pa Nail Color AA37 from the Premiere Lame Grande Collection (baby blue flakie)

The other day I was at my local Mitsuwa Marketplace here in San Diego and I noticed that the pa Nail Color display contained a new collection of FLAKIES! So naturally I had to get one and I couldn't resist the baby blue shade, AA37.

For those unfamiliar with pa, it's a Japanese line of nail polish by the brand Dear Laura. You can view all of the shades of flakies in pa's Premiere Grande Lame Collection by scrolling to the bottom of THIS PAGE. Since I saw all of these shades up close and in person, I can tell you a few things about them in case you're looking to make a purchase (more on that later in this post).

pa Nail Colors are made in France and I think they have the cutest packaging of any nail polishes I own (you can see swatches of the other pa polish I own--AA32--which is a chunky holo glitter polish, here).

pa Nail Color in AA37 from the Premiere Grande Lame Collection

(retail: $5.99 at Mitsuwa)

I couldn't find the unit weight on this bottle,  but they are SMALL (more like a sample size). Here's a pic next to Sally Hansen Hidden Treasure:

And here are some quick swatches I did using AA37 over black, and then on its own. For the nail swatched over black, I used one coat. For the nail swatched bare, I used two coats:

The two primary shades in this flakie are blue and teal. At most angles, you can see both teal and blue on the nail, but there are times when the blue is more apparent while the teal surfaces just on the edges of the nail. On bare nails, the flakes appear more irridescent, but baby blue is the primary color.

I want to tell you that the display I saw in person, containing all of the flakies in this collection, also had helpful nail swatches of each shade (fake nails mounted to the display). So I can tell you that all of the shades in this collection have transparent bases that are tinted but seem to be practically clear when on the nail. The flakes in the red, pink and orange polishes all looked very orange/copper to me (much like the "burning embers" in the original Hidden Treasure but without so much irridescence). The flakes in the darker blue and green polishes appeared to be similar to the flakes in the baby blue polish above. 

I'm not sure how much additional color the transparent bases will lend to the overall effect of these flakies, so I'm inclined to say that if you bought a shade with blue/teal flakes and then bought a shade with orange/copper flakes, that's probably all you'd need from this collection.

Once again, you can purchase these polishes at Mitsuwa stores, and you can view all of the shades in the range here (scroll to the bottom of the page and look for AA37 - AA42). I'm not sure if the flakies are available online anywhere yet, but I did notice that this site has many other pa polishes for sale (I can't speak for this site though, as I have never ordered from them).

Do you own any pa Nail Colors? If so, what shades do you have and how do you like them? I will experiment with this color in the future and post some swatches if I find a combination that really knocks my socks off!