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