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!
