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.)