I recently stumbled on a shop called Profound Glass that makes lab created opals. They have some absolutely beautiful work - I enjoyed perusing their webpage and thought I'd share one of their creations with you first so you can see how beautiful it is when whole.
Nate, the artisan at the shop, thought it would be fun to crush the opal and make it into a nail polish. And he was right, as soon as I saw it, I bought it. Like...in less than 5 seconds. The bottle arrived, and what I hadn't realized was that it was a mini sized bottle (they now also offer full size). The listing where the bottle size was written was in a FAQ list that I didn't read before purchasing, so it was my own fault. I went ahead and wrote to Nate to let him know about my experience. His response was kind and showed that he really cared about his customers experience. He took steps to make sure the bottle size was more prominent in the listing. We emailed a few times and he offered to send a prototype that has larger opal shards in it which he is considering launching. I told him I'd love to try it out and I offered to do a review to compare them both, so this is it! :)
I wanted to show it over both black and white polish so I decided to stamp some water lillies from plate VL012 at an angle so that the nail was about half white and half black. I then layered the crushed opal over my index nail (1 coat) and ring finger (2 coats). I used the prototype on my middle finger (1 coat) and pinky (2 coats). I also took a few close ups and bottle shots for you to see and compare.
Indoor lighting doesn't really do these polishes justice, they need sunlight to really show off the fire in the opal pieces. I was able to catch a few in the photos. The sparkle shows over the white part of the nail but its not as noticeable as it is over black and nearly impossible to see in the photos.
I used extra top coat over the ring and pinky finger, and unfortunately the topcoat bubbled because I put it on too thick. woops!
In the photo above, the original crushed opal polish is on the top and the prototype is on the bottom.
Even though the prototype's shards are more noticeable on the nail, I prefer the original crushed opal polish to the prototype. The larger opal pieces in the prototype tend to sink in the base and require more layers of top coat to smooth.
The original crushed opal polish is available in both mini and full sized bottles at the Profound Glass online shop.
The prototype is still in the testing stages and Nate hasn't determined whether it will be launched.
Which one do you think you would like best?
