Zoya Carly & Lynnderella Mercurial

Where to start with this polish...sigh. Ever since I saw steffels. pictures of Mercurial way back when, I wanted it so badly. Those giant hexes made me swoon and the gunmetal color just caught my interest. When I had the chance to buy it at retail, I jumped at the chance. Bought it, put it with my other polishes and of course, it drowned in a sea of untrieds.

Then, some other indies came out, there were reports of taco glitter, which is when hexes curl so badly that they resemble a taco shell. At the time (March), I didn't have that many indies, so I decided to check them all. Oh my sadness when I could clearly see my Mercurial completely taco'ed in the bottle (not reflective curling), then I swatch it on a nail wheel and my heart dropped. The hexes were completely unwearable. $15 for a homemade polish is a lot for me (we won't even talk about $700!) and when I saw this, I was disheartened. I was granted a refund because the whole reason I wanted this polish were for the hexes.

Take today. To celebrate a special day with the boy, I decided to match my dress. I started with one coat of Zoya Carly, which positively glows. I thought I didn't want this one, but picked it up during the Earth Day promo. One coat is all you need! It's amazing. I then used another Earth Day purchase, Zoya Nova, which completed my Zoya Ultra Glitters collection. I used one coat to make Carly sparkle. Nova has a tinted base, but it was sheer enough to not alter Carly's color.

Mercurial is a mostly gunmetal glitter in various shapes in a lightly tinted grey base. It also has some black and lavender glitter, but they are sparse. I attempted to swipe on one coat of Mercurial but that was impossible. When I swiped, the glitter just stuck in clumps and would not spread out evenly (ie: my thumb). Also, I managed to get out six large hexes without digging, but only one was completely flat :-/ When I saw a hex was coming out, if it was curled (literally some "hug" the brush, that's how curled they are), I put them on my curlier nails, like my pinky and ring finger. Next time, I plan to thin it out with some thinner and possibly avoid the large hexes all together. Some nails needed FOUR+ coats of top coat (pesky thumb).

My apologies for the Zoya Carly and Nova pictures. I always do my nails at night and I really need to make a light box!