I Love ILNP!

Clearly, as my last two posts have featured a new-to-me ILNP (I Love Nail Polish) beauty. So here’s another one!

This is Paradox, another pick from ILNP’s Ultra Chrome Flakies Collection, this time with an added dash of holographic pixie dust.  I love the way the colour-shifting flakies – here in an assortment of fuchsia, purple, turquoise, blue and even a bit of gold – catch the light and morph across the whole rainbow spectrum, while the holographic shimmer twinkles prettily in the background.  I will note, however, that the two types of polishes ILNP has combined here – holos and chromatic flakies – are not totally compatible.  Holos always do their best work in the sun, while chromatic polishes like to stick to the shade – betwixt the two, there’s just a whole lot of eye-searing brightness and glare.  But!  The holographic shimmer in this polish is so fine – a true powdery shimmer as opposed to individual bits of micro glitter – it shows through loud and clear, even in indirect lighting, and the flakies are not so CHROME! that they’ll take your head off in the sun.  Now that is a pretty great polish.

The other day a reader asked if these flakies stick up off the nail after the polish has dried down.  No, not a bit. I realize in some of my photos it does indeed look like there’s an edge or two poking up, but as any good blogging lacquerista is probably aware, there’s an odd trick of the light at play here – in photography, glitter polishes, no matter the type, always sort of look like they’re trying to escape from your nails.  But no, completely smooth.  And best of all, unlike foil or iridescent-type flakies, these chromatic flakes remove with all the ease of a creme polish – simply swipe them off with regular polish remover and they’re gone.  Beauty.