I think by now most indie nail polish fiends are aware of the phenomenon that is
Polish Pickup - each month, makers create an exclusive polish based on the selected theme, and the store is open only for the first weekend of that month. For most offerings, you have time to pick what you wanted (and you need a bit of time since the current roster of participating makers is huge!), but there are always a few here and there that are "capped" to a finite number the maker selects.
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| indoor, bright CF lighting |
Lemming Lacquer created Ghosts of the Vault for the January 2018 PPU, and it sold out tout suite. I was lucky enough to score a bottle from someone who changed her mind, and my excitement over getting it moved it to the top of the try-me pile.
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| outdoor, bright sunlight |
GotV is an indigo jelly, the sort of blue where you doubt your eyes and change your mind from "blue" to "purple" with every look. It's filled with "red/copper/gold shift" aurora pigment - the shimmer wasn't billed as Clarins 230-type, but it has a similar spark and shift - and the red shine from this definitely pulls the overall look toward purple territory. Scattered among the glowy sparks, there's also a liberal sprinkling of what I call "ocean" flakies - translucent, iridescent shards that shift from blue to aqua to green.
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| bright afternoon sunlight |
The person who sold me her bottle had disliked the formula, and I also found it to be a little tricky. This is a thick, super sticky jelly that needs expert application technique - my first coat had to be as utterly thin as possible, with absolutely no re-working of the same area or else I got plenty of bald patches. For my second coat, I went thicker than usual and worked quickly to get even coverage without dragging the underlying layer. I'm wearing a thin third coat to catch any thin patches, but this did not deepen the color or change the flakie payoff - careful painters will be done in 2 coats. Once everything was done, though, this color was juicy dark, with well-dispersed flakies that didn't poke up in the least, and was utterly glass smooth with a single layer of topcoat. In other words, for both good and bad it was a quintessential jelly.
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| outdoor, shady/overcast daylight |
The fiery red shimmer shifted to a bronzed gold at angles, but I never saw a flash of emerald. For anyone missing that green "oomph," this would be gorgeous under a "unicorn pee" topper, but I was more than happy with the look as-is.
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| outdoor, bright angled sunlight |
This wore better than jellies typically do for me, with minimal edgewear after a few days, but still a nice shine and plenty of sparkle.
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| indoor, bright CF lighting |
When I filed this polish away in my basket system, I settled on purple rather than blue, which put it not too far from
Dance Legend Final Fantasy. A comparison was definitely in order.
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| indoor, CF lighting |
Final Fantasy was one of my faves from Dance Legend's 2013 Candy Flakes collection, a series of jellies with iridescent flakies and shimmers. The base jelly color is definitely purple to GotV's violet-blue, and is significantly more sheer.
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| indoor, bright CF lighting |
My swatch sticks are as always 2 coats with no topcoat. Both of these polishes need a single layer of TC to get that glassy jelly shine, but as you can see on the sticks, FF needs the 3rd coat while GotV does not.
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| indoor, bright CF lighting |
The darker base color makes the larger flakes and red shimmer pop more in GotV, but the overall amount of flakies and shimmer visible on the nail is about the same. A single coat of a dark blue jelly + 2 coats of Final Fantasy should get you very close to Ghosts of the Vault.
Rating: 4 out of 5 stars. Though the formula was persnickety, I didn't thin it down. The flakies distributed so nicely that I didn't want to alter the best thing about the polish to tweak my least fave factor. GotV is also just a touch darker than I'd usually reach for since it would appear black in lower lighting, except for the blue lightning flash of the flakies that keep it pretty at all lighting levels.
Where to buy: PPU is doing a "greatest hits" month in July, where makers can bring back their best selling color. Lemming has already confirmed that Ghosts of the Vault will be back, so grab while you can!
~Michelle
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