My Top 5 Best and Worst Polishes of 2015

Happy New Year! I thought I’d take a moment to reflect on the polishes of 2015 I’ve reviewed that I felt were the best and worst.

The Best!

#5 Julie G Tangerine Dream

Textured polishes may be on their way out, but I think they’re awesome. Tangerine Dream was a great find that performed well. For bonus points, it’s also a near exact duplicate of a more expensive polish.

#4 Ulta Blue Holiday

I am such a sucker for a good blurple. This one is a go-to polish for me. It does everything I could ask of a crème polish; it stamps, it water marbles, and it has staying power. This is the polish I reach for when I want to test out a top coat.

#3 Bonita Golden Girl

Currently the blingiest holo polish I own. Golden Girl looks fantastic, holds up to abuse well, and only costs $1.49!

#2 Color Club Cash Only

This choice was a toss up between this beauty and Color Club’s Burnt Out. Both polishes are from the Oil Slick collection. While Burnt Out is gorgeous and an attention getter, I went with Cash Only. I think it’s just as pretty, in a more subtle way, and it’s good for nail art, which Burnt Out isn’t.

#1 Sinful Shine Prosecco

This polish blew me out of the water by lasting a record five days before I had to remove it. If you need a polish that will last, you need Prosecco.

The Worst!

#5 Claire’s Ombre Top Coat

As a top coat, it was pretty good. However, it was not good at fulfilling its purpose of creating ombre nail art. Throw in the fact that the bottle has no directions on how to use it, and you end up with the frustrating feeling of having wasted money.

#4 Claire’s Mood Nail Polish

I love the concept of mood polishes. I had hoped this would be fun to watch change color since I’d bought it in the winter. Sadly it self destructed pretty quickly. It also made my nails look dirty, which didn’t make me happy.

#3 Walgreen’s Beauty Bin $2 Four Pack

I know CVS’ Pop-Arazzi polishes have a reputation for smelling bad, but compared to Walgreen’s set, they smell like perfume. Easily the worst smelling polishes I’ve dealt with so far, their quality overall was as bad as their stench.

#2 Republic Nail Gel Effect Coral

Garbage, through and through. The color was streaky and the top coat was goopy. This polish supports my theory that if the manufacturer can’t put a good photograph of their product on their own box, the results are going to be disappointing

#1 Profusion Sugar Lacquer Set

This edges out Republic on my list because of the poor quality bottles. The polish was okay, but the main problem is that the brushes wouldn’t stay in the caps. Imagine if you were getting ready to go out, decided to throw on some fresh polish before heading out, and had a brush fall out and wreck your outfit or shoes? The potential for damage cemented its position as the worst on my list.

And that closes out 2015! I'm looking forward to discovering more new brands and types of polish in 2016.  Thanks for reading!

Nail Polish Stress Test: Broadway Sand In Heaven

So the other day I was killing time with my friend before we had to go to work, and she suggested I check out Dollar General. Me being me, I sought out the nail polish. I came across a whole display of a brand I’d never heard of before; Broadway. I chose one, because, hey, it’s $1! That polish is today’s subject, Sand In Heaven.

I was hoping this was going to be textured due to the name. Nope! This is an almost neon greenish yellow pearl, with some sparkle in it. I had to color adjust my pics as this one photographs more green than it truly is. Another problem is that this looks different on my nails than it does in the bottle. I’d picked this color because my polish collection doesn’t have many yellows, so I’d been hoping this would make a nice addition

The formula was nice and smooth, yet after three coats it definitely did not look good on my nails, and I found the results far from heavenly. Who named this? The polish itself is on the sheer side, so the color of my nails affected how it looked on me. What looked like a fun greenish yellow in the bottle, ended up looking like vomit on my nails.  I applied my usual layer of Seche Vite and let it ride. This looked ugly enough that a couple people actually commented negatively about it!  

Sand In Heaven didn’t stamp or water marble.

So, how did it hold up?

 It only lasted a day, and honestly, I’m glad of that. I was over this color pretty quickly. I don’t think I’ve ever been so happy to see my polish chip!

Verdict: Loser Polish

Maybe they should have named this one Toxic Waste Beach instead. It’s a moot point though, because this polish just isn’t worth buying. 

Stamping Styrofoam Christmas Ornaments

A while back, an awesome friend of mine sent me some Styrofoam star shaped ornaments. I really wanted to do something cool with them. Me being me, I wanted to do it with nail polish.

The first thing I did was try to paint polish directly onto one of them. BIG MISTAKE. Nail polish will cause Styrofoam to melt. Crud. Lesson learned. At this point I actually abandoned the whole decorating with polish thing for several months until I happened to stumble across a blog post explaining that if you coat Styrofoam with Mod Podge, you can paint it with whatever you want. The important thing is to check the bottle or their website first to make sure it’s the right type. I went with the glossy kind to I could make sure I could see where I’d painted since Styrofoam is not shiny.

The process of coating the ornaments with Mod Podge took a couple days. I painted one side of each ornament at a time, let it dry for several hours, and then painted the other side. It only really needs about half an hour, but I found if I waited a while longer, they didn’t feel so tacky. I used two coats to ensure I didn’t miss any spots. I didn’t want to ruin any more of these babies! I used some cheapo paint brushes, and had no problems.

 I tried painting the remains of the one I wrecked with polish to see how it looked. It was okay, but I knew I could do better. What would look better? Stamping!

I busted out the Metallic Red Cherimoya polish I reviewed a little while a got and gave it a try. It worked without a hitch! I stamped directly onto the Mod Podge using a non sticky rectangular stamper I got from Bundle Monster. This really worked well, and made it easy to keep the designs lined up. I used stamping buffet style plates for the most part, and used designs where it was okay if there was some overlap. I also used a couple Bundle Monster stamping polishes for the others as I wanted nice vibrant color. Each star took about half an hour to stamp. I did have some empty spaces, which I filled in by dabbing on polish with a makeup sponge – the same kind you’d use to do a gradient.

Here’s how they all looked when I was done.

I’m really happy with how these came out. I think I’m going to hate taking my tree down!

I hope you all have a great holiday, no matter what you celebrate.

Nail Polish Stress Test: Pretty Woman Turks and Caicos

If you’ve ever looked at my tag cloud, you can tell blue is my favorite color. I have more blue polishes than anything else. The only reason why I will pass on a blue is if it’s a duplicate of something I already own. I’m also a big fan of textured polish, so when I came across Pretty Woman’s Turks and Caicos, I had to have it!

Was that a wise purchase? Let’s find out!

Turks and Caicos is a stunning light blue metallic textured polish with larger pieces of light blue glitter. This has a ton of sparkle to it. I spent more time than I want to admit just staring at this beauty. The only polish I have like it is Zoya’s Vega. It’s a bit of a toss-up, but I think I like the look of Turks and Caicos better.

This polish was easy to apply. I only needed two coats, and it dried pretty quickly. Its texture is fairly rough, but a little bit of wear will smooth it out. Did I mention it’s gorgeous?

As a textured polish, it’s not something you want to use for stamping or water marbling.

So, how did it hold up?

It made it two days before it was game over. That’s a bit short for a textured polish. This goes a bit beyond tip wear, and into overall polish loss.

Verdict: Good

I was hoping this would last longer than it did, but since it only needed two coats, I was able to nurse it through a full week by adding another coat on top. I love that about texture polishes. I can’t recommend buying this at its full price of $7.99. I bought mine from Ocean State Job Lot for $1.50, which I think is a fair price for the quality. If you can score a good deal like that, go for it. This brand is available at select Rite Aid and Walmart stores, or it can be ordered directly from their website. If you’re really interested in this brand, I recommend following their Instagram account. They occasionally announce sales there.  

Nail Polish Stress Test: Bonita You’re My Lobster

Today I have another polish from Bonita’s Forget Me Not collection, You’re My Lobster. I scored this baby from my local Rite Aid for only $1.49. I was lucky to come across this display just as it came in as it was wiped out very quickly!

You’re My Lobster is a festive bright red jelly with loads of small and micro red glitter. I used three coats. I did not love the finish on this one when it dried. It was pretty coarse and semi matte, to the point where it reminded me of some of the final Pixie Dust polishes Zoya came out with like Oswin. One coat of Seche Vite helped somewhat. I think two coats of You’re My Lobster with two coats of Seche Vite might be a better way to go, but I felt that in this case keeping the testing conditions the same as everything else I’ve reviewed was more important. 

As you might expect, this polish can’t be used for stamping. It can almost water marble. I found it did spread nicely, and the results look really pretty in the cup. However, there’s sooo much glitter in there, that the results ended up being rather lumpy on my nails.

So, how did it hold up?

It did pretty well. It went two days before it started to noticeably chip. At first I thought I could push it a third day, but once the chips started there was no turning back.

Verdict: Good

It turns out You’re My Lobster is a bit on the brittle side. Still, it’s a good polish for the money. I have no regrets about buying it. I’ll definitely double down on top coat next time I wear it though. 

Nail Polish Stress Test: Dance Legend Albatross

I love stars. Really love them. I may actually take my love of them a bit far. I say that, because when I found out Dance Legend was coming out with their Indistar collection, I got a little….excited. I ordered mine from Llarowe just before they cut back to only selling their own brand. A lot of new polishes tended to sell out on launch day there, so by excited I mean OMG DON’T LET THEM SELL OUT BEFORE I GET HOME FROM WORK!!!!! Thankfully, that didn’t happen.  I was able to snag the ones I really wanted, including today’s test subject, Albatross.

Albatross is a sheer light gray polish with lots of holographic goodies. It’s got holo stars, small glitters, microglitter, and sequins. There’s silver microglitter in there too. I felt like it looked more white than gray when I put it on. I used three easy coats, with one coat of Seche Vite on top. The stars and sequins you see here are what I got without deliberately fishing anything out of the bottle or moving stuff around. Overall, I’m pleased with how that worked out although the three sequins on my index finger look a bit odd.

Even though this is without a doubt a sheer polish, it did a good job of hiding visible nail lines. Normally I don’t like that, but it definitely worked for me in this case. This polish looks magical!

My nails have a good amount of curve to them, so this can lead to stars easily getting knocked off or being scratchy. My one layer of top coat largely took care of that. I’m sure an extra coat would address it for sure. The sequins are fairly thick, but they were pretty secure on my nails without me doing anything special to keep them there. I suspect the hole in the center may have something to do with it.

It should come as no surprise that this polish is not suitable for stamping or water marbling.

So, how did it hold up?

It made it a solid two days before it took noticeable damage. It's not easy to see, but I lost a couple sequins, and when they came off, they took a fair amount of polish with them. There was some lifting near my cuticles too. I have a feeling this may be the type of polish that might pop off too much is used at once.

Verdict: Good

I believe people who don’t work in warehouses will be able to get more wear out of this polish than I did. Good thing too, at $9 a bottle, I want it to stay on my nails! I’m glad it did so well considering how easily I can potentially catch the big stuff on things. Even if you’re not into sheer polishes, this would work well as a top coat. If you love starry things like I do, you should pick up a bottle of Albatross if you get the chance.