If It Bleeds, We Can Kill It - Loki's Lacquer review and nail art

I'm excited to have something super fun to show you today! As you might have noticed from my previous reviews, Loki's Lacquer LOVE doing tie in polishes with movies, tv shows, and anything generally nerdy. I was scrolling through the Etsy store a little while ago when I came across a glow in the dark polish called, "If It Bleeds, Kill It", and I knew that it must be mine.



If you've somehow managed to avoid seeing Predator at any stage in your life, then let me give you a very brief run down. Arnold Schwarzenegger's and some cut and paste commando characters end up on a jungle planet, where they start getting picked off one by one. Turns out they're being hunted by aliens called Predators with super invisible suits, but with sufficient bullets and teeth gritting Arnie prevails in the end. "If it bleeds, we can kill it", is a line from Arnie about the Predators, tweaked slightly for the name of this polish to avoid any possible copyright issues. The Predators also have glow in the dark blood (which I always thought was a pretty poor characteristic of stealth hunters), so this polish is a perfect tribute to this over-the-top, wonderful action flick.

Even if you don't give a damn about the Predator references, it's still a freaking COOL polish. The pigment will glow for up to 12 hours after being charged under a light (a UV light is quickest), and because the pigment used is designed for use in solvents, the pigment will stay stable for...well, ever, more or less. Like almost all the other pretties Loki's Lacquer put out, this has a gorgeous array of different glitters in it. There are large green matte hexes, medium green hexes, small gold squares, tiny gold dots, and itty bitty blue flakie flecks, which combine to give it enormous depth. The glow in the dark pigment does make the polish a little bit gritty, but two coats of topcoat smooth it out perfectly.

Because I was so excited about this polish, I decided to get my crap together and do some decent nail art with it. So I looked up the Predator clan symbols, and away I went!

 Happily, the Predator alphabet is ludicrously easy to draw, so I was pretty confident they would come out okay. But I was really surprised with how nicely the background came out. I was going for a "shadows on leaves" kind of mottled look, so I started with a base coat of teal and then sponged a light minty colour over the top really unevenly to make the mottling. Then I put two coats of If It Bleeds over the top, and it all came together perfectly!

Unfortunately, it turns out I really SUCK at getting pictures of the glow in the dark effect, so you will have to take my word for just how bright it really is. I don't have a UV lamp so I just stuck my nails under my normal photo lamp then ran into my room to get these.

If you squint you can KIND of see how it glows more against the whiter parts of the background, making a really neat mottled effect. If you layer it over straight white or straight black, the glow is much more even.

I was so pleased with these I did the other hand to match and wore it into work today, and a grand total of one person so far has commented - which just reminds me why I never bother with work safe polish when I could have this!