Cirque Altar Ego

I have a secret to share with you... today is my Birthday! (Well, not so secret anymore, is it?)

I'm not wearing anything special on my nails today (just Orly Jealous, Much? that I purchased yesterday after a long day of shopping with good friends) but I thought I'd share one of my favorite polish splurges with you: Cirque Alter Ego. The first time I saw Alter Ego I wanted it. The color is rich and gorgeous, and I love that it comes with the Arms and Armoury ring! When Cirque had a sale clearing out all of their polishes with the old bottle style, I just had to have Altar Ego!

Alter Ego is a black holographic polish, with subtle golden shimmer that is so hard to capture. The holographic is linear, and quite strong both indoors and outdoors. The shimmer is very subtle, but it gives the polish so much more character than a normal black holo! Application was good, no patching/bald spots, no special base coat, and two coats to opaque! Black polishes are my least favorite for clean-up because they seem to stain my skin so badly, but I didn't have any issues at all with this one (okay, maybe a touch on my middle finger).

The ring from Arms and Armory is gunmetal silver with a black enamel triangle in the center. The enameled part did look different than I was expecting, but it's still quite pretty. The ring is re-sizable so that it fits most people. I'm not a huge fan of rings with a gap in the back, but I love wearing this sized smaller as a mid-digit ring.

So there it is! What do you think of this set? It retails for $42 from Cirque Colors (a bit pricey in my opinion, but worth it if you are in love with the ring!)