Aaaaaah, a England: how many times do I paint with one of Adina's creations and then wish that every formula could be just like this? a England has had some incredibly similar-looking colors in her recent collections - quite a few of them now have had a pewter-silver in there - so I originally passed on all of the Russian Soul collection. I don't remember which blogger to credit with my finally buying Katyusha, but this is one of my fave silvers ever now.
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| indoor, CF lighting |
Katyusha is a gorgeous mid-tone silver (nowhere near as bright true silver as the cap, and nowhere near blackened pewter/gunmetal silver) that in low light looks quite cool-toned, with a bit of a purple/green shift visible in the bottle and a greenish tinge to the curve of the nails.
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| window-filtered morning daylight |
The lower and softer the light, the more noticeably shifty these cool colors are, picking up some of the aqua, green, and purple from the bottle, and then finally on over to a lovely aqua green at extreme angles.
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| indoor, CF lighting |
In brighter light, though, the tone of the silver warms up a good bit and the shine in the center becomes more gold-toned. It's a subtle but definitely chameleonic effect.
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| indoor, bright CF lighting |
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| outdoor, bright sunlight |
Katyusha also has that trademark softly glowing brushed metallic holo effect that I genuinely don't know of anyone but a England doing.
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| outdoor, bright sunlight |
After wearing Katyusha solo for a couple days, I tried out the "smoosh" technique that us non-water-marblers are getting some really cool effects with. I placed a few drops of Katyusha, Tristam, and Lady of the Lake (all a England to preserve that particular holo flavor) on my silicone mat, then dabbed into them with my stamper, and placed the now conveniently swirled polish on my accent nail. It's exactly as easy as youtube tutorials make it look, and the effect is quite pretty.
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| window-filtered indirect daylight |
The gold flash visible in bright light reminded me of the contrasting shimmer in Mirror of Dawn from Femme Fatale's long-discontinued holo collection, so I pulled that one out for a quick bottle comparison.
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| indoor CF lighting, MoD on the left and Katyusha on the right |
The base color is pretty close, with MoD only a touch darker, but the gold flash in that Femme is more obvious at all angles. When tilted to show off the aqua flash in Katyusha, the difference is very clear.
Rating: Katyusha is a lovely, perfect 5 out of 5 stars. Nearly a one-coater, flawlessly self-leveling, perfect formula that required almost no cleanup, and wore like iron.
~Michelle
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