Layering with SinfulColors Bali Mist + a surprise!

This post is going to be a long-ish one, so settle in for some reading.

Just a warning, something very exciting happened to me yesterday evening, and the format of this blog post is going to reflect that. So people that are easily startled should prepare themselves for that.

Anyway, on with the normal post.

The other day I stopped in to London Drugs after school and ended up leaving with a bottle of SinfulColors Bali Mist.

Bali Mist is an absolutely beautiful purplish-pink shimmery polish. It is incredibly sheer. That's 4 coats in that picture, and I still had ridiculous VNL. It's unlikely that I would ever wear it on its own, but it does wonderful things when layered over other polishes. I'll get to that in a bit though.

First we need to meet the polishes that it will be layered over!

While in Mexico, I picked up a few bottles of polish from a Mexican brand called Renova. Now, these polishes aren't big 3 free, which is a bit of a downer, but they're really beautiful. They're like Zoyas in that they're all given girl names, which is kind of cute.

First up is Kendra, which is a lovely frosty purple. It needs two coats to even out fully, and it applies so smoothly. Seriously, it's so smooth that I'm tempted to paint it over everything I own just so I can enjoy the smoothness of application. It's a little brush-strokey, but I really don't mind. It's worth it for the loveliness of the shade. And the smoothness.

Next up is Aymar. Aymar is a gorgeous shimmery midnight blue. This one is quite a bit more sheer than Kendra, and the picture is four coats, I believe. If I had taken more care with it I probably could have gotten away with three, but I did an extra one just to be sure.

The last of my Renova ladies is called Odalys, and she is a.. dark silver? Light charcoal? I have no idea. I wore this for a few days in Mexico after I got it, and it reminded me of pencil lead. You know how sometimes when you are/were bored in class you colour your nails with your pencil? It looks kind of like that, but with more shimmer and not, you know, pencil.

And now we'll layer Bali Mist on top of them -

WE INTERRUPT THIS BLOG POST FOR A BREAKING NEWS STORY.

I have Black Shatter.

I know Kirsten already has it, but I don't care. Now it's my turn to be excited.

As I was getting ready to layer Bali Mist over the Renovas, I got a phone call from one of the salons in town informing me that the OPI Katy Perry collection had just arrived, and they were holding a bottle of Black Shatter behind the counter for me.

Needless to say, I told my cousin to get the car started as I scurried upstairs to put on some real pants (I'd changed into my jammies after school) so that I could go get my crackly baby. I didn't even care about the fact that one of my hands had partially dry skittles on it and the other hand was completely naked. Black Shatter was waiting for me.

If the woman working in the salon is to be trusted, I arrived shortly after she finished calling the people that had put Shatter on hold.

And then a few minutes after arriving, I was leaving with two new beauties. Along with Black Shatter, I picked up a bottle of Not Like the Movies, which is the one polish from the Katy Perry collection that really spoke to me.

Unfortunately, in my excitement to try out Black Shatter, I didn't think to take any pictures of NTLM on its own, but there are enough swatches of it floating around that I'm not too broken up (for good swatches of NTLM and the rest of the Katy Perry collection, I suggest looking at Scrangie's post, her swatches are so gorgeous they almost hurt my feelings a little bit). I was also too excited to take a picture with my real camera, so you'll have to contend with pictures from my phone. If you're a friend on Facebook or a follower on Twitter, you may have already seen them before.

WE NOW RETURN YOU TO YOUR REGULAR BLOG POST.

Over top of Kendra, Bali Mist doesn't really make much of a difference. It lightens it a bit and gives it a bit of a pink flash in certain lights and at certain angles, but the purple still pretty much dominates.

I think Bali Mist looks absolutely stunning over Aymar. In this picture (because my camera is a dink) it looks quite a bit like Kendra, but I promise it is a shade all unto itself. It looks sort of purpley, but it's a very blue purple, which is exactly the kind of purple I like. This is my favourite of the three layering combos. At some point I'll do a full manicure of it, but for the time being I'm going to be playing around with Black Shatter.

While Aymar is my favourite to layer Bali Mist over, Odalys is probably the most interesting. With Bali Mist layered over top, it turns into a neat little duochrome, the pink and grey shifting back and forth as the light and angles change. Not my favourite, but definitely interesting.

So, the summary. Renova polishes are pretty, have excellent formulas, but sheerness varies from polish to polish. They aren't big 3 free, which sucks, but dry time is excellent. Bali Mist is super super sheer, but layers beautifully over a variety of different colours (I'm going to try it with many many others). Do you need any of them? If you're into layering and want something interesting, I would definitely suggest picking up a bottle of Bali Mist (or one of the other SinfulColors polishes, they have lots of light polishes that look good for layering). If you happen to be in Mexico and spot some Renova polishes I think they're worth scooping up.

And yes, you definitely need Black Shatter.