Bats flying out of the night: Dance Legend thermo topcoat black

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I was off to a conference this week, so aimed for Halloween in a neutral-colored way to look pulled together with all my professional business attire, and ended up with bats flying in/out of the darkest night.

indoor, bright CF lighting, with some water to help the thermal be in transition
This is 2 coats of Orly Mirrorball, then stamping cute bats in NanaCoco Love Black (large accent nail bat from DXE20, smaller flying bats from BM-013), topped with 1 coat of Bow's Black Thermo, and with a final shadow-stamping of the big bat on the accent nail with Emily de Molly silver holo.  Black Thermo is a clear (warm) to black (cold) thermal with a scattering of holo sparkle that's been really popular for invisible/vanishing lace stamping designs lately.

outdoor, bright sunlight, warm state
This worked out 90% the way I wanted it to, but there were a few things I'd change up next time.  Important fact: Black Thermo doesn't warm up to a completely clear state - I could have skipped the 2nd layer of Mirrorball, since it doesn't show up as much as I expected underneath the greyish tinge of the warm state.  For the same reason, black stamping should go on top of, not underneath, the thermal - note the haziness of the bats on my middle finger, where I apparently painted a slightly thicker layer of Black Thermo.

indoor, bright CF light, plus water to help the thermal be mostly in cold state
The silver shadow-stamping worked exactly how I wanted, though, so that's cool.  In the frosty conference room (seriously, why do all hotels dial the thermostat down to 50 for big meetings??  We legit had folks in parkas in there), when my nails were all black, there was still a shiny silver bat keeping the Halloween theme going.  The silver bat faded out to almost-not-there when everything warmed up, and the black one barely underneath it became visible.  Cool!

Rating:  Bow's Black Thermo topcoat gets 4 out of 5 stars from me.

Where to buy:  my fave stockist for the Russian import is Color 4 Nails.

~Michelle

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