Indie Spotlight: Philly Loves Lacquer Holo-Day on Broad Collection Part 1

*All products provided for honest and unbiased review*


Howdy everyone!  OMG, I am so excited about today's post I can hardly stand it!  I was lucky enough to be selected to review Philly Loves Lacquer's holiday collection, Holo-Day on Broad.  This collection is a real stunner made up of four holographics, three glitter toppers, and one glitter crelly.  Esther, the creative genius behind PhLL, looks to the city of Philadelphia for inspiration in creating her polishes and this collection is no different.  She's done a wonderful job with this collection and I'm genuinely honored that I was given the chance to review them.  Since there are 8 polishes in the collection, I'm going to show them in 2 posts.  Let's get going with the first half!

Christmas Village is a yummy, berry-hued holographic.  It's hard to define the exact shade as it looks more like a cranberry color in certain lights and more raspberry in others.  Either way, the color is as bright and joyous as the season its meant to represent.

The inspiration for this polish comes from Philadelphia's annual Christmas Village market.  Based on the traditional Christkindlmarket in Nuremberg, Germany, the Christmas Village is a place for people to shop for unique gifts, meet neighbors and friends, and enjoy the holiday season together. 

As you can see from the above macro, CV's holographic is subtle indoors.  It'll knock your socks right off in direct sunlight though!  I tried to snap a photo of it outdoors, but my camera was uncooperative.  Trust me, it's glorious!

The formula of CV was great, opaque in 2-3 coats and smooth as silk.   Christmas Village would be a beautiful addition to your holiday stash and the color is so pretty, I can see it being worn for other occasions as well.

The second holographic polish I have to show you today is Festivus For the Rest of Us.  With its gorgeous lilac base and holographic flash, Festivus is definitely a celebration.  Defined by wikipedia as, "a well-celebrated parody, [Festivus] has become a secular holiday celebrated on December 23 which serves as an alternative to participating in the pressures and commercialism of the Christmas and holiday season."  Fun, right?

I love this polish.  There, I've said it.  It's just so beautiful!  The color, the holographic, the smooth as butter finish...all of it!  There is nothing to complain about here.  It is easily the least "Christmas" or "holiday" of the collection, as I wouldn't consider lavender a traditional holiday color, but given its inspiration that seems fitting.  And, again, it's just so pretty...who cares??
 

Festivus is opaque in about 3 coats and I am showing it here with a top coat for extra shine.  If you do not own a light purple holographic, or heck! even if you do, you should definitely consider Festivus For the Rest of Us!
 

Now it's time for some glitter toppers!  Snow on Broad St. (shown here over Festivus For the Rest of Us) is a clear-based topper with iridescent flakies, iridescent glitters in several sizes and adorable white snowflakes.  Broad St. is a major thoroughfare in Philadelphia, home to several cultural and historical landmarks and gives us the inspiration for this polish.

Oh! the flakies!  Oh! the iridescence!  SoBS definitely captures the feeling of falling snow, and the iridescent bits remind me of the sunlight reflecting off of the snow on the ground after the storm has passed.  

Great formula here!  Not too thick and no gloppiness at all.  You will want a good top coat to smooth out the edges of those snowflakes, but they do lay fairly flat on the nail.  Initially I was worried the snowflakes would be too large and catch on things but I didn't have any trouble with that.  I do have a feeling we'll probably be seeing these snowflakes in a few holiday collections this season, they're just so cute!  But I love what Esther has done here pairing them with the iridescent flakies and glitters...it's a lovely polish.

Lastly for today, we have Star Barn.  This one was by far my favorite of the glitter toppers, I hope you can see why!  I'm showing SB here over Wet 'n' Wild Megalast 2% Milk because I just wanted a nude base to show of all this gorgeous gold glitter!  Aside from the gold holo and white stars, SB has gold dots, gold and holographic hexes in a few sizes, and gold micro flakies.  This is luxe, folks! 

I keep gazing adoringly at this macro shot...I can't help myself!  All that sparkly!  The Star Barn is an actual barn located in Middleton, PA, decorated with a large, five-pointed star on each side.  It's a beautiful building and worthy of this gorgeous homage of a polish! 

Again, a beautiful formula.  Neither SB nor SoBS required an excessive amount of fishing for the larger glitters, which is always a plus.  I did use a top coat here as well, just to smooth things out a bit.  You really want to consider grabbing this one, folks!  

*All products provided for honest and unbiased review*
 
The Holo-Day on Broad Collection will be available for pre-order on November 15th and then for regular sale on December 1st over on Etsy.  Full size holos will be $12 and full size glitters are $11. If you're interested in purchasing the whole collection, a full size set will be $85 and a mini set is $42.50.  You can keep up with release dates, new polishes, and other pertinent info on PhLL's facebook page. 

I'll have the second half of the collection review up tomorrow so be sure to check back, there's more pretty pretties on the way!  Thanks so much for reading!