Half Moon Holo

This polish, Lac Attack’s APWBD from the Harry Potter collection, is beyond cool and so well themed to its character inspiration, Albus (Percival Wulfric Brian) Dumbledore. Between the little half moon glittery bits, which evoke the headmaster’s twinkling bifocals, to the almost celestial mix of soft, ethereal colours (I seem to recall Dumbledore swanning around Hogwarts in his favourite lavender robes), to its unexpected glow-in-the-dark finish (Dumbledore is nothing if not a man of surprises), this polish has the Headmaster of Hogwarts’ name allllll over it. Literally!

I’ve tried APWBD over white before with some success, and over a more thematically-appropriate silver and turquoise gradient with even more, but until now, never over black (or very, very dark navy, as the case may be.) Which is a shame, because even with the slightly hazy finish the glow-in-the-dark pigment imparts when layered over darker colours, it really makes the glitter pop, giving this mani a pretty, sparkling night sky kind of look that wouldn’t be the least bit out of place decorating the enchanted ceiling in Hogwarts’ famed Great Hall.

Metallic Moon

It’s sort of a shame I had to cover up the metallic-on-metallic gradient under this glitter, Lac Attack’s APWBD, because gradients and I typically do not get on so well, and this one is unusually slammin’. I think it’s the doing of the base polish I used here, Essence’s Icy Princess, a wonderful-to-apply silver foil that seems to very nearly repel the polish sponged on top of it so you – and by you I mean me – can’t ruin your gradient by painting a giant globby bit straight into the middle of each nail like you – again, me – nearly ALWAYS do!

But cover it up, I did, with APWBD, a Harry Potter-inspired glitter topper from Lac Attack. It’s a beautiful polish whose sparkling glitters – silver and blue holo moons, purple squares and an assortment of rainbow holo bars and hexes – are set off by its lightly lime-tinted, glow in the dark base. It’s a super fun polish befitting both the Headmaster of Hogwarts (the APWBD stands for Albus Percival Wulfric Brian Dumbledore) AND my first genuinely awesome gradient!