It's a good week for nail polish...

I thought I was pretty lucky to find yesterday's "Space Cadet" by Orly, but now I'm two-for-two with duo-chromes! Introducing "Molten Gold" by Nina's Ultra Pro line!

While this polish doesn't have as nice of a "flash" as "Space Cadet", it does show off it's different colors in various lighting. Sometimes it is a deep pink, in others it's a rosy-gold, and still others an orangy copper. Scroll through the pics to compare!

It has a great metallic shimmer finish, which is accented by a coat of Sally Hansen's MegaShine.

Ratings:

Application: 6 out of 10. Took four coats to cover streaky application.
Color: 9 out of 10. The opposing colors in this duo-chrome look awesome. It practically looks like a different polish in different lighting.
Clean-up: 7 out of 10. It took a bit of scrubbing with a cotton ball and non-acetone remover.
Appearance: 10 out of 10. Overall, this is a great polish. My husband summed it up pretty well when he said "It looks like you should be wearing an evening gown...". I think "classy" is a good word to describe it. The color flash makes it unique, but the colors are main-stream enough to look great for a special occasion.

I received a very special package in the mail today, so I'll have a surprise for tomorrows review! You'll love it!

Finally! A good duo-chrome!

Let me introduce you to Orly's "Space Cadet":

...I know, right!?

Space Cadet is a peacock (purple w/ green flash) duo-chrome micro-glitter in a transparant terquoise base. So not only is this the duo-chrome to end all duo-chomes, it is also a metallic foil! I know! Check it out!

Maybe it's the run of disappointing duo-chromes I've tried lately, OPI's "Not Like the Movies", Wet n' Wild's dupe "Gray's Anatomy", and Zoya's "Ki" all want to be "Space Cadet" when they grow up. Pun intended!

Here's the best part; not only is the flash evident even in soft white light and office florecents, but the whole nail flashes at the right angle! More importantly, you can see all colors in this polish's spectrum just by looking at the nail, without movement. This might be less noticable on people with a flatter nail-bed than mine, but most of the time the sides appear mossy-green, the dead center of the nail is a deep purple, and everything in-between is a pinkish-copper. On top of that is a light sparkle from the micro-glitter.

This is also the first duo-chrome I've seen that is able to portray really vibrant hues instead of muted pastels. Just look at this purple!

Unfortunatly it does have it's drawbacks. The turquoise jelly Orly uses for the suspension base dyed my nails through 2 coats of Nailtien base coat, which was even more annoying since I had just sanded off the stains left from Wet n' Wild's "Teal of Fortune". It was also a huge pain in the ass to get off, and wound up using the soaking method (with pure acetone) to remove it, and still had copper microglitter in every microscopic imperfection of my hands.

Ratings:

Application: 8 out of 10. Kinda blotchy during application, but a coat of Sally Hansen's "Megashine" evened it out.
Color: 10 out of 10. Everything a peacock duo-chrome should be.
Clean-up: 5 out of 10. Pure hell.
Appearance: 10 out of 10. The end product is just beautiful.

I would say that the result is well worth the few drawbacks. Congrats to Orly on making one of my new favs!

Another dissapointing duo-chrome...

I'm not sure if the nail polish gods hate me, or if there is something in my body chemisty that makes duo-chromes simply fail. I was really excited by the prospect of Zoya's Ki, because it looked great in the bottle and even better on the swatch in the store. But while it was supposed to be a stealy-violet with a shamrock-green flash, this is what I got:

Looks like a pretty kick-ass purple huh? Which is all well and good, but where is my damn green flash!? I tried it under multiple light sources, all to no avail.

I like the color as it is, but I was hoping for a duo-chrome that didn't require me risking skin cancer to see.

Ratings:


Application: 6 out of 10. Kinda clumpy. I also had some issues due to it's transparency. It really needed 3 coats to reach full coverage, but that many coats lead to pooling at my cuticles.
Color: 7 out of 10. Awesome purple, but you might require a professional stage lighting crew to see the flash.
Clean-up: 7 out of 10. Acetone removed the color easily, but I was left with ragged edges where the excess polish had pooled.
Appearance: 8 out of 10. It has a nice shimmer AND shine without a top coat. It also leaves a really smooth surface if you've avoided the clumps carefully enough. Little to no shrinkage.

Overall a cute, trendy color at the moment. Next time I'll be re-visiting the burnt oranges from OPI's Burlesque collection to show off a half-moon manicure!