Isn't it always superbly refreshing to discover a brand no one seems to know much about? Doesn't it renew all the interest and passion you might have lost into something if ever? When I came across that brand name of polish called Ekineda, my first reflex was to google it to find out if any of my fellow nail blogger had mentioned this brand before. So far, I found nothing. Unless my google search is doomed, I can conclude it's mainly unknown. "Great!" did I think. I love to explore new horizons. I love to be the first to leave my step into the fresh snow. Nothing excite me more than a new land to conquer and this is precisely what Ekineda looked like to me: a virgin land. So far, all I know is that it is a big 3 free English brand. I should maybe have written them to know more, ask them when the brand was founded, who they were. I bought their polish instead and tested them which is possibly even better than a thousand words. It's possible then that I have about a 20 of those to show you. I told you there was space to explore. Their color collection is small (30 colors) and I admit, pretty conservative (lots of pink) but the formula is smooth and great and there are some awesome finds here, like the drop dead gorgeous "Emerald Sky". That being said, I won't be starting with this one and will do with a very special color. Maybe not so special to many (what can be so noticeable in a pink among thousand ones?) but "Icy Rose" is very special to me. Back in my early teenage, the French brand Bourjois had a polish in their permanent collection called "Violetta". Violetta was a chrome pink lilac. I have emptied three 15ml bottles of this one until they revamped it along with their bottle design. "Violetta" then became a banal coral based pink shimmer and a very disappointing misnommer. They ended up eventually discontinuing it.
I think I have searched for a dupe of the original "Violetta" starting from that time. I have bought numerous pink colors in the brands we all know without ever coming close (with the exception of CHI "Lost my Bi-CHI-Ni" which was in the good vibe). Believe me or not, a pink-lilac chrome that is not a dusty pink is not very easy to find. At least not one like I have in head. "Icy Rose" is not exactly like Violetta but come so close in the base color that I can consider myself happy to have found a replacement. As a matter of fact, Icy Rose is a pinch darker and it's perfect to me. So, "Icy Rose" (on the website it is called "Icey Rose" but my bottle state "Icy Rose") is a pink that you'd think frost but as I can't see brush strokes on my nails (photo enhance them - they're not visible in real life), it comes as a chrome. A bright and strong pink leaning toward purple. Ekineda describes it as a dusky lilac-pink. I'll describe it as a varicose pinky purple. It's darker in the bottle than on nails due to the light reflective quality of the polish. As I didn't know the brand, I didn't know what to expect but the formula is superb, opaque in 2 coats and fast drying. The polish is neither too thin, neither too thick. The only bad thing is that it tends to bubble if I apply it too fast by a too hot weather. Also the polish will cheap easily without a top coat. Both issue can be solved in applying carefully when the weather is not too hot and applying a top coat. I adore it on my nails, as you might have guessed. I can't believe I have emptied half a bottle of my "Icy Rose" already and it's barely been more or less a month since I discovered the brand. It's saying how I love it. And it's not every time that I'm wearing the same polish 4 times in a row. I will be featuring more color to present you the brand because I bought a lot of colors. Not everything is worthy for sure but isn't it like in every brand we know?