POOLS OF SORROW, WAVES OF JOY

Posted on March 23, 2013 by Teresa Cannata'

Leaving the mainstream and following the indie path seems to be the story of my life. I did it when I was a teenager and I’ve never looked back. I’m referring to music, first of all, but it’s a general attitude that I’ve realized is now part of who I am. For this reason, the desire to learn more about the amazing American scene of independent nail polish makers has come quite naturally.

Among the many new names of indie polish, one has recently caught my attention, starting from its name. Enchanted Polish was established in 2012 by Chelsea Rose, a California girl who started selling her products on Etsy. Her polishes – hand-made from 3-free nail lacquer base, pigments, glitters and micas, and not tested on animals – became so successful that she soon opened her own shop and started selling varnishes through other online shops.

Everything about Enchanted Polish is enthralling – the complexity of the shades, the amazing effects of glitters, the logo (the archetypical haunted castle of fairy tales) and the names of the polishes. Among several collections, one of my favourite is Imagine, which Chelsea dedicated to some of the most famous songs by the Beatles.

The collection includes six multi chrome holographic shades.

Hey Jude (inspired to the song dedicated to Julian Lennon, written by Paul McCartney and released in August 1968) shifts from greyed khaki lilac to teal green to purple. I Am the Walrus (included in the soundtrack of the 1967 television film and album Magical Mystery Tour) is a multi chrome shifting from magenta to wine to gold to green. Octopus’s Garden refers to a song written by Ringo Starr, included in the 1969 album Abbey Road: it flashes dark purple to magenta to orange.

I was quite surprised to learn the collection included a shade called Across the Universe: American celebrity manicurist Deborah Lippmann released an incredibly successful shade with the same name some years ago, but clearly Chelsea wasn’t intimidated by it. This varnish is inspired to the song written by Lennon and McCartney and first released in 1969: it’s a multichrome shade shifting from purple to blue to red holo. Mean Mr. Mustard (another song from Abbey Road) flashes green to gold to copper. Last but not least, Magical Mystery Tour flashes purple to blue to pink to green.

If you are a European nail polish addict, you know it’s quite hard to buy American indie polishes: they are hand-made, produced in small quantities and the on-line shops who sell them to European customers are very few. I was lucky enough to put my hands on a bottle of Across the Universe, which I bought on the French store Pshiiit.

Let me tell you I’m in love with it! An adjective like “multi chrome” gives you a pale idea of what this colour is really like. It changes according to the light and looks very different from time to time: in daylight it’s more purple with fuchsia reflects, but under the flash it explodes with emerald and deep blue reflects, not to mention the holo glitters.

It shines like a handful of stars, doesn’t it? This is what I love of indie nail polishes (and of Enchanted Polish, of course): they sell you bottles of new ideas, dreams and infinite amounts of glitter. What’s not to love about it?

http://www.enchantedpolish.com/