Masura The Red Square Nebula + DRK Nails Magnetic Topcoat

Oh look!  A free weekend after a KRAYZEE work week and the hectic nail art-ing of last weekend's Oscars schindig?  Why yes we DO have time to play with magnets!

indoor, bright CF lighting

But wait, what's this?  Yes indeed, my right hand will be making a rare showing as the star of this post, so please forgive any wonky camera angles.  Side note: of any object I routinely use, the camera is the most clearly right-handed operation only.  I'd be super peeved to be a leftie, since I'm not aware of any lefty cameras (like there are scissors, for example).  Anyway, for whatever reason, the magnetic lines softened a whole lot on my usual swatching left hand, like so:

outdoor, bright sunlight

While that looks very much like the softly glowy swatch photos Masura usually publishes for their magnetics, it's not what I was going for and not at all the best showing for the lovely The Red Square Nebula.

outdoor, bright sunlight

The Red Square Nebula is (somewhat misleadingly) wine and not red.  In the bottle, it looks like a frosty mauve, but once a magnet is applied, a deep vampy wine filled with gold microflake is revealed underneath the satiny pink magnetic shimmer.  I love this type of magnetic particle, because no matter how soft or clear your lines end up, it always has a 3-D cat's eye effect that's even more dramatic when moving your fingers than still pics can show.

outdoor, bright sunlight

This polish has the type of perfect thickness that stays where you put it, and a Goldilocks-level not too thick and not too skinny brush.  While this is easily a one-coater (note to self: try it out for stamping!), I'm showing 2 here, used with the new "S" plastic-coated magnet that's available from many different stores at this point (mine came from ebay).  I magnetized the 2nd coat, then test-drove DRK's magnetic topcoat again - this time, it worked very well, basically re-wetting the top layer of the polish for a few seconds, letting the magnet pull things again.  Magnetized for the final round on the topcoat layer, things looked good - not laser sharp, but with a clear X on each nail.  Overnight, the X's faded to serious subtlety on my left hand only, though the exact same time & technique was used for all 10 fingers.  *shrug*

outdoor, bright sunlight

The S magnet is pretty interesting in that it produces several different patterns.  Turn it one way and it attracts the magnetic shimmer, while the opposite side repels it.  The end with an S stamped into the plastic housing produces X or + shapes (depending on how you orient it to your finger, of course).  I don't think it's as strong as my amazon or ebay neodymium magnets, but it's stronger than the old-school pattern magnets that came with Essie or Sinful Colors polishes.

indoor, CF lighting

After several days of wearing this mani, I decided to put the DRK topcoat through the ultimate test: could it fix these soft lines on 100% cured dry polish even through a layer of hardened quick-dry?  I applied a moderate layer of DRK TC on my index and middle finger, holding the magnet back over it in the original X shape for 45 seconds on each finger.  I was pleasantly surprised to find that this actually worked!  I wouldn't have expected any movement at all, but the X on my index finger especially was a good bit more defined than before (compare to that top pic of my left hand).  I think going forward, the ideal technique for this stuff would be to allow your 1-2 coats of magnetic polish to dry fully over at least several hours (magnetized on top layer, of course), then use the DRK to re-magnetize.  You will need to use a regular topcoat, as the DRK product being essentially polish thinner melts the outermost layer of whatever it's applied to, which results in a slightly sticky texture.

indoor, bright CF lighting, bottle magnetized with straight bar

Rating:  4 out of 5 stars, this polish is both pretty and blessed with a fantastic formula.  I think since the underlying base is so fascinating, this might actually look flashier with a repelling magnet used to clear the center of your nail completely.  The Red Square Nebula wore a little quicker than average, possibly because of the unneeded 2nd coat or because of the DRK topcoat, so I'm not really counting that as a major flaw.

Where to buy:  in the US, I usually grab Masura polishes from Beautometry.

~Michelle