So far, I've found that a lot of non-English-language brands seem to ID their polishes by number. Probably because they were manufactured in other countries (South Korea and... Poland, respecitvely? Man, Polish polish? I crack myself up!) and maybe have names in other languages that no one has bothered to translate into English yet. Or at least, they're sold by the number when they reach the generally monolingual (and sadly so, since a heck of a lot of the world's population is bilingual) American populace. (Obviously, most nail polishes here are numbered -- we just know them as OPI "Kangarooby" instead of whatever number Kangarooby is.)
Reminds me of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, where not only buildings but MAJORS are numbered. (For those of you who have never seen the MIT campus, it is awesome: awesomely ugly but unendurably cool. C'mon, an auditorium that is one-eighth of a sphere? A building whose layout is a 30-60-90 triangle? The ridiculous Gehry building that looks like drunken robots dancing and, apparently, is not that well built? It's total geek chic.) When I was living in the metro Boston area, once in awhile, I would ask some MIT student what they were majoring in and they'd be like, "Course 9" and I'd be like, "Oh, I majored in cognitive science!"
(The Course 9 folks got a brand-spanking new building too in recent years: the Picower Center for Learning and Memory, which has this gorgeous glass atrium... and ugly ass decor otherwise. Here's a thing-you-did-not-know-about-Flinty: I love university and college campus architecture and landscaping. It says so much about what a school aspired and aspires to be. I joke that I chose my schools based on their beauty... except for my master's. That school was ugly but literally down the [very long] street and I wasn't ready to move away quite yet.)
Okay, enough about university campuses before I start blabbing about the masculine quad (a la University of Virginia) vs. a more sinuous feminine blah-di-blah (a la Wellesley College)...
Anyway, I do believe that my biggest mistake nail polish shopping in NYC was not to buy more Inglot polishes. For all their cost, they were beautiful polishes... and they're near impossible to get anywhere else in the US at the moment. Half of this thriftiness was because of the six I chose, four were out of stock. Half of this was because I was trying to conserve money. But I was near the beginning of my trip and was trying to save money, in case I came upon some big bonanza of nail polish. Which never happened. Thus, I accidentally saved money. Not willingly though.
Inglot 179
This was the least rose out of the three rose golds. As I've said before, I'm on the quest for the perfect gold (not kidding when I say I'm looking for a 24K) and I thought this is far too red to be a pure gold, it's got that burnished sheen that I love in real soft gold. It applied perfectly (even though I applied it carelessly), dried fairly quickly and really just made my day. It looks like it could burn me in the sunlight. I am not a fan of metallics so I'm all the more pleased with it: I love polishes that make me rethink my preferences.
Inglot's regular polishes -- of which they have an extensive line consisting of cremes, shimmers, metallics and what they're calling "mattes" (but I call "satin") -- are 0.51 fl oz. They have a series of very similar looking but actually quite different white/clear opalescent glitters, also in 0.51 fl oz. The flakies are... about half that. TINY bottles for $10 (same as the normal ones). The flakies (all meant to be topcoats) looked incredible and I was going to take the plunge and buy one but the one I wanted was OOS. Alas. I didn't have much hope for the opalescent glitters -- they look so much like all other opalescent glitters -- but I swatched them all anyway and a few hypnotized me into thinking that a glitter topcoat was worth $10. I ended up buying my favorite one:
Inglot XL4
XL4 consists of fine square glitter that reflects gold-bronze-pink-peach-green. The overall effect is an light orangey-green sparkly sheen. It could not be built up to opacity but that's okay because it's a great topcoat on its own.
Close up of Inglot XL4
For the above swatches, XL4 was layered over a Tony Moly polish, a South Korean brand.
Tony Moly MK10
MK10 is a smooth periwinkle creme. Fairly glossy but not jelly. Three coats but not entirely even application. Four coats would have probably been best for this one. I got these off of eBay from a South Korean seller for about $4-5 each shipped.
Teal creme that is practically a jelly. Three coats. Extremely smooth. This one makes me wanna buy a dozen Tony Moly polishes.
Stay tuned: my Obsessive Compulsive Cosmetics order has arrived and hopefully, if I get any work done tomorrow, I can start swatching them!!
Also, if you haven't already, please enter the BB Couture for Men giveaway! If you don't want the polishes, please comment on the reader request section of the sidebar which lesser known brand you'd be interested in seeing on Polish or Perish. It's always fun to find out what people are curious to see!
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6 comments:
Ah, the nerdery is why I love your polish blog, seriously. My dad went to MIT and pushed me to apply, so I toured for kicks after I got accepted to Tufts, and it's definitely an interesting campus.
I saw someone post a whole mess of Inglot flakies on the nailboard last week-- is this a new brand in NYC or something? I've not heard of it before. Are they going to have wider distribution, more stores, web sales, etc? Any info, haha? I NEED MY FIX, AHH.
And that Tony Moly teal is lovely. I want.
Oh, do you (or did you) go to Tufts? I lived in Davis Sq for two years. :)
I thought about applying to MIT but decided in the end, I wanted a small liberal arts college... which MIT is most assuredly not! And then I thought maybe I'd want to go there for grad school, but then realized that there was no one I wanted to study with. I REALLY like the university, I Just can't think of a good reason to be there. :)
Inglot is a European brand that just opened its first store in Times Square. They seem to be doing alright there so I think they may be at least opening a website SOON. I HOPE!
Nah, I decided on a small liberal arts college, too, actually; I went to Bowdoin. MIT seems like a really neat place and I think I'd like to go to a much bigger, more urban university for grad school-- not MIT specifically, of course, but something more like it than like Bowdoin would be a welcome change.
And oooooh that's exciting about Inglot! Newly available polish brands are always so exciting. Now we just need to convince Bloom to open a store over here, too.
I enjoy looking at huge beautiful buildings. I recently saw the MIT camput on TV. Very interesting looking buildings. Wish we had easy access to all brands of nail polish. If only all the blogs were read by someone who could ship every brand! That is just a huge dream. Love the Tony Moly on you. Such a pretty color. The Inglot is also lovely. I am always looking for the perfect Navy Blue. Almost a black but you can tell it's navy.
Ahhh! A fellow gold hunter. My biggest disappointment so far has been Nefertiti. It's beautiful (it's one of those gold polishes that isn't metallic but is made up of just copious amounts of shimmer and it has a bit of silver shimmer in there as well. quite lovely up close) but looks not so good on me.
Erika: How did you like Bowdoin? I've known a couple of alums and a professor who used to teach there and they had nothing but amazing things to say about the college. Any idea what you might want to go to grad school for? Seriously... if there's any beauty blog where you can ask about personal statements and picking the right advisor, it'd be this one. ;) Also, the seven of us are in very different fields: I think we may be missing people in art and the humanities but sciences, social sciences, professional... it's a range!
Lucy: Seriously, we need, like, an Amazon.com of polishes somewhere. Hell, can't Amazon.com do that? Except no one does. Strangely bare polish offerings there. Are you looking for a jelly or a creme navy?
D: I've been lemming Nefertiti for awhile. I've given up on the half-assed, not-as-shimmery, pearly-type, 14K-like golds -- those never look good on me. Haven't lost hope yet for any other type of gold though.
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