First day of fall! Turning leaves mani with Lacquester Song From a Vampire

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This week saw the first day of autumn, which is not a huge transition after our mild summer, but I have loads of leafy stamping plates and fall colors that I wanted to jump on.

Lacquester Song From a Vampire
indoor, bright CF lighting
Lacquester Song From a Vampire is a lovely shade of wine that I'm wearing here in 2 coats.  The formula has good consistency, and flows smoothly, but Lacquester has that wide brush that I do not like, because it created more cleanup than this formula would otherwise need.

Lacquester Song From a Vampire
indoor, bright CF lighting
In the bottle, you can glimpse a gorgeous array of pretty flakes and a scattering of holo dust, but the flakes were more subtle on the nail in the bright lamp light of my mani cave.  I wanted FFLLLAAAAKKKESSS, so I've added 1 coat Essie Shine of the Times and 1 coat Sinful Colors All About You to create a thick wall of tiny falling leaves on the wine base - all pics shown with this layering combo, none of Vampire alone.

Lacquester Song From a Vampire
outdoor, bright afternoon sunlight
Though the layers of other polish have squashed the holo, this combo was exactly what I wanted - sparkly, foily-flaky, with that really cool shift from gold to green (below) that made Shine of the Times justifiably famous.

Essie Shine of the Times over Lacquester Song From a Vampire
outdoor, afternoon sunlight
Essie Shine of the Times over Lacquester Song From a Vampire
outdoor, shady daylight
YES.  Flakies popping in lower light, glitter sparkling in bright light, and adorable fall leaves - just what I was going for here.

Stamping plate HeHe 052
indoor, CF lighting
I stamped with Esmaltes da Kelly crèmes Tris & Carmelo using HeHe 052 - an utterly gorgeous plate that is simply small individual leaves of various types (gingko, maple, fern, clover) that could be used for any season depending on the colors you used.  HeHe plates are consistently well-etched and have gorgeous designs, and this one is no exception - I had perfect pickup with each leaf I selected.  These plates are well worth the wait that it takes to receive them direct from HeHe in China.  The versions you can snag on Ali Express are knockoffs that aren't as well made, which is useless considering that real and fake HeHe plates cost the same ($2 for these rounds).

Lacquester Song From a Vampire
outdoor, bright sunlight
Rating:  3 out of 5 stars for Song From a Vampire, a pretty color and finish that should be a staple in any polish collection.

Where to buy:  direct from Lacquester, or from Color4Nails in the US.

~Michelle

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