Indigo Bananas!!!! Anansi

Firstly, I would like to say thank you to everyone for the condolences and well wishes.  Death happens.  It's sad and horrible for those close to the individual, but you know?  You have to move forward and live a life that the deceased would've wanted you to live.

Ok, now, let's get back to business!  It's been a whole week since I've seen you guys!  I've missed you!!  I'm pretty excited about the polish I'm going to show you tonight.  It's a new indie brand called Indigo Bananas.  Andrea of IB is a friend of mine from the polish community, so I was so excited to check out her new brand!  She is seriously one of the most brilliant people I know when it comes to polish, the chemistry of polish, and gorgeous color combinations.  I have four IB polishes to show you, so I'm going to share a little bit about the creator with each post.  I asked her a few questions, and she was kind enough to put up with my ridiculous nosey-ness.  Here are her answers!


1) How many collections do you have, and what are their names?

I opened my shop with three collections - a main, or core one, which is inspired by some of my favorite songs/music, and two duochrome lines, inspired by the theme of 'tricksters' as a play on the duochromes themselves tricking your eye.  The first duochrome collection, 'Arcane Tricksters', is a set of six polishes, all with microfine holo glitter in them, covering a rainbow of colors.  Each polish is named after a mythological trickster or thief type character, and there is a little paragraph, story, poem or quote under each listing in my etsy shop explaining my thought process behind naming them (or, in the case of Eris a pretty silly quote from the Principia Discordia).  

The second duochrome collection, 'Nothing Cannot Last', is a quad of duochromes with a much larger particle size and a glass fleck type finish - each is named after a major character from American Gods - all of which are also tricksters in mythology, and in the book.  All the duochromes are formulated to be opaque in three coats and require no base color. I felt this was important because I have a really big collection of commercial duochromes that are all pretty sheer or weak or both.

The core collection is what I've worked on the most, with some of them having gone through six or seven revisions going back all the way to June 2012.  There are cremes, duochrome shimmers, glitter top coats, duochrome flakies, and duochrome glitters in there and a rainbow of options. All the songs in the Core collection were listened to over and over while I was fiddling with revisions and formulas for most of the polishes - the names came first for these and I tried to fit the 'feel' of the songs to the polish (dorky I know, haha).  Julie's Note: Not dorky at all...  I do the exact same thing when I'm making polish!


2) Of the polishes I've chosen, what collection(s) do they belong to?  The four polishes I've sent you belong to two different collections - Core & Nothing Cannot Last.

Let's get down to business, shall we??  Tonight, we're taking a look at Anansi, which is from the Nothing Cannot Last collection and is an amazingly gorgeous duochrome!  Get ready for some major picture spam.

Color: Black base with green, gold, and red shift.

Finish: Chrome – a polish that shifts between colors depending on the angle you look at it.

Bottle / Brush: Round bottle brush (i.e. Seche Vite) – standard width and length.  Easy to control and manipulate.

Opacity: High – opaque in two coats!  May need three coats for even more vibrant coverage.

Glitter Application: N/A

Consistency: Medium – applies easily and doesn’t flood the cuticles.

Overall Ease of Application: Easy – applies well without pooling, dragging, streaking, or balding.  Spreads evenly and smoothly.

Stampability: Not tested for stamping.

Dry Time: Medium – dry to the touch with minimal smudging in 3-8 minutes.

Overall Thoughts: Wow.  I have several chromes, and none of them apply with as much opacity as Anansi.  It flowed easily off the brush with very little cleanup required.  The shift is very strong in all different types of light, which is why I've given you photos in all sorts of light with both my Powershot 12 and my iPhone camera (indoor, outdoor, direct sunlight, direct daylight lamp, refrigerator lightbox, etc).  I also really loved the presentation.  It came with a super cute little ring with the Indigo Banana logo!  Isn't that just adorable?!  I messed up one of my nails while it was still wet, and there wasn't any staining, despite the black base, when I took it off.  It's been a full day, and the wear has been fantastic!  No real tip wear and absolutely no chips.  I used Rejuvacote as my base and Liquid Lacquer No Time quick dry top coat.  

Ok, time to continue on with the nail porn...  Get ready!

Right on top of my daylight lamp (without any other light sources, so it's a bit orange, lol).

Inside lighting.

Natural light and direct sunlight with the iPhone.

You can purchase Indigo Banana polishes at Andrea's Etsy shop.  Also, follow her on Facebook and website for news and announcements.

I'm so in love with all four polishes I picked out.  I can't wait to show you the one I've chosen for a wear test.  Let me just say that it may help squash some RBL Aqua Lily lemmings...  But you'll have to see for yourself!

What's your favorite color shifting/chrome polish?

*I was not financially compensated for this post. I received a sample for review purposes. The opinions are completely my own based on my experience.  For more information, please see my disclosure policy in the tab above.*