Embrace the Year of the Dragon

Written by Abi Mogge, Staff Writer

There are some days when I wouldn’t mind being a little bit more like the fierce, edgy ‘Girl with the Dragon Tattoo’. Lisbeth Salander takes the very idea of a female heroine and turns it on its head, defying society, gender roles and beauty standards in the name of justice and vengeance for the people she loves. I devoured this trilogy of novels about a year ago and I love both versions of the film; Swedish and American. Given the chance to try a line of nail polishes based on my favorite underdog heroine, I jumped. Duri is a New York-based company committed to producing nail products that are environmentally-friendly and free from DBP, toulene and formaldehyde.

The six colors in this collection are:

Icicle – a frosty, shimmery white, reminiscent of new fallen snow.
Fallen Angel – a deep, dark eggplant – almost black – with a hint of red shimmer.
Angels and Demons –probably my favorite; a rich, metallic silver.
Dragontini – a dark, seductive purple-pink. This color is elegant and sexy, with an edge.
Black Diamond – a gorgeous, inky, jet black. Mesmerizing and spooky.
Frozen Fire – shimmery bubble gum pink, this color seems so unlikely amidst such dark ‘gothic’ shades, but even a goth girl may need a good girly color in her arsenal… in case she needs to assume a false identity and bankrupt her lover’s political rival. Hypothetically speaking.

These colors all look great on their own, but I loved Icicle and Frozen Fire layered over the darker ones. I also was impressed with how smoothly the polishes went on, no glooping or glopping or stickiness. I recommend wearing a base coat and top coat with these. My only complaint was some chipping after a few days. This line of polishes are available for $5.00 each at www.duri.com.

Word on the web for 2012 is that nail polish is the new lipstick; a fun and inexpensive way to glam up and express yourself. Maybe this would be a good year to express your inner bad girl. I know I’m enjoying it.