....and then one day I stumbled across Echoes Polish!
The thing I enjoy most about thermal polishes is that you can essentially be wearing two different colours of polish at once. It's the same with solar-activated polishes a la Ruby Wing. They really are remarkable and can turn a "meh" mani into an "amazing" mani and with stamping I nearly explode sometimes with the awesomeness.
I have collected a few from various sources, but for the most part, the majority of the ones I have found are either purple-pink changing or blue-purple changing.....love the colours, but I don't always want to wear them. In my search to find a new Indie brand to support and new thermals to try, I found the girls at Echoes Polish on Etsy. They are a independent nail polish brand consisting of two sisters and based in Chatham, Canada, I placed an order within seconds and the next day found their Storenvy shop and bought a few more - they were lovely and combined the orders for me too!
I was SO impressed with their range of colours, their prices and the fact they shipped to New Zealand. Many a time I have found amazing Indie brands and then been faced with an embargo on shipping overseas. I understand the reasons, of course, but do a jump for joy whenever I find places that do ship here.
Look at my haul of pretties:
Left to Right: Suckerpunch, You Mountain, I Blue It!, Borked (AKA Ferngully) & Step On My Toe, Flamingo!
One of the best things about the bottle labelling at Echoes Polish is that with every thermal you purchase, they have little colour charts on the backs of the bottles so you don't ever forget which shades they will change to.
When I recieved these, I immediately got to swatching to both admire the colours and to see the ease of change with the thermal pigment.
First up is: Suckerpunch
 |
| Indoors in Natural Light |
Suckerpunch is a GORGEOUS hot pink shade when hot and changes to a berry pink when at room temperature, a medium purple when a bit cooller and nearly black when very cold.
Formula was fantastic - they all were, in fact. I did find with each bottle that because they are made to order and hand-mixed that there were some bits of pigment smeared around the edges of the bottle that weren't 100% mixed in. A bit of a shake n' roll and that sorted the issue out - I had no blobs of pigment drag across my nails while applying.
Dry time was also amazing with all the colours. Three coats that dried nearly instantly and I had full opacity. They also all dried to a matte/semi-textured finish. With a thick coat of topcoat they became nice and shiny.
 |
| Indoors in Natural Light |
Suckerpunch in its room temperature berry pink with the tips transitioning in the cold to purple.
 |
| Indoors in Natural Light |
Further transition into its cold state. It's worth mentioning I didn't quite get the full black colour at the coldest end of the transition. This is partly due to me not being keen to completely freeze my hand off and partly due it just not being cold enough here in the winter for it to happen - further south in the country and you get snow so it will probably work there.
 |
| Indoors in Natural Light |
Nearly completely transitioned into purple. The purple is a more blue-leaning purple and quite deep when it gets very cold.
Overall thoughts: Yes, it's another pink-purple thermal polish, but it is definitely different to the one other I have in this colour range. The colours are deeper and richer, the formula is far more even and the dry time quicker. The possibility of ever being somewhere cold enough to get the black change makes me want to move to Canada - which incidentally is part of our life-plan anyways!
Next: You Mountain, I Blue It!
 |
| Indoors in Natural Light |
Now this shade is a stunner! You Mountain, I Blue It! is a light aqua blue to periwinkle blue, purple and magenta thermal polish. The colours it transitions through are just stunning and definitely has more that two static shades it changes between.
 |
| Indoors in Natural Light |
You Mountain, I Blue It! in its warmest shade...I would say it is ever-so-slightly changing towards the cooller blue in the above picture.
 |
| Indoors in Natural Light |
 |
| Indoors with Natural Light |
Mid-transition through the periwinkle and into the cooler purple shade. This particular polish also has a decent amount of shimmer to it that is not immediately obvious, but it certainly there when the light hits it at certain angles.
 |
| Indoors in Natural Lighting |
Formula was perfect - three coats above. Dry time, again, was excellent and it dried to a semi-textured finish that can be smoothed with topcoat.
 |
| Indoors in Natural Light |
You Mountain, I Blue It! in full transition into purple when cold with a hint of the warmer purple at the tips of my nails - especially on the thumb.
Overall thoughts: This has to be one of my favourite thermals EVER. I don't even know how these ladies manage to formulate these polishes to have so many complex shades. None of the polishes I purchased in this order are just "simple" colour changers - they are complex and very very beautiful.
Third thermal is: Borked AKA Ferngully
A quick note - this polish is actually named Ferngully but after the ladies sent the polishes out they discovered from their supplier that one of the pigments had been mislabelled and that the Ferngully that I would recieve would only change between dark and light green.
 |
| Indoors in Natural Light |
Borked is a super unique shade that I believe I have the only bottle of! It is a bright lime green when warm and changes to a grassy green when room temperature - when it gets really cold there is a darker forest green that appears on the tips of my nails. There was no shimmer at all in this one.
 |
| Indoors in Natural Light |
You can nearly see the three distinct changes with this polish in the above image. The lime green towards the cuticle and a very subtle line of grassy green before the darker teal. I assure you this one, even though it was a bit stuffed up by the pigment mix-up, is just as beautiful as it might have been with normal colour changes.
 |
| Indoors with Natural Light |
Borked with a full room temperature colour change into its cold grass green and darker teal on the tips. Formula was perfect and consistent - again semi-textured finish and three coats for opacity.
Fully transitioned into cold dark teal - on my ring finger you can see and even darker colour peeking through!
Overall thoughts: I was so blown away by this one. I wasn't even disappointed that I knew it wouldn't change as described. It was like a little surprise looking at all the different shades it achieved! I don't own many green polishes and when I put this one on...well, I wore it for about a week. Very very pleased.
Another note: The ladies at Echoes Polish were nice enough to send me a replacement free of charge and also let me pick another polish of my choosing which I will review at another time! Incidentally, the replacement bottle shattered in transit and from that point the formula of the original Ferngully has changed. They have shipped out yet another bottle - cannot believe their quality of customer service!
Last thermal I recieved: Step On My Toe, Flamingo!
 |
| Indoors in Natural Light |
Step On My Toe, Flamingo! is certainly one interesting thermal. It is a bright coral, leaning ever-so-slightly pink, when hot and transitions directly to a dark maroon - nearly black - when cold. I never managed to get the black end, but again this is directly a result of the warmer temperatures of my location.
 |
| Indoors with Natural Light |
Mid-transition into the maroon - especially apparent on the little finger.
Formula was excellent and consistent - interestingly enough was nearly a jelly polish! You could definitely use two coats or so of this with a glitter to achieve the 'jelly sammich' mani. I am only wearing two coats above and you can see a little visible nail line.
Dry time was within seconds and two coats was done and dry in about 5 minutes or so - if you can bear having a bit of VNL peeking through, this can be a quick and interesting mani.
 |
| Indoors in Natural Light |
 |
| Indoors in Natural Light |
Above is the darkest shade of maroon I could achieve. There is the smallest suggestion of black on the tips, but not much. I suspect if I had dunked my hand into colder ice-water, I would have found the elusive black....but then ain't nobody got time for that!
 |
| Indoors in Natural Light |
Overall Thoughs: This is a very unique thermal shade. I have never found one quite like it! I found it perfect for getting me used to wearing darker colours....I am not really a fan of how they look on me, but the thermal properties of this one let me experience the darker shades in small doses. I ended up doing some nail art with this one not too long afterwards and was greatly pleased with the results.
 |
| Indoors in Natural Lighting |
I hope, by now, that I have convinced you to go and check out Echoes Polish! The ladies who run the store are wonderfully warm and friendly people - have always responded in a timely and friendly manner. When the mix-up with Ferngully came up they messaged me immediately and proposed a solution before I even had to ask what could be done. That sort of customer service when dealing with an international order - and considering they shipped out a replacement TWICE - well, that gets an A++ in my books.
They also have an extremely wide variety of polishes to choose from. Given the consistency of formula with the polishes I have now, I have no hesitation in knowing all the polishes are mixed with the same care to detail. The colours you can see here are just a fraction of the rainbow of different thermal and glitter polishes they offer - I can see myself accumulating an entire Helmer drawer-ful of these babies in the very near future!
I cannot recommend Echoes Polish more and am really looking forward to seeing and supporting them as they add new things and grow the brand.
Echoes Polish can be found on Etsy here and over at Storenvy here!
(Disclaimer: All polishes and extra materials used and reviewed in this blog post were purchased and not donated for review unless otherwise stated.)
No comments:
Post a Comment