Baroness X Molino

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 After some screaming acid green, it was time for a slightly more girly palate cleanser.  But I'm clinging to the end of summer, so no time for true neutrals!

indoor, bright CF lighting

Baroness X released her "Ex Libris" collection in 2015, and it still remains one of only a very tiny few collections I own all of.  Each of them is a brightly saturated jelly packed with Clarins 230-type pigment or one of its sisters, plus ultrachrome flakies.  

outdoor, afternoon daylight

Molino is the red of the collection, a berry-leaning red jelly filled with UP sister gold-to-green shimmer  and lightly sprinkled with chrome microflakies.  

indoor, bright CF lighting
Because it's a jelly, it needs to be built up a bit... which also means there's a lot of layering possibilities if that's your jam.  As per usual for polishes that look "complete" (as opposed to things which are obviously toppers in clear base), I prefer to do a couple more coats to get to what's visible in the bottle.

outdoor, afternoon cloudy daylight

The first coat was a raspberry pink, the second was a shade somewhere on the spectrum between magenta and red, and the third deepened the color saturation to very close to what's in the bottle.  It was very easy to control the thickness of each coat, and it was smoothly even without patchiness or streaking at each coat - a pretty perfect formula.  

outdoor, bright daylight

All 3 coats dried in reasonable time, and came to a flawlessly glassy shine with my usual single thin layer of topcoat. 

indoor, bright CF lighting

Rating:  4 out of 5 stars, with my only picky bit being that, like most jellies, this wears a little quicker than I'd like.  The color is far more vibrant and summertime punchy than your typical red, and the flashy gold-to-peridot of the sister pigment is lovely in bright lighting.

Where to buy:  amazingly for a polish world always looking for the next thing, Baroness X still stocks this collection, and it's occasionally on sale.

~Michelle

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