Bow Polish Dating an Alien

 At the man's suggestion of "blue... no, violet!" I starting perusing my stash for a deeply saturated shade of something along those lines, and as per usual, found a gem hiding out far too long untried.

indoor, bright CF lighting

Bow Polish, the smaller-ml square bottled sister to Dance Legend, how do I love thee?  Dating an Alien was part of their 2016 Out of Space collection, and surely this one wins for most hilarious name.

outdoor, bright direct sunlight

Starting with a blue deeper than a Vulcan's blood, this jelly base is loaded with a "UP sister" pigment that's an utterly fantastic shimmer.  In direct light, it's a glowing cobalt, just barely lighter than the base color, amping up the overall look but staying fairly tonal.

outdoor, bright sunlight

With a slight tilt, that shimmer goes from an absolutely electric aquamarine on over to a deep royal purple.  All the colors this pigment shifts to perfectly compliment the base color.

outdoor, bright afternoon sunlight

In some lighting, the combined effect is a violet with aqua shimmer, while in others we have a royal blue with cobalt shimmer - all of the differences in these pics look wholly color accurate to my eyes.

indoor, bright CF lighting

I'm showing 3 very thin coats here - I'm a firm believer this works a lot better than 2 medium-thick ones.  Most all super sparkly things are on the sheer side to let the pigments shine out unhindered, and this is no exception.  A single layer of topcoat got this to a flawless glassy shine. 

indoor, window-filtered daylight

And if that's not enough, bright light isn't necessary to have this polish showing her best.  Like a lot of these old-skool Clarins 230 and her sister shimmers, they catch any light available and strike sparks with what they have.  

indoor, bright CF lighting

Rating:  a stellar 5 out of 5 stars, this is now one of my absolute favorite blues.  I have a weakness for these sorts of colors, with many similar things waiting their turn, but this one is a knockout.  It is dark enough that slight edgewear was visible within a couple of days... but then halted that way and wore fantastically from that point on for the rest of a week.  

Where to buy:  sigh, that's a problem.  Dance Legend & Bow used to be readily available at all major stockists in the US, and while a few of them still have some old stock lying around, I genuinely don't know of any store still routinely getting in new collections or restocking older ones.  You can always try ordering direct, which I may break down and do someday soon.

~Michelle