One of the greatest discoveries I made in the first half of this year was a new US indie brand called Octopus Party Nail Lacquer. One of the few indie polish companies run by a dude, OPNL is also 5-free, cruelty-free, and vegan friendly. Add in the fact that the selection has a lot of variety and style, and you've got the makings of a solid polish line. Since the line was new to me, I purchased two different glitter polishes that really called out to me from Dave's Etsy store.
AMETRINE HOUR
Like the crystal for which it's named, Ametrine Hour is chock full of gorgeous purple and gold glitters of varying sizes and shades. I am absolutely captivated by this mix, suspended in a clear base, which can build to complete opacity in three coats, though I think it looks best at just one over a pale base.
These swatches show Ametrine Hour over two coats of OPI Ridge Filling Base Coat - which provided a perfect milky base on which to highlight these glitters. I applied the first layer with the bottle brush, and it took no fishing to retrieve all sizes of glitter. The first coat pic above is without any topcoat.
The second coat I sponged on because I wanted a bit more control over placement and glitters tend to drag off the brush on the second coat if you're not careful. This allowed me to get almost complete opacity with minimal effort. I then laid a coat of Glitter Food over to smooth it out, and topped with SV to bring out the shine.
Finally, I added a coat of Sally Hansen Big Matte, which really adds some depth to all those gorgeous glitters.
STAR TAR
I've shown you Star Tar before, in my spacey nail art for my Nate's birthday, but as I mentioned in that post, this polish needed the full swatch and review treatment. It's a glorious mix of silver hexes and tiny silver and black microglitters, with a few tiny holo glitters just to add some attitude. I actually incorrectly reported last time that they were in a black base - my eyes did deceive me because as you can see, that's a clear base. I guess those tiny black glitters were just so dense that I thought I had 'verse soup on my hands!
These swatches are shown over three coats of Claire's Cobalt blue. I only did one coat on these because I think it stands here, but opacity is easily built with additional coats. Also, these came off the bottle brush this way - in a neat, even coat that didn't need any fishing and only very minimal dabbing.
I also didn't have to mess with Glitter Food on these, because one coat of SV smoothed everything right out.
Again, I mattified with Big Matte, and the results are stunning. I have so much love for this polish, its criminal. I do believe it will be my go-to default for space looks, for obvious reasons.
I am so pleased with these polishes, and I look forward to ordering more next time we head Stateside. Unfortunately neither of these polishes are currently showing available in the shop, but there are many other lovelies from which to choose, so I recommend checking out the shop!
Do you have any Octopus Party lacquers? I'd love to hear about them in the comments below.
Also, before you leave... have you entered the £20 Paypal Cash giveaway and the Nail Polish Bloggers Connection Group Giveaway yet?