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Hey friends! I cannot believe we are in the month of March already. I know February is a short month but dang! Time is really flying by.
So today I am sharing the newest release from Orly. This collection is inspired by all things Nasa. As a shall we say, casual space enthusiast my knowledge of all things Nasa is pretty basic. If you are like me, good news you don’t need to know anything about Nasa to enjoy these!
If you keep up to date on all things Nasa/space related, I think you’ll really enjoy these nail polishes because the inspirations seem pretty cool.
This collection is available right now. Originally it was an Ulta exclusive but it is also now available on the Orly website. I’ll have links and pricing at the end of the post!
Live Swatch Video
*The live swatch video is currently up for members of my youtube channel. It will be live to the public Saturday March 4th at 1PM Eastern time*
Orly is a US based mainstream brand. Their polishes are in massive 18ml bottles, 12 free, cruelty free and vegan friendly.
Golden Record
Inspiration: NASA’s message of peace golden record on board the Voyager space probe
Description: a golden metallic
Golden Record had a fantastic formula. It was way more opaque than I thought it would be not anywhere near being a one coater.
The shimmer in this polish is next level gorgeous! And that’s coming from a metallic hater FYI. You get a green to gold color shift on the nails.
Sadly the shimmer shows a lot of brush strokes and will really bring attention to any imperfections on your nail. In my case, the patch on my ring finger where I broke my nail this morning. However, on the plus side if you use a smoothing base you can cover up those imperfections fairly easily.
My photos show Golden Record in 2 coats plus glossy top coat. I can see those of you with longer nails needing a third coat.
I wanted to show how not similar this is to Lost In The Maize from the Breathable Fall/Winter 2022 collection.
Perseverance
Inspiration: NASA’s Perseverance rover and the Martian landscape
Description: a red shimmer
Perseverance had a fantastic formula. I was shocked at how opaque this polish is. If you go in for a thicker coat, it will be opaque in one coat.
The shimmer doesn’t show brush strokes. Overall I found this one a little underwhelming. Likely because I don’t like the rusty red the base color is. However, my remedial knowledge of Mars makes me I think the polish nailed the inspiration.
My photos show Perseverance in 2 coats plus glossy top coat.
Spirit Of Peace
Inspiration: NASA’s historic Apollo XVII moon landing
Description: a white and gold confetti topper
Spirit Of Peace had a fantastic formula. I knew when I saw this in the bottle, it would either be really good or really bad (think Don’t Be Square bad). Thankfully it was terrific!
The glitters all spread out very evenly with very minimal texture. You don’t need to do any fishing and dabbing to get great coverage.
One thing I didn’t realize before I got this onto my nails is that there is a golden micro flakie or a fleck that is also in this polish!
My photos show Spirit Of The Peace in 2 coats on its own with 1 thick coat of top coat. On my ring finger, I have the polish in 1 coat over EcoGlaze’s Mountain Flower which is a bright pink. I personally like this more built up BUT it looks great as a topper too.
The glitters will likely give you some trouble on removal but overall not the most difficult removal experience.
View From L2
Inspiration: the NASA James Webb Space Telescope
Description: a deep holographic shimmer
View From L2 had a really great formula. It felt just slightly on the thicker side but not overly thick. It stayed where I put it and didn’t run down the stem of the rush.
To my eye, this polish appears to be either a black base with a subtle dark blue shimmer OR a very dark blue base that appears to be black in most lighting, plus a silver holographic micro glitter. I am leaning toward it being a black base and am not 100% sure about the blue shimmer. If there’s no shimmer, the black base has a very bluish tone to it.
You get a lot of sparkle from the holo glitters but not a ton of texture. I opted for one thicker coat of top coat and that seemed to smooth everything out nicely.
Coverage for this one is fairly streaky so if you go in for thin coats, it’s likely going to be a 3 coater.
My photos show View From L2 in 3 coats plus glossy top coat.
Nail Stickers
This was the first time that I can recall at least trying out nail stickers. As you can tell from my photos, I didn’t do a great job haha.
I don’t think I am the target audience for this type of product but I can see with a few application actions, these would be easy and fun manicures.
I did like that there were a ton of designs to choose from and you can get at least 2 full hand manis out of each pack. My biggest complaint is the designs that I most wanted on my nails wouldn’t actually fit my nails.
Final Thoughts
I loved this collection! I loved how each polish had a custom sticker on the bottles. The polishes were and as far as I could tell fit the theme well.
My favorites were with the glitters, View From L2 and Spirit Of The Peace.
Orly
18ml, 12 Free, Vegan & Cruelty-Free
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Sale Information
The Orly x Nasa collection is available right now the Ulta website as well as on the Orly website. Each item is priced at $11.99.
