



Great news (for me), I was relatively good over Black Friday! There are SO many things that I did NOT buy. Kind of. I have to admit that I maybe was a little guilty of making maybe a few large purchases, like a macro lens for my DSLR (a Real™ macro lens! I can take Real™ macros now!), a new laptop to blog and edit pictures on (and so I can keep my polish mess out of sight), and even a Fitbit (evidently, I make Black Friday resolutions the same way other people make New Year's resolutions). Oh, and I also bought the entire Blush Lacquers Sea Water Shimmers Part 2 collections. Technically that was a PRE-Black Friday sale, so if you insist on asking, that's my defense.













Anyway, those Blush polishes are the entire point of this post, so we'd better get to it!





The Sea Water Shimmers Part 2 collection is comprised of 7 more-or-less pastel-y shimmers. It's a follow-up to a collection that debuted back when the brand was still quite new and exclusively sold on Etsy. In past posts, I may not have been very subtle about how much I'm obsessed with shimmers, so you can probably guess that I actually do own at least a couple from Part 1. I think I bought 2 or 3, with the intention of going back for more, but budgets happen and unfortunately that ship has LONG sailed. Luckily I can soothe myself with the polishes in this collection, as some do bear a striking resemblance to the old generation, but they're definitely not dupes as the shimmers come across very differently. Part 1 polishes had a noticeably finer shimmer that also wasn't nearly so shifty as the ones I'm about to show you!





Every swatch in this post is under artificial lighting with only 2 coats of polish, sandwiched between Vapid's Commitment Issues (base coat) and their High Shine Quick Dry Top Coat.





Marin Bering ($13)





This is a muted blush rose—maybe even leaning towards a cool mauve—crelly base with a glowing near-metallic shimmer that shifts from red to gold to green. It reminds me a bit of Fin Swirl from part 1, although Fin Swirl has a smoother and not particularly shifty shimmer.





















Calliope Pacifica ($13)





Calliope Pacifica has a smooth, dove grey crelly base, but you can hardly see it through the incredibly strong pink-to-orange shimmer. I love the effect of this one; the muted base kind of muffles the shimmer, but instead of smothering it, creates this ethereal lit-from-within glow.

















Theodora Delphine ($13)





Another muted crelly base, this time in a soft, sweet sage green. The shimmer is gold to a bright green—in the bottle it looks like it wants to be blue. This does have the same glow as the others thus far, but sometimes looks a little frostier than I prefer.













Vanora Horizon ($13)















Showing the green shift

I tried to show the orange shift as well, but they do kinda look similar.



One of my favorites in the collection! A slightly toned-down lime green crelly with fierce pink-orange-gold-green shifting shimmer. Similar to the very popular Nerida Stinger, but again, with much more of a shift as well as a coarser shimmer. The color makes me think of witch-cursed frogs, but in the best possible way! I bet it looks incredible in a gradient with black.









Ocean Moonbeam ($13)



















Esme Cove ($13) A murky turquoise base with shimmer that's sometimes purple, sometimes pink, maybe turquoise, and then sometimes just kind of vanishes! I will be honest and say that I'm not as much of a fan of this one. I don't love it with my coloring, and it does tend towards frosty. But I still ended up taking a bunch of extra pictures of it just trying to catch how it morphs with movement and different lighting!









A purple base with blue to purple to red/pink shimmer, but the purple base leans brown sometimes, which gives the polish what I'm going to call a strange flavor. The delicate contrast puts this polish firmly in my "pretty weird but also weirdly pretty!" category! I won't say it's unique as I think I have a couple of polishes that are similar (but of course not the same) in feeling—Femme Fatale's Eilonwy and Hundred Years Winter both come to mind—but every time I see the combo, I'm struck anew in a way. It feels very special because of how weird it tastes to my eyes, maybe like a magical swamp that changes every time you walk into it.













Gemma Atlas ($13)





Another grey base, this one maybe a touch deeper and bluer than Calliope Pacifica, but it looks completely different because the shimmer is mainly green (although it shifts to red and orange-ish sunset hues). It's like the lush, cooler sister to Calliope's fiery spirit.











