A couple of weeks ago I was on vacation in Tokyo (super exciting!). Of course I needed to check out the nail polish section of every drugstore. What I noticed was that there were a lot of glitter toppers in a clear base. What surprised me the most was that people didn’t wear them as topcoats over a base color, but just applied them to the bare nail! It reminded me of my childhood, when I had a holographic bar glitter topper, which I just applied directly over my bare nail. Back home I wanted to imitate the look, but in a way I was comfortable with. That’s how I ended up with ILNP Sweet pea.
Sweet pea is a sheer pink holographic. ILNP released Sweet pea in Spring 2016, together with some other jelly polishes. It doesn’t matter how many coats you will apply, this polish will remain sheer. In these pictures I’m wearing two coats, but I’ve also worn it with three a couple of months ago. The nail line will always remain visible, the color just becomes more pinkish when you apply more. The formula is really nice, and it is easy to apply multiple coats.
The holographic effect is actually quite strong, it is in between scattered and linear. You could just apply a holographic topcoat for almost the same effect. However, the pink base color of this polish has the effect of a foundation or concealer, it covers up any imperfections of the nail. As far as I know, this polish is super unique, I haven’t seen any holographic polishes like this before. In the last couple of months ILNP has released more of this type of sheer nudes, but I still haven’t seen any other brands with these type of polishes.
I personally really love the look Sweet pea gives to the nails, but I know that a lot of people really dislike sheers. ILNP has other light pink polishes that are meant to be opaque, but this one is designed to be sheer. ILNP polishes can be bought directly from ILNP, however they are also available at several stockists around the world. I bought mine at Hypnotic Polish, which is their stockist based in the Netherlands.
