Darling Diva Firefly

Darling Diva Firefly over Illamasqua Load

I have another newly released polish from Darling Diva to share today. This one is Firefly, an acid green-yellow jelly with teal glitter and microglitter (some of the glitter looks to be holographic too). I was going to pair this with OPI Who The Shrek Are You but Sminkan wore Firefly over a similar green, so rather than repeat the lovely effect she got, I decided to go for a lighter base - Illamasqua Load - to create a brighter mani. If you don't know Illamasqua Load, it's a very pale yellow cream.

Darling Diva Firefly over Illamasqua Load

This turned out very pretty and summery! Teen Polish Junkie wore Firefly alone, without any base, and it looks great on her nails - but I don't think it would work as well on me with my longer nails and lighter skin tone.

I used two thin coats of Firefly over three coats of Illamasqua Load smoothed out with a thick coat of Seche Vite - pale yellow creams are notorious for streaking and I wanted a very even dense base for this mani.........because it's a glow in the dark polish!

Darling Diva Firefly over Illamasqua Load - photograph taken in the dark

With such a pale base, my nails glow almost white in the dark - very eerie, very cool. I love this effect, but it's very hard to capture on a photograph! This picture was taken with my compact camera in very low light, not pitch dark. In the photo, you can see how the different glitters block the light either fully (the coloured glitters, which appear black) or partly (the iridescent microglitter). The overall *glow* in the dark in real life is too intense to really see this though.

I'm really fascinated by the glowing in the dark, so I couldn't resist adding some nail art, especially after I'd seen this fantastic mani using black patterning over a glow in the dark polish at Lucy's Stash the other day. I wanted a bold, blocky pattern to give the glow in the dark the best chance of showing up. I drew the outline on with my Barry M black nail art pen, then filled in the black areas with Konad Special Polish in black and let it dry thoroughly before applying Sinful Colors Gel-Tech Top Coat. I chose the Konad black because I wanted as dense a black as possible (to block out the glowing pigments in the dark), even though I think this is the messiest make-up product I've ever owned when it comes to clean up and it's very prone to streaking. With a very careful application and letting it dry thoroughly before top coat I just about got away with it. I've been really impressed with the Sinful Gel-Tech Top Coat so far, it's thick, shiny, dries fast and doesn't shrink; and it's done great herein this mani too.

Here's the nail art in daylight:

Oh, and it's a Louboutin mani too! I hope this doesn't stain the insides of my nails!

And finally, in the dark. Different approach here from the plain mani above, as I couldn't get enough exposure to make a picture with my compact camera. These shots are very long shutter speed with my DSLR and macro lens, this really shows up the green glow ........... first, with an open door just letting a bit of room light in so you can see that this is four nails with a pattern on them.........

........... and finally, in total darkness, with just the Firefly parts of the mani glowing - when I move my hands around in the dark, this really does look like Fireflies dancing!!

Darling Diva Firefly was sent as a sample for my unbiased review; you can buy Darling Diva polishes from their Etsy Shop or from Llarowe or Mei Mei's Signatures - all these sellers ship worldwide. Norway Nails also stocks Darling Diva polishes and ships within Europe. The other polishes I used in this mani were all from my own collection and were purchased by me.