Orly Shade Shifter and a St Patrick's Day Mani!

Hello!

For today's post I have an interesting product that I was really excited to get my hands on. I tried out Orly Shade Shifter which is a black to clear thermal gel top coat. I love how versatile this is! This post also doubles as a St Patrick's day mani.

Orly Shade Shifter and EdM You're Not That Great

I saw pictures on one of the facebook groups I'm in about Orly's new colour changing gel top coat. I haven't used anything from the Orly FX range but Shade Shifter looked like something I could really get some use out of. I love thermals, (my Parrot Polish order is proof of that . . . shhhhhh, don't tell the Mr!). Shade Shifter doesn't appear to be available in Australia yet so I turned to Ebay and found it for quite a good price, $15 including postage from the US. Here's a link to the seller I used. 

Orly Shade Shifter and EdM You're Not That Great
Indoor Fluorescent Lighting

For this mani I used my Gelish Vitagel basecoat (I get easy removal with this product) and broke out the Gelibility and an untried indie polish. If you haven't heard of Gelibility then here's my post about how the product works. I used Emily de Molly's You're Not That Great which is from their Anchorman 2 collection. I bought this polish from the EdM store during their boxing day sale. Because the Gelibility dilutes the colour it doesn't look as vibrant as it does in other swatches. I used 3 coats of the Gelibility mix. The polish was very hard to work with as a gel. The glitter made things a bit gritty and thick but I managed. It's a bit patchy in some spots but I didn't want the finish to be too thick. 

Orly Shade Shifter and EdM You're Not That Great
Indoor Fluorescent Lighting

After the colour coats I used 2 thick-ish coats of Orly Shade Shifter which was black in the bottle. Orly says to use a top coat over Shade Shifter which is what I did (I used Gelish Top It Off) but I might forgo this step next time. You really do need to use two coats of Shade shifter to get consistent coverage. During normal wear the colour would shift from black to green frequently depending on what I was doing. Inside in the aircon it would turn black but outside it would be green (Shade Shifter turns clear when warm, revealing the colour underneath). I think black to clear is a very versatile colour for a thermal as you can layer it over pretty much anything. 

Orly Shade Shifter and EdM You're Not That Great
Indoor Fluorescent Lighting

 In these photos the tips are black. I took these photos after coming back from a walk. During my walk my nails turned green but after coming back inside for a few minutes the tips turned black. I love how you get a french tip without even doing anything, it's awesome! The amount of colour shift you get will depend a lot on your daily activities and climate. Being summer (the weather is still summery where I am) the warm colour comes out a lot. In winter I think this will be predominantly black as my hands are always cold.

 

Orly Shade Shifter and EdM You're Not That Great
Indoor Fluorescent Lighting

I did some stamping over top of this mani. The image is from Born Pretty's BPL-01 and I stamped with Mundo de Unas Gold. This picture shows the colour transitioning from black to green. I love how the stamp gives a different look over black and green. 

What do you think of thermal polishes? Have you given them a try yet?

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