Magnetic polish was a hot new thing for nails along with other sorts of textures (concrete, leather, etc.) that started trending a couple years ago. I'm pretty sure the first time I ever heard of it was in 2011, with hard-to-find-companies (at least in Canada) like
Layla Cosmetics and
Nails Inc. releasing a line of magnetic polishes. Soon enough wallet-friendly brands like
Sally Hansen and
Revlon among others caught on and the next thing you know almost ever brand of polish had at least one magnetic polish and you could find them at your local drug store. That shit spread like wildfire.
What is magnetic polish? Essentially it's polish that has magnetic particles in it so that when you hold a magnet directly over your nail immediately after applying the polish it replicates the design of whatever the magnet's shape is. No, not just any magnet will work. Specialty magnets usually came with the polish (embedded in the cap) in various designs like stars, lines, waves, and so on. Essie jumped on the magnetic polish party train in late 2012, releasing a line of 6 magnetic polishes under the
'repstyle' collection, all with the same snakeskin-ish pattern that would be revealed by the magnet. Some reviews of the collection
weren't so great, and some talked about
using ad hoc tricks to get the magnetic pattern to better show itself.
I've had these two Essie repstyle magnetic polishes for probably two years now and had only ever used them once. I hated how they turned out cause whenever I placed the magnet over the wet polish I ended up smushing it cause I'm a tard, and then well, it was just ugly. So when I was re-organizing my polish rack I thought I should give these little bastards a try again. This is the result: