLY streaky and hard to work with. So, I gave up. You still really get the beautifully bright neon even without the white base.


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 Hemoglobin is a protein that helps carry oxygen on blood cells and makes them appear very red!

Next up is the much warmer pink: Annatto
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Annatto is a hot, peachy-pink holographic polish. It leans quite coral on me, but I assure you it is definitely a pink polish.


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Formula was as brilliant as the other two. Dried quickly and built to fair opacity in 4 thin coats. It is hard to tell from these swatch photos, but in the sun the holographic flare is very intense.

Indoors in Artificial Light
Indoors in Artificial Light

Fun fact! Annatto is a red-based colouring derived from a seed-coating and is often used in the colouring of cheeses!

Polish number four is: Lycopene
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Lycopene is a bright, warm orange holographic polish. I don't normally get down with orange polishes - they are the most mis-represented shade in my nail polish collection. I have only a couple of hundred nail polishes and own about 4 orange shades.

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Orange just simple doesn't agree with my pink-toned skintone BUT I have made allowances for this one! Beware...all the photos do make my hands look very yellow. I wasn't even going to include them, but found it all quite funny so did it anyway!

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Application was a breeze which became a quick standard with this collection. The colour really is beautiful, just not on me!

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Lycopene is another red-based colouring that is found in Tomatoes, Red Carrots and even Watermelons!

Heading even further into lobster-hands territory, we have: Carotene!
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Carotene is a bright, sunny, slightly orange-leaning yellow. It is a very golden colour that is not quite orange, but not quite yellow either. It did some interesting things in terms of making my skintone look weird.

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This particular shade, I found, was the most sheer shade of the bunch. Pictured above is 4 thicker than normal coats and yet the nail line is still very obvious. This doesn't bother me too much, but I suspect it might make it a no-go shade for others. Feel free to battle with it over a white, if you dare!

Indoors in Artificial Light
Indoors in Artificial Light

Carotene is an orange-based pigment and has the wonderful responsibility of donating it's beautiful sunny colouring to Carrots, Sweet Potatoes (or Kumara, if you are from my neck of the woods) and Rock Melons!


First of the greens is: Lutein!
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Lutein is a beautiful, light, yellow-green shade. Think more of a lime-green colour than an irish-green or kelly-green. I found this shade to be a tad more sheer than the others as well - more akin to how sheer Carotene above.

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Formula was very good, but this particular bottle was a bit thicker to apply than the others. Please be aware that this 'thickness' has a tale behind it and I would not expect it to be the norm.

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Indoors in Artificial Light

Lutein is another yellow-based colouring and is interestingly responsible for the wonderful, fresh green shades in spinach, kale and yellow carrots!


The second of the two green shades is: Chlorophyll!
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Chlorophyll is a more true-green shade than Lutein above. It is a cool-toned green and definitely leans more blue-toned.

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In the bottle, it appeared to me to be a really intense neon-green, but I sort of lost it's 'neonness' once on the nail. I recommend trying all of them over white if you want to have a super-intense colour.

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If you ever took Biology in school, then you will know all about Chlorophyll. It absorbs light in leaves on trees and plants and converts it into energy! Every single green leaf on a plant you can see will have this molecule inside the leaves.


Nail Art to finish!

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The look above was achieved by simply layering the polishes over a little bit more than half of each nail. Creating the overlap was important because I wanted to demonstrate what can be achieved with the sheer nature of these polishes. I was impressed with how it looked and obsessed over my rainbow nails for days!
Final Verdict: Go buy the whole bunch. Just do it. The formula is consistently fantastic, the dry time is incredibly fast and the colours very vibrant and rich. I pre-ordered the set and it came with Reflection: a super holographic silver chrome, and Refraction: a beautiful rainbow glitterbomb polish. I need to review those two as well because they are also very awesome.
*One important factor worth noting that I didn't mention previously is that these are STANKY polishes. All of the holographic neons had some intense fumes so use in a well-ventilated area!*
The story of my bottle of Lutein: This bottle arrived smashed, but still stuck together with just under half the polished leaked out. I messaged Angelyn, owner of Doctor Lacquer, as soon as I noticed it...and then checked her replacement/refund policy regarding international orders. It would appear that nothing could be done short of me purchasing and playing to send an entire new bottle here. Then I got a wonderful email! Angelyn compromised and told me if I was willing to pay shipping here, then a replacement bottle would be sent along FREE. 

Angelyn did not have to offer this. I know that shipping here is incredibly expensive and there are some independent polish companies out there that would offer less. When you do live so far out of the way like I do, these little things really make the difference and make me want to buy more and tell others how fantastic the customer service is! Moral of the story: do not be afraid to discuss things with the owner if something unexpected happens!

You can find Doctor Lacquer polishes over on Etsy and Storenvy
You can also find Doctor Lacquer on Facebook  and Instagram @DoctorLacquer.





(Disclaimer: All polishes and extra materials used and reviewed in this blog post were purchased and not donated for review unless otherwise stated.)


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