There seems to have been a fair amount of excitement over LA Girl's new Rock Star polish line, most of it justified. I didn't buy the whole collection -- didn't want the whole collection -- but I did pick up a few recently during Cherry Culture's free shipping deal to see what the hubbub was about. Color and finish-wise, they're gorgeous: sparkly, jelly, glossy, a ton of fun. They also have reignited my love of black polish: they work it so well!
LA Girl Heavy Metal
Black with silver glitter. It's very fine glitter so when bits of glitter kinda glom together, it gives the polish a speckled look.
Close-up of Heavy Metal:
LA Girl Rock Star
This is my favorite of the bunch, not because it was the most impressive (no, no, that would be Punk) but because it was the most surprising. It looks decently nice in the bottle, black with purplish glittery bits but on the nail, it's a deep black jelly with glitter that flits between pink and purple. I love its elegance.
LA Girl Punk
Holy crap, step aside, we have a winner. This is a fabulously glossy black that is chock full of blue-purple-pink trichromatic (somewhat beyond duochrome) glitter. It's hard to capture the trichrome in a photo but trust me, it's there.
I thought I would like this more than I did. It looks like a deep red jelly with red and gold flecks: very New England autumn. But I found it hard to apply: it was... almost too glossy (i.e. it gooped all over my nail), was slow to dry and the gold flecks didn't show up as well as it did in the bottle. China Glaze Stroll is very similar to this one (practically dupes on my nail but not in the bottle) and push comes to shove, I'd rather keep the China Glaze than this one. I think it would look better on someone with paler skin.
I had similar issues with LA Girl Party Animal: application was such a disaster that I'd really rather not post photos of it!
LA Girl Backstage
I like this one photographed than in reality. In reality, it required at least three coats to cover visible nail line (VNL) but like Party Animal and Addict, it was very slow to dry between coats so even though I was trying to use thin coats, I kept on mucking it up with each successive coat. The funny thing is that because it got so gooptastic at the tips (and thin at closer to the cuticle), it almost looks like a type of gradation mani. I LOVE the IDEA of this polish: it's really not like any other polish I have because of the iridescent chunkish finish but pinks and reds (with gold shimmer or glitter) are not generally flattering on me and I'm not likely to keep this either.
Hustle
So blurple, and vibrant, and jelly. Love it. :)
So blurple, and vibrant, and jelly. Love it. :)
