Acetone Files Elevation Polish Rapa Nui / Comparisons: Orly High on Hope, Ninjapolish Mystic Glacier
Acetone Files
Elevation Polish Rapa Nui / Comparison to Orly High on Hope
I just got yet another Llarowe order, where I picked up a lot of the special effects sort of indies I've been wanting for a while, among them Elevation Polish Rapa Nui. I was lucky enough to run across it in stock for once, and I loved it the first moment I saw it on someone's blog (I guess that qualifies as a lemming! Jumping off the Elevation cliff ... lol)
This is a really lovely duochromy pearly shimmer - the shimmer is super-fine but isn't really a true duochrome, but definitely gives an amazing sense of dimension and color variation to the polish. I'm still not 100% sure what the base color is - it's somewhere between a dark turquoise and a cool icy navy. The sheen of magenta-purple over top gives it a really ambiguous color effect, which makes it hard to tell what color the individual parts actually are, like when you place red and blue lights next to each other and it blurs to purple. It's weird, icy cool, and just a little bit flashy - all things I adore!
My one complaint is I got pretty bad shrinkage. It weirdly didn't seem to turn up til the next day, when I noticed a lot of bare tipping and pulling away from the cuticles. However it's entirely possible it just doesn't play nice with my China Glaze Fast Forward topcoat. I will have to try Seche Vite and see what happens.
It's no secret I've worn two blue-with-purple-shimmer polishes recently - time for a comparison! Are they similar - yeah. Do you need both ... um maybe? The effect is completely different, even if the polishes are the same color mixtures. If you've had experience with any of the CND topcoats, you'll recognize the shimmer distinction: Rapa Nui is more of a "shimmer" (or what I am apt to call "pearlescence"), while High on Hope is a "sparkle," the difference being finer and chunkier grains of glitter, respectively. Also, if you look closely, although they even out to the same sort of color scheme, Rapa Nui's base is much cooler, almost greenish grey-blue, and a tad lighter in shade, while HOH is definitely a muted navy. However, it really more depends on the effect you want - pearly, fine, almost duochromy or deep and glittery.
If you love this color combination as much as I do, they are different enough that you can totally justify both. However, if you're not in as deep as I am (LOL) you can choose the effect you like better. They are about the same price, as Elevation is in the $14 indy range and the Orly was part of an LE collection and therefore only available secondhand. The only other determining factor is that Rapa Nui doesn't seem to like the China Glaze topcoat, while Orly is just fine with it.
Finally ... Rapa Nui was an attempt to slay my Ninjapolish Mystic Glacier (which is always sold out) lemming. I can't do a perfect comparison, but now that I've worn and photographed it, it seems to be in the same family! I wouldn't call Rapa Nui a dupe of MG at all, since MG definitely has that sunflare red-to-green duochrome in it, while Rapa Nui just has that magenta-purple shimmer, the base color is more similar than I expected: that weird icy nearly-green blue. Frankly, I call this lemming slain, because the thing I liked about Mystic Glacier was that base color with that warm shimmer - if the duochrome part was more important to you, you may still need MG. *shrug* (Comparison image from Pretty Tough Nails)
