After my run of Morgan Taylor polishes this week, I decided that I needed to go through the three boxes (yes, boxes) of polish that's been sitting around my desk for the past year. As I keep mentioning, I'm trying to do a massive purge and get serious about what I'm keeping so that I can finally get my display shelves made and my collection on the wall instead of in random boxes and well, all over the place. Today, I have a new to me indie brand called illyrian, which has been around since 2014 and the owner is in Houston, Texas which is only 4 hours away from me! The pink polish above is called Charming and it's a nude pink base with lots of rainbow scattered holo bits and some iridescent flakes.
I used Morgan Taylor ReactMax Optical Brightener for my base coat, 3 coats of polish and finished with Glisten & Glow Top Coat. I really wanted to love this polish because it reminded me of OPI x Katy Perry "Teenage Dream" but looked like it had more glitter in it. However, this one was not a win for me on its own.
In my light box, it doesn't looks too bad but there's actually a LOT of bare nail showing which drives me nuts. Also the flakes and glitter were a little bumpy and even though only one coat of top coat made it smooth, you can see I had a little bit of pulling issues on my index finger.
This photo with the flash really points out why this polish is going to the purge shelf. It's more like straight up glitter in a clear base for me and the coverage just isn't for me. This is definitely a layering polish to go over maybe a pink creme or even a flesh tone nude. While I'm not 100% against layering polishes, it's not my preferred method right now while pairing down my stash so Charming is on the left shelf in my current polish room. Thankfully, removal was easy with felt and Zoya Remove - no scrubbing or soaking needed.
This polish is currently out of stock from what I can tell and is from the Lure collection that was released in 2017. Also this mini bottle appears to have been from a press event (but honestly, I can't remember which one) and it doesn't appear that they sell minis on their site any longer.
illyrian polish can be purchased on their website or you can look up their stockists. Join the social conversation on Facebook and Instagram.
Disclosure: The product[s] in this post was [were] provided to me by the company for consideration. For more information, please read this post.
