Welcome to Polish Talk! While this is not one of my normal type posts, it is about another obsession of mine, nail polish. While my usual posts are about money-maker sites or contest that I share with you, this one will be Swatches and Review of one of the nail polish colours I received from the
Hard Candy contest win. Originally I thought of starting another Blog that was dedicated to my nail polish, however I figured I would make a section called Polish Talk.
Crush On Amethyst literally called out to me from the moment I opened the box and saw all of the beautiful nail polishes that I was lucky to receive. Purple is my favourite colour, and the depth and sparkle of this polish screamed "wear me". Crush On Amethyst is the fourth polish from the left in the photos below.
For my Reviews, I want to give you as much detail as I can. I am by no means at all an expert, just a consumer that likes to know about a product before I purchase it, and nail polish is no exception. I know there are a million blogs out there that show dazzling pictures of flawlessly applied polish, but sometimes pictures aren't enough. Some of the blogs rave about a polish, and the pictures make it look like application was effortless, but that's not always the case.
My pictures are just taken under a halogen lightbulb. There is no photoshopping or changing of the colour or background to more accurately pick up the colours. All photos here are my personal photos that I have taken.
Now, on to the polish. I have a lot of bumps and ridges in my nails, so I used Orly Ridgefiller as my base coat under this polish as I find metallics can show nail imperfections. Upon opening this bottle, my very first impression was that the colour is lovely. The sparkles are amazing, and the dusky purple is very vivid. My second impression is that the polish was super thick, almost kind of chunky. It wasn't dried out or anything, just super gloopy. When I originally used it, I tried a thinner coat, but it was so thick that it came out really uneven and was hard to control. One of the products that I cannot do without now that I'm into nail polish is my Seche Restore, a nail polish thinner. I got the large 59ml bottle of this on Ebay for $8.00 and $8.00 shipping, but the shipping also included other items I bought at the same time. I originally tried two drops of the thinner, but it took four total to get it to a consistency where the polish applied evenly, but didn't sacrifice the colour.
Hard Candy brushes are actually quite wide, which I had a little bit of trouble at first, but once I got the hang of it it made application easy. I was very pleased with the formula on this one after I used the thinner. It was easy to work with and required only two coats to be completely opaque. I could have done one really thick coat, but the polish can dry a little slower if it's thick, so I suggest going with two thinner coats, or you might end up smooshing the polish or balding it if you try to topcoat it too quickly. With the first thin coat, there was still visible nail line and it was a little sheer. I had to add a second coat to get it opaque. The colour that comes out on the nails is just like the colour in the bottle.
The glitter in this one is super fine and while the finish is metallic, I didn't really have any problems with visible brush strokes. The polish blended evenly and dried to a very slightly gritty finish, but it wasn't bumpy and the top coat made it completely smooth. After the polish set, I used my Seche Vite topcoat to seal it in. I don't know if it was the polish itself, or the combination of the Orly Ridgefiller and the polish, or the Seche Vite and the polish, but this one chipped pretty quickly. I type on a computer all day for work, so I can be a little rougher on the tips of my nails than maybe some, but it chipped after about a day of wear. Not just tip wear, but actual chipping where I had to do some maintenance to keep the manicure lasting. After the second day, it was getting to the point where all of my nails were chipping so I took it off.
Removal wasn't too bad. This has lots of microglitter in it, so I used a lint free polish remover cloth soaked in remover and let it sit on the nails for a short time. It didn't require the foil method or too much scrubbing after I let it sit for a bit.
My overall impressions?
Pros:
- beautiful, shimmery colour that I think is very unique and different
- no problems with visible brush strokes
- opaque in two coats and colour is true to what is in the bottle
- reasonable price at $3.99 per 7.8ml bottle and available at WalMart Canada
- for having lots of glitter, removal was fairly quick
Cons:
- started off really thick and goopy, had to be thinned
- lasted only one day without chipping
- drying time can be a bit longer if your coats are thick
- shows nail imperfections, but this seems to be a trait of metallic polishes
Even with the chipping, I do love this polish and look forward to wearing it again and I would definitely purchase it for myself. So, what do you think? Is this a polish that you would like for yourself? Do you like thinner or thick nail polish. As this is my first nail polish review, please let me know what you thought? Did I provide too little or too much detail? Did I miss anything that you would like to know? Let me know in the comments below.
This product was won by me from a contest sponsored by Hard Candy, I received their entire newest collection as my prize. All opinions on this blog are my own and were in no way influenced by the manufacturer.
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