Starlight Polish Dragon Scales & Mardi Gras

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One of my FB nail polish groups alerted me to the Starlight & Sparkles Etsy store, where plenty of shifting shimmer offerings are to be had (including, yes, the Clarins 230-type).  She's selling in 3 different types of shimmer, each offered in 3 bases: clear base for use as a topper, jelly tinted base to either wear solo or as a topper, and tinted jelly with linear holo.  All 3 of the colored base polishes came home with me ASAP.

indoor, bright CF lighting
Dragon Scales is a very teal-leaning green jelly absolutely packed with a sparkly shimmer that's bright metallic gold dead-on that shifts up to bronze then emerald then blue.

outdoor, bright sunlight
When the shimmer is in its golden phase, the overall look of the polish is much warmer, sometimes approaching mossy green:

bright sunlight for both

And when it's in the green phase, it's a cooler, jewel-toned brilliant emerald:

bright sunlight
And then that blue shift, YASSSS:

more with the bright sunlight
Yes, all the good pics are in full sunlight, but fear not, Dragon Scales is still glowy and lovely without the sun to spark it:

window-filtered morning daylight
I'm wearing 4 coats (yes, 4!) to get to the opacity you see here.  The jelly is nicely pigmented, but remains utterly translucent for all this shimmer to shine through.  The first coat was a little streaky like jellies most typically are, but it looked good by the 2nd and pretty great by the 3rd.  With every coat, the color became richer, deeper, and more saturated, and I absolutely wanted the golden embers in murky green promised by the bottle, so 4 coats it was.

bright sunlight
A coworker hosted a Mardi Gras party this weekend, and Dragon Scales was the perfect festive green to top with purple & gold streamers from SBS-04 to get my NOLA party look.

Rating:  a glorious 4 out of 5 stars.  Yeah, nobody likes 4 coats of anything, but each coat applied thinly, self-leveled nicely, then dried quickly, so it was very much worth it to get this color.  This wore better for me than jellies typically do, with minor edgewear but no chipping after several days.

Where to buy:  direct from Starlight.

~Michelle

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