Thursday, December 26, 2013

LVX Winter Resort 2014

*press sample
LVX Winter Resort collection 2014 swatch and review

Good morning, everyone!!  I hope your holidays have been wonderful so far.  I'm sitting here wishing I'd have requested today off to recover from all the Christmas festivities, lol.
So now that the Big Day is over and New Year's and the depths of winter are imminent, I feel like this new collection is highly appropriate-- it's LVX's Winter Resort 2014.  Winter Resort says complete luxury to me, speaking of those for whom "holiday" is a verb and December swimsuit shopping is necessity.  This collection is firmly grounded in the here and now, though-- it's a set of five deep and luxurious shades and one onyx-black texture that are easily taken from New Year's Eve through the chill of February and beyond.


First up is one that perfectly exemplifies that "beyond", and is on trend with Pantone's 2014 Color of the Year, Radiant Orchid.  This is Magenta, a warm, glowy, shimmery fuschia metallic.  It's a classic and not overly unique color, but the straightforward finish, rich monochromatic shimmer, red-toned warmth, and perfect formula made it a fast favorite of mine.  I used two coats plus one layer of topcoat.

LVX Magenta swatch and review

Sappir is a cold, silvery dark cadet blue filled with the blue and fuschia shimmers present in inky blues like OPI Russian Navy and Zoya Neve.  Sappir is less saturated and more steely, more gemstone than ink and somehow more neutral.  It's fun to see a different take on the ubiquitous dark blue metallic.  Sappir's got an amazing formula, too-- I used two easy coats plus one layer of topcoat.

LVX Sappir swatch and review

Avalon is gorgeous.  It's an ever-so-sightly dusty, very heavily copper-leaning mauve metallic with copper and aqua shimmers.  It's subtley glowy and singular in appearance.  I love how this one warms my skintone and because of the warm and cool balance of pigment, will look gorgeous on anyone, whether your skin pulls copper or mauve from it.  Another perfect formula-- I used two coats plus one layer of topcoat.

LVX Avalon swatch and review

Graphite surprised me by not looking like much in the bottle-- it's a pretty basic (albeit on trend-- see Zoya Claudine and Cassedy) light-medium toned silvery pewter shimmer-- until you get it on the nail.  I love when the name of a polish perfectly matches the color, as is the case with Graphite.  If you were to color your nails in with your #2 pencil and topcoat it to make it glossy, this is what I imagine it would look like.  It's on the brushstrokey side which only adds to the pencil effect, in my opinion.  It's a cool and quite edgy way to wear metallic grey.  Perfect formula here, too (sensing a trend?)-- I used two coats plus one layer of topcoat.

LVX Graphite swatch and review

LVX has also joined in on the textured trend with their own iteration, a satiny jet-black with gold microglitter woven throughout.  This is Caviar, a creme based polish with very fine textured bits.  It doesn't have that overly rough, dry, gritty feeling of the Zoya and OPI textures (so this won't bug those of us prone to battiness by the abrasive feel of the Pixiedusts and Liquid Sands).  It's more reminiscent of a fine glitter without the smoothing benefits of a topcoat.  The gold microglitters, which are quite noticeable in the bottle, are almost completely obscured by the texture as it dries-- they're that fine.  If you look closely at my photos, you can see a few peeking out and that is true to life.  Those glitters come out to play it you choose to topcoat Caviar, so it looks very much like Orly Androgynie, minus the colored hexes.  The big pluses to Caviar are its wear time, including tipwear, and how easy it is to remove.  The tiny textured bits that seem to hold the pigment in place also come off with remarkable ease.  It's the most user-friendly textured polish I've tried.  I used two coats. 

LVX Caviar swatch and review

Last, but not least, is Scarlet, a stunning plum shimmer in a very dark grey base.  Scarlet is beautiful on, with a deep but subtle lit from within quality.  Two coats will get you full coverage, but three creates remarkable depth.  You see four coats here, and I'll get to that.  I've been spoiled by LVX, formula wise amongst other things, but Scarlet was thin and tricky, and I experienced a lot of pooling.  You'd do well to have your cleanup tools close at hand for this one, but that wasn't my biggest issue with this polish.  Topcoats seem to be fairly subjective but unless you're working with a super thick and quick drying formula like Seche Vite, you'll most likely experience reasonable cooperation between the nail color and topcoat.  I tried two different topcoats with Scarlet, one a glassy finish topper with a slower drying formula (Rica Glossy Glam) and the other, the lauded HK Girl Glisten & Glow.  I experienced shrinkage almost instantaneously with both, even as I wrapped my tips.  You see one very fresh coat of polish and topcoat over the three coats plus topcoat that I applied before bed the night before.  I suspect a thin topcoat like Out The Door might do the trick, as would foregoing topcoat altogether.  Dry time is minimal on these 5-free polishes and Scarlet is such a lovely color that it's worth it to find a way to make it work.

LVX Scarlet swatch and review

All in all, LVX Winter Resort 2014 is a luxurious, cohesive collection filled with easy to wear and surprisingly unique beauties and for the most part fantastic formulas.  These each retail for $16 for 15ml.  All six of these are gorgeous, but my top choices are easy-- Magenta, Avalon, and Graphite.

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Thank you for reading and have a lovely day ♥♥
*press sample

17 comments:

  1. These are all very beautiful. This seems like a brand I would love. Now...which color shall I choose??? You make them all look gorgeous.

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    1. Thank you ♥♥ I know you would love this brand! I think you'd particularly like Sappir and Scarlet-- maybe that formula would work better for you than me.

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  2. Gorgeous colors from LVX! Your swatches really showed them off perfectly ;)

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  3. This is a pretty collection. My favorite one is Scarlet.

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  4. Holy.MOLY. GORGEOUS!!!! :D I am lovin' these hardcore... especially the last one is right up my alley. Wow. But darn that tricky formula! :( I actually just got two Zoyas (Ibiza & Noot) from one of their flash promos and both of them were horrible for me... I have no idea why, maybe they didn't agree with the base I used (Seche Rebuild)? It was just so weird! And I'm a bit sad that the colors are not quite what I was expecting, despite a lot of swatch Googling! :P
    I am very tempted to pick up a couple of these though... I remember ooohing and ahhhing over your Cashmere swatch too. ;) Seriously, could your collection swatches be any more perfect?!?!

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    1. It might do better on you; formulas seem to be fairly subjective, too. Bummer about Ibiza and Noot. I got three during a promo at the end of last year and I wasn't over the moon about a couple of them...the third hasn't even been worn yet :p But seriously, nothing compares to seeing the color on your own nails and being able to look at the finish in person, even just on the swatch sticks in the stores. Re. Noot and Evvie, I know Evvie looked nicer with my skin tone and I think I thought the color had a touch more personality? I don't remember. Maybe I was sold on the name, lol :D
      I hope you do try some LVXs! They're so nice. And thanks for the compliment :D I really had fun putting this one together.

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    2. Yeah it'd be nice, but I don't wanna risk it at that price point. :-/
      Which ones did you get and aren't loving? I wish I'd gotten Dahlia and Neeka like I was originally going to. :( I think I've learned my lesson about trusting online swatches! You're right, Evvie does look nicer - at least in the online swatch! LOLOL
      Oh c'mon, you've already gotten me hooked on some higher end brands; let my poor bleeding wallet be for awhile! hehe I can't believe I didn't realize on my own that LVX is supposed to be "lux" as is "light." VERY cool!! That darn V/U thing is just sneaky. ;) I mean, I understand it; have you even tried to make a curved marking in a rock using a hammer & chisel?!

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    3. There is no rest for the wallet in this hobby, lol ;) But seriovsly, I know it! I'm dying to try the BL flakies but I jvst can't jvstify more polish at the moment.
      The Zoyas I wasn't over the moon about were Emme and Svri. Both are in good hands with my leetle seester. It made sense that I'd love them, a pearly pink and a blackened green, bvt they didn't send me, for whatever reason.
      And the whole stone and chisel convndrvm-- indeed, I wovld not want to mess with cvrvatvre in carving words, I can only imagine the headache. Pens, pencils, and keyboards are mvch nicer.

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    4. Oh my word - LMBO!!! Nicely done, using "v's" in place of all the "u's!" hehehe When I first saw "seriovsly," I thought it was Swarovsky! LOL
      Hmm I know I've seen Svri but Emme isn't ringing a bell. Glad to hear your sis likes them! Nope, no rest for the wallet! I'm sure you saw Zoya's newest promo; the buy 3 for "free," aka $12 shipping, so $4 each. I miiight scoop up Dahlia & Neeka, and I'm sure I can find something else to add to my cart. ;) BL has flakies?! :O Are they part of the winter collection? I guess I didn't pay much attention to it for some reason. I bet they're amazing... Off to Google I go! ...with my keyboard, instead of a chisel. ;) My laptop screen is also happy about that. hehe

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  5. What a beautiful collection. I'm pretty sure Avalon and Scarlet want to come home with me. You always make LVX polishes look as luxe as their name doesn't quite spell. ;) And your lovely writing on this post was just icing on the cake. :)

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    1. Lool, at first I thought it was so gimicky but then I learned what it truly meant and... well, still gimicky but "cool gimicky", hahaa. Dead languages are fun :) And thank you ♥ One of my many new year's resolutions for la blog is to improve my prose, which probably means I'll have to forgo 6:30 am keyboard mashing sessions. Not everything pretty is inspiring, though, you know?

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  6. Holiday being a verb - LOL LOL LOL!!! And yes, Resort holds for me as well the idea of some fancy island Cruise or what have you! But LVX has perfectly intoned a collection of six winter basics in nail polish terms. They all look gorgeous on you what a pity about the formula of Scarlet but one glitch out of six is not bad ;-). Melissa is right - your writing is the icing on the cake ;-)

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    1. They're kind of winter in NYC-ish, ice skating at Rockefeller Plaza or something. Maybe not so trite (I just called to my mind every Christmas in New York romantic first date scenes ever filmed D:) but my imagination is lacking at the moment (which isn't saying much). Scarlet is a bit of a bummer but it's okay because I like Magenta better, anyway :) Thank you for your words, as always!

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  7. I love Avalon, Caviar and Scarlet (too bad about the formula issues you had). As always, your swatches look lovely and these all look gorgeous.

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    1. Thank you so much, Cat ♥ It's a pretty fantastic collection. Avalon is really neat, pulling mauve or bronze depending on your complexion. Such a unique color ;)

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