Wednesday, September 28, 2011

Orly Mineral FX Collection Fall 2011 Swatches and Review

A couple weeks ago I did a quick post on Rock It from the Orly Mineral FX collection, but now that I have the complete set, it deserves a full review. It is an awesome collection, just as awesome as the duochrome-heavy Cosmic FX collection was last fall.

Some quick details on this collection that I thought were interesting (directly from the press release):

Over-the-top opulence goes glam rock with an eccentric edge that is sure to rock nails in Fall 2011. The afterglow of duo chrome reflection and high intensity pigments create an eye catching effect in the Mineral FX Collection.

The innovator in color and texture, ORLY is the first to create a nail polish that provides high impact, prismatic color infused with minerals. The daring color palette reflects smooth, metallic shimmers embellished with holographic sparkle and burnished gold undertones accented with ultra rich jeweled hues. Mineral FX draws inspiration for these shades from the richness and depth of the tones found in precious metals and rare minerals.

Mineral FX includes the following natural raw materials:
• Fluorophlogopites (crystals) allow for a shimmering color transformation
• Glass particles, precisely shaped and sized, create a radiant, luminous effect
• Mica, silica, and striking pigments deliver the two tone, multidimensional effect in each shade

The shades are:

Emberstone. This one looks amazing in sunlight. It's an orange, coral and red fusion. It has tons of multicolored shimmer particles in it. Yellow and gold, red, pink, orange. Please view these pictures full size so you can see the different shimmer colors. One odd thing about this polish? It looks amazing in sunlight, but so boring indoors/at night. It looks like a plain coral shimmer then. Weird! And just for fun, because I thought this picture looked cool and very much like its name:


Rock-It. Posted this one already, but I'm posting it again for completeness. Gorgeous polish. Plus, the name makes me think of the Rock-It Launcher from Fallout 3, which can use any 'junk' item as ammunition... So, theoretically you could fire bottles of Rock-It from the Rock-It Launcher. /nerd




Rock Solid. This is a dark grey/near black base with silvery grey glass fleck and hologram glitter. This one looks pretty cool. The silvery particles stand out in the dark base and the holo glitter circles add a nice little bit of fire to the polish.


Rock The World. A purple-tinged brown base with heavy gold glass fleck sparkle. Sort of similar to Zoya Faye or OPI It's MY Year, just darker and more saturated. A bit more of that gold sparkle in it, too.


Rococo A-Go-Go. Insanely gorgeous red-purple base with multichromatic glass fleck particles. This one flashes all sorts of colors- red, blue, pink, gold, orange... Super, super pretty. Reminds me a bit of Zoya Valerie.


Stone Cold. This is a blue jelly base with silvery blue flaky glitter. It's not flakes like Nfu Oh flakes, but more like little flaky platelets of glitter. Not your usual perfectly round, flat, stiff glitter pieces.

The formula on these was mostly good, but a little thick. Application was normal on all of them except Stone Cold, which was gooey and thick and gave me quite a bit of trouble. The other problem I encountered was massive bubbling on Rock Solid. I would highly recommend giving these a few minutes to dry in between coats to prevent bubbles from forming. The dry time on these was extremely long for me. I find that they dry quicker when I wait a while in between coats and then use Seche Vite on tip. I did experience denting up to four hours after application, but Orly is usually like that on me so I'm not sure if it's unique to the Mineral FX formula.

Love the colors of these. The depth, the sparkle, the duochrome effect... Beautiful. Orly did a good job on these colors. Sure, some of them are a little familiar, but that doesn't make them any less gorgeous. I only wish they dried faster.

Like the Cosmic Fx collection last year, these polishes are more expensive than regular Orly polishes. MSRP is $10 each on these, though you can get them cheaper online and at Sally Beauty. I'm not totally sure why Orly would charge more for these colors when tons of other brands have duplicate colors and keep the same price.

These are available now. I got half of mine from Sally Beauty and the other half came from Orly's PR, but I've seen the display out at Ulta and CVS as well.

(Some of these were sent for review.)

28 comments:

  1. OMG! I NEED them ALL!!! :D
    sooo pretty!

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  2. these look great. I have several of these polishes but have only tried Rock Solid so far. looking forward to trying the rest :-)

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  3. Rococo and rock solid are must have items! actually i'll add rock the world to those too! just gorgeous.

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  4. The Orly FX collections are the only collections for which I have actually wanted to get every single colour ! Love all of these, and your swatches are really selling them !

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  5. Ooh these are pretty! I'd love to try Rock Solid and Rock the World. And I think your videogame references are always fun, it's always nice finding people who enjoy gaming and nails too

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  6. I have the blue one already. However your swatches are making me reconsider the entire collection!!

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  7. These are all gorgeous!!! I definitely want Rock The World and Emberstone!

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  8. WHOA! Rococo A-Go-Go and Rock-It are really calling my name. All of these are gorgeous, though. When my No Buy is up, I'll definitely be getting these!

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  9. I love these! I picked up Rococo already, and may go back for the others. And yay for Fallout 3! My hubs is super addicted to it, and I have just started playing. :)

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  10. I didn't think I would fall so hard for these. I already knew I liked Rock Solid from seeing the Polis-aholic swatch, but the rest,OMG,Scrangie!These are so absolutely TDF!

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  11. I have Stone Cold and it is so, SO, gorgeous!

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  12. I'm glad that I wasn't the only one having trouble with Rock Solid. It's a neat color, but ugh. I'm only giving it one last shot before giving up on it. So far I'm just not impressed with Orly, I never seem to have good luck with them!

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  13. I am wearing these this week, have Rock Solid on right now. I think they are loooooveeely all around. Stone Cold isn't really a color I can wear but I ended up buying it anyway since it's so pretty in the bottle. :P

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  14. Oh man, these are really gorgeous. Emberstone looks like it's on fire in the sunlight! Rococo A-Go-Go, Stone Cold, Rock Solid...these are all so beautiful! The price does bum me out though. I'm hoping so much that my local nail supply gets them!

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  15. When I first saw Emberstone it reminded me of Orly's Star Spangled, which I've just bought. :)
    Rococo A-Go-Go, Rock Solid and Rock-It are now on my wish list! :D

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  16. Like I don't have enough grey polish already, but Rock Solid might be a must-buy. Also -- sadface at the lack of a green. I ALWAYS want the greens.

    Re: the gaming references: I really hope you read Manly Guys Doing Manly Things...

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  17. I think this is the first collection in a while that I would get every single color, even though 2 aren't completely fab (the red & blue) but are 2 colors I probably need to have a complete spectrum.

    GORGEOUS swatches...you are always my go-to blog when I need a review!! Thank you so much for how hard you work!! :) <3

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  18. I want Emberstone just so I can layer some black crackle over it!!

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  19. I have Emberstone and the color is AMAZING! I could stare at my nails all day when wearing it. My only problem with it is that it seems to chip rather quickly. I can only get a day, maybe two, without a chip. But the color is so beautiful that it's worth it!

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  20. I need, need, need - Rock-It!!! When and where will I find it is the question!!! Thanks for the review.

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  21. I'll be buying all of these. They're stunning.

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  22. I hadn't been overwhelmed by these in the bottle, but after seeing your swatch of Rococo a Gogo, I bought it, and I am in love! What a gorgeous color! Thanks :)

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  23. I'm such a sucker for this kind of thing - loved these when I saw em here, and was over the moon to find em at my local Sally's (which usually sucks at getting special collections). Got Rococo A-Go-Go, and may get one or two more!

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