Nail Polish Stress Test: Sinful Colors Sugar High

Two things I absolutely love to see in polish are the color blue, and texture. That means today’s subject, Sinful Colors Sugar High should be perfect, right? Let’s find out!

Sugar High is a gorgeous royal blue textured polish from Sinful Colors’ limited edition Sugar Crushin’ collection. This is the color of joy.  Even better, it has a duochrome shimmer that shifts between blue and pink. I’ve never seen that done before, and I love, love, love it. Unlike its sister Sweeten The Teal, this polish is more on the sheer side. As a result, the color isn’t as deep on the nail as it is in the bottle. The texture isn’t overly abrasive and isn’t distracting as this kind of polish can be. I used three coats with no top coat.

As a textured polish, it won’t stamp. As for water marbling…well, this is the reason I don’t consider doing it with this kind of polish.

So, how did it hold up?

Sadly, it was a done deal after the first day.

Verdict: Loser Polish

While I’m sad this isn’t a repeat of Sweeten The Teal’s success, it’s still one of the prettiest polishes I’ve acquired in some time. I plan to keep on wearing this one; I’ll just stick to doing that on weekends. I picked this up at Walgreen’s for $1.99.

Nail Polish Stress Test: Claire’s Frosted Metal Blue

Ever buy a bottle of nail polish you thought looked cool but wasn’t what you expected when you put it on? That’s the story behind today’s test subject, Claire’s Frosted Metal Blue.

In the bottle, it looks like what it says on the bottle; a frosted metallic light steel blue polish, albeit one that needs to be shaken up a little. Imagine my surprise when it turned out to have glitter inside! If you read my review of Sea Temptress a while back, you’ll know I am not a fan of this kind of thing, so I wasn’t very happy to discover this. You can see the glitter in my bottle shot below, but at normal not magnified viewing range, it’s not obvious there’s stuff in there.  

Nonetheless, I foraged on. I will say this polish was easy to apply. The formula was on the thicker side, which was more like paint than lacquer. There’s micro glitter and bar glitter inside that gives more of a lumpy effect rather than frosty.  I used two coats and no top coat. Drying time was very short. This would be a good polish to put on if you wanted to do your nails just before heading out.

With all that glitter, there was no way this was going to be any good for water marbling or stamping. That’s a real bummer because I really wanted to try doing some nail art with it. I doubt one could even stamp on it!

So, my complaining aside, how did it hold up?

Not well. One day did it in. However, it’d be easy enough to put another coat on top to extend its wear.

Verdict: Loser Polish

As long as I’m griping, I’m also going to note that Claire’s really, really needs to do a better job of labeling their polishes in general.  *cough*ombre top coat*cough* If I’d known what was in that bottle, I never would have purchased it. At least it’s not terribly expensive. It normally goes for $4.50, but they run sales often enough that there’s no reason to pay full price for this. And you shouldn’t.

Nail Polish Stress Test: Sinful Colors Sweeten The Teal

I’ve loved textured polishes from the day they first came out. However, I’ve been wanting a nice bright green one, and up to this point, I haven’t been able to find any. Then last weekend, I saw a new display of Sinful Colors polishes at Walgreens. I snagged a few new limited edition polishes, including today’s test subject: Sweeten The Teal.

Sweeten The Teal is from Sinful Colors’ limited edition Sugar Crushin’ collection. I wasn’t sure if it was going to be a textured polish, but it was so pretty I didn’t care. I was thrilled when I discovered it was! This polish is a lovely teal green, with a duochrome shimmer that shifts between green and gold.  As I type this, it’s currently Green Nail Polish Season, so it definitely got noticed at work. It’s quite sparkly when it dries. Application was a bit messy as the formula was on the thin side, plus not realizing it was textured, I was too heavy handed at first. Light coats are the way to go here. It has a sandy finish but it isn’t overly abrasive. I used three coats, and no top coat.

As this is a textured polish I did not try to water marble with it, and it definitely can’t be used for stamping.

So, how did it hold up?

It was awesome! It made it four days before it started to look beat up. It wore down pretty evenly, and even though it lost sparkle, I was able to revive it with a fresh coat on top for the weekend.

Verdict: Outstanding

This is the green textured polish I’ve been dreaming of! I’m delighted it held up so well too! If you love textured polishes or green, you need this one! It’s a fantastic value for $1.99!

Nail Polish Stress Test: Revlon Artsy

Blue is my very favorite color, and it seems like it’s been ages since I reviewed anything in that shade. I’m going to take care of that today by reviewing Artsy by Revlon.

Y’know, it’d be funny if there was a companion shade named Craftsy.

Aaaaaaanyways, Artsy is a dark blue jelly base packed with large hex, small, bar, and micro royal blue glitter. So gorgeous!  It reminds me of Revlon’s Scandalous, except I think the glitter in Artsy shows more as the base and glitter match. It was easy to apply. The glitter distributed nicely, no need to patch up bald spots with this one.  I used three coats total. They dried to a somewhat rough finish. One coat of Seche Vite helped with that for the most part. A second coat might have been helpful, but I want to keep testing conditions consistent.

This one isn’t useful for stamping or water marbling because of all the glitter.

So, how did it hold up?

Not so great.  Unfortunately, this is the type of polish that’s on the brittle side, so it chipped big time on the first day.

Verdict: Party Polish

I was really hoping this one would do better. At least it’ll still be a good weekend polish.