Cuticula Dragon Glass

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Wanting something a little more low-key for this New Year's Eve, skipping out on a look stamped with celebration, I picked something that would have the fireworks embedded within.

indoor, bright CF lighting

Dragon Glass was Cuticula's offering in the August '21 "elements" PPU.  It's a black jelly packed with iridescent jewel-toned flakies, giving a very 'black opal' look.

bright daylight

To let those flakies shine brightly out of such a darkly colored base, this polish is sheer - much more so than I was expecting, in fact.  I have plenty of other flakie polishes with richly saturated bases, so it didn't occur to me that using it as a topper was the way to go, and I'm showing 3 and a half coats here.

indoor, bright CF lighting

In bright lighting indoors or out, the sheerness overlying my skin tone meant that this polish looked charcoal-grey or a warm-leaning off-black rather than true deep dark BLACK black.

outdoor, shaded daylight

In low light, aaaaah, there we go, a truly stunning molten glass look - this is absolutely one of those flakies that shines brightest with a little less light.

outdoor, shaded daylight
indoor, CF lighting

Rating:  3 out of 5 stars.  When this polish is in just the right lighting, it's stunningly beautiful... but I don't carry around a light studio with me, and in other lighting it's merely really pretty.  Flakie density didn't appear to increase to my eye after the 2nd coat, so this would likely look best at 2 thin coats over a black undie to provide the depth to the base color.  Each coat went on smoothly, and I had zero issues with flakies sticking up or curling.

Where to buy:  as with all PPU polishes, this is one-and-done unless it returns in this summer's rewind month.

~Michelle

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