NARS Zulu and Max Factor Fantasy Fire

Max Factor Fantasy Fire over NARS Zulu

Yesterday I wore NARS Zulu. It's cold and grey and miserable here, with flurries of snow, when it should be spring. I wanted to wear something deep, and rich and comforting, so I choose NARS Zulu, one of my favourite dark greens, and I was intending to put glitter over, right away. Here's Zulu:

NARS Zulu

This polish is so amazingly green and squishy, I couldn't bear to put anything over it straight away. It seemed like defiling it somehow, lol! So I just wore it as it was for a day. This is three thin coats with Seche Vite.

In some lights it's very clearly green, but in other lights it's almost black. I think it's a very sophisticated colour, almost (but maybe not quite) business-appropriate. I suppose it depends on your work setting, but I'd wear it with a business suit.

NARS Zulu

Max Factor Fantasy Fire caused a real storm in the nail polish world when it was released last year (2012). It's pretty much a dead-on dupe for the legendary Clarins 230, which, if I remember correctly, was released about 1999 (please correct me if I'm wrong here). These polishes have an amazing colour shifting pigment which flashes from red to copper to green as the angle of the light changes. However, although both Clarins 230 and Max Factor Fantasy Fire look like they are purple in the bottle, the base is only very lightly tinted and they need to be layered over another colour to show their magic - I remember endless frustration putting on elayer after layer of Clarins 230 when I first got it all those years ago, and I couldn't build up any density of colour.

The obvious combination for Max Factor Fantasy Fire is to layer it over a purple or a dark blue, which looks great, but it does work well with other colours too. This is the first time I've used it with green, but I have worn it with red and bronze as well as blue and purple, and it comes out differently awesome every time.

Here's a series of pictures showing Fantasy Fire over Zulu in different lights. These are all (apart from one I'll explain when I get to it) taken in natural sunlight at the window. Astonishingly, the sun shone for a few hours earlier today!

With the sun directly on the nails, the dominant colours are purple and red, although you just see some shading to bronze around the edges:

As the nails angle away from the light, the bronzey green shimmer increases. You can also see through the Fantasy Fire to the green polish underneath, which enhances the effect.

Here's a closer shot of the shimmers:

And just for fun, a fuzzy shot under a lamp to show off the green sparkles in Fantasy Fire:

Max Factor Fantasy Fire over NARS Zulu

I used one coat of Max Factor Fantasy Fire over my existing NARS Zulu Mani to achieve this effect. The Max Factor MaxEffect bottles are tiny (about 4.5ml) but you don't need very much of this polish when it's used as a topcoat, so you'll still get a lot of manis from a bottle.

I think this combination with NARS Zulu is my favourite way I've used Max Factor Fantasy Fire so far!

Max Factor Fantasy Fire over NARS Zulu

NARS Zulu is an old favourite of mine, but it can still be purchased at NARS website here. Max Factor Fantasy Fire is in the Max Factor MaxEffect range and is readily available at Boots and Superdrug. I'm not sure Fantasy Fire is easily available outside of the UK, but there are various similar polishes from indie brands. One I particularly like is Girly Bits Shift Happens, which you can buy from Llarowe. Shift happens is in a lighter coloured base than Fantasy Fire, which means it's good for layering over lighter colours too.