Experiments with liquid sand

I have been putting off this post for a week, because I have been overwhelmed lately, and I can't think of a chatty way to encapsulate my recent life. So I'm going to skip the life bits and get to the polish bits.

I bought one, and only one, liquid sand. Not because I don't love the texture (I do!), but because the only brand that has it here is OPI, and OPI costs about $17 a bottle here!

Still, a lot of bloggers have been gushing about it lately, so I was curious to try it out. The thing is, based on the swatches I've seen, liquid sands are still a largely unexploited resource. I see some glitters, but mostly cream based colors, sometimes with a shimmer. This frustrates me greatly- you have a whole new kind of polish to play with, why are you making creams? And why are the shimmers you make almost exclusively one-note? Where are my holos, my multichromes, my blingy glitters?

So I decided to rectify this problem all by myself. The polish I have is "What Wizardry Is This?" which is a pretty crinkly texture, so a single coat of another polish on top still leaves the texture very visible. After a quick stash raid, allow me to present you with the best of my experiments:

Disclaimer: these swatches are very far from perfect. A number of these polishes are streaky or sheer with one coat, so the base shows through. The idea here is only to showcase the potential of liquid sands to work with a variety of finishes.

Creams:

Sunlight

Sunlight

Pinky: Orly You're Blushing
Ring finger: GA-DE Purple Iris
Middle Finger: Chic 29 (jelly)
Index finger: Orly Sapphire Silk

Misc Finishes:

Shade

Sunlight

Pinky: Maybelline Colorama 108 (frost)
Ring finger: OPI Ink
Middle finger: Laka 05 (sheer pink pearl)
Index finger: GA-DE Hypnotic Red (shimmer)

Microglitters:

Shade

Sunlight

Pinky: GA-DE Dark Plum
Ring Finger: GA-DE Golden Savannah
Middle Finger: Chic Metalix Hot Fuchsia
Index Finger: Chic Metalix Green Olive

Holos:

Shade

Sunlight

Sunlight

Sunlight

Pinky: Pupa 81
Ring finger: Color Club Wild At Heart
Middle Finger: Hits Zeus
Index finger: Maybelline Colorama 49

As you can see, even one coat of holo works great on liquid sands. Imagine one packed full with it? (Zeus was a bit of a show-off, but all the others represented quite nicely)

Duo/Multichromes:

Sunlight

Shade

Shade

Shade

Pinky: Pupa 619 (red-purple)
Ring finger: GA-DE Green Sapphire (green-blue)
Middle finger: China Glaze Rare and Radient (gold-olive green)
Index finger: Hits Chameleon (green-pink-silver)

The chromes were a little harder to capture- 619 was especially camera shy. Even without the textured finish I completely suck at photographing color shift, so I'm not surprised they didn't show up. Still, most of them showed some shift, and in real life it was significantly more dramatic.

In conclusion: Polish companies, get your act together! Liquid sand is a whole new world of polish to explore, why be safe? Quit making creams and subtle little shimmers, and start going wild, because if a consummate amateur like me can get these kinds of results, imagine how much better you can do!