Nail Polish Stress Test: Claire’s Spring Fever

If you’ve ever stopped in a Claire’s, you may have noticed their layered polishes. If you did, I bet you wondered “what does that look like on?”  Let’s find out together!

I chose Spring Fever, a nice combination of pastel pink, blue and lavender cremes. The pink and blue make me think of Pantone’s 2016 colors of the year. I figured I’d go with colors that would go well with each other. 

Application was interesting. The polish came out predominantly pink, with a few faint blue streaks.  I didn’t see any lavender until I’d almost finished the last coat on my right hand. I’d consider the formula to be on the thicker side. It took three coats to get full coverage. I used my standard coat of Seche Vite on top. All in all this didn’t look like I’d used some groovy polish. It was more like I’d painted my nails with a brush contaminated with a different color. I’m assuming the streaks would look more colorful and pronounced over time, but you only get one chance to make a first impression. This did not impress.

Spring Fever didn’t do well water marbling. I suspect the thicker formula that allows it to stay layered in the bottle is the reason. It was just too goopy to work, but it came close! Stamping didn’t fare much better. It didn’t do well with fine lines and details. Even the designs that did stamp okay were ruined as soon as I applied top coat. That’s a major bummer.

So, how did it hold up?

Better than I expected. It lasted a solid two days before I decided it had to come off.

Verdict: Good

I’m not crazy about how this polish looks by itself. I guess if you wasted some or just kept on using it, you’d get more interesting results eventually. I think this would best be used as a backdrop for nail art. It usually sells for $4.50. If you’re really curious about this one, hold out for a good sale first.

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.

Top Coat Stress Test: Claire’s Holographic Top Coat

I’ve tried a fair amount of Claire’s nail polishes at this point. The results have been consistently disappointing.  I keep purchasing them because they keep tempting me with interesting looking polishes, and having good sales on them. So, today’s test subject is their Holographic Top Coat.

This looks like their version of the well regarded Northern Lights top coat, which I have yet to try. The gimmick here is there’s fine holographic glitter in a clear base that all completely sinks to the bottom of the bottle. You need to shake it up before you apply it.

The formula is very watery. I felt almost like I’d bought a snow globe in a nail polish bottle! I put one modest coat over my beloved Ulta Blue Holiday. I wasn’t really happy with how it applied. As I put it on, it actually messed up my polish a little. This top coat seemed to drag the polish off my nails.  Even though I had three coats on, and it was completely dry before I put the holo top coat on, it ended up making my mani look patchy. I know it’s hard to see because it’s shiny, but trust me; this didn’t look so great in person. It’s most noticeable on my pinky. This is not something I would use over nail art; it’d get ruined for sure. On the positive side, the glitter distribution was evenly scattered and added a nice sparkle.

So, how did it perform?

A good hour after I’d put it on, when pretty much anything should be completely good to go, I got a fingerprint mark on one of my nails. I fixed that, thought I was all set. Within an hour of starting work the next day, I had catastrophic polish failure. It was like this top coat never really “cured”, and scraped off as I was working.

Verdict: Loser Polish

Wow. I have never seen a top coat act like this before! I don’t know what is up with this one, but the results speak for themselves. Save your $5.50 and do not buy this! Buy a proper snow globe instead.

Top Coat Stress Test: Claire’s Ombre Top Coat

Claire’s is an interesting place to shop for nail polish. From what I can tell, they’re one of the few brick and mortar places I check that put out some fairly innovative polishes. They’re the first place I ever encountered thermal and solar polishes. The quality of their polishes can be hit or miss, but I’ve bought enough hits over the year to justify buying more for science. Good sales don’t hurt either. That’s how I ended up picking up their Ombre Top Coat.

It’s not completely clear (no pun intended) how this is supposed to work. I asked the associate on duty, who genuinely had no idea either. There are no instructions on the bottle to provide guidance. She thought it was supposed to change like a thermal polish once it was applied based on the sticker on the cap.

That's a reasonable guess. However, it turns out this is a sheer white polish that’s meant to be layered to create an ombre effect.

I got out my bottle of Ulta Blue Holiday, my go to polish for testing out top coats. I used two coats of Blue Holiday, and then applied three coats of Ombre Top Coat.

Here’s what it looked like after I tried making an ombre mani.

It took me three tries to get these mediocre results. I started out with two coats of Blue Holiday, then layered three coats of Ombre Top Coat over that. The polish really doesn't really start building up until at least the second coat, and the glossiness of the finish makes it ever harder to see. I had hoped the darker polish would make the effect more pronounced, but no such luck. 

This is not a fast dry top coat, so it took ages for it to dry. I’m so spoiled on using Seche Vite on everything that I forgot I actually had to wait with this one. Whoops! I also found I needed to let each coat dry before I applied the next one. This stuff definitely requires patience. It does look nice and shiny though.

So, how did it hold up?

It did pretty well; it made it two days before the chips started. When it did, it actually started happening near my cuticles instead of at the tips of my nails.  

Being as this is a top coat, and a sheer one at that, it's useless for stamping and water marbling. I tried using it with nail vinyls to see if I could get the ombre effect to be more pronounced. Nope! The only thing that was more distinct was how hard this polish fails. If I used more than one coat, it built up too much and pooled in the vinyl and by my cuticle. Air bubbles, yay! No nice clean lines either. 

 

Verdict: Loser Polish

If I were to rate this strictly on the basis of durability, this would be Good. However, I don’t recommend buying it, especially at its full price of $5.50. If you want to do an ombre effect mani, I would say either use a regular sheer polish that has a use on its own, or go with three shades of the same color. This top coat requires too many layers to do its one job, and by that point it’s just not practical. Pass on this one. 

Nail Polish Stress Test: Claire’s Color of the Year

Let me admit this up front: I’m not a trendy person. When I picked up Color of the Year from Claire’s, it was because it was on sale for $2 down from $5.50, and a color I didn’t already have, Marsala. I’d completely forgotten that it’s Pantone’s color of the year for 2015.

Pantone defines Marsala as “a naturally robust and earthy wine red”. Yep, that description works for me!  According to the cap, this polish is supposed to have a “gel effect”.  I have no idea what that’s supposed to mean, and neither did the store associates when I asked them. I noticed the formula is very similar to Revlon’s All In from their Gel Envy line. It’s thicker and seems to have a powdery texture to it that makes it easier to apply neatly. When it dried, it looked slightly glossier than their average polish, but in the absence of any other instructions, I applied one coat of Seche Vite on top of it anyway.

Color of the Year can potentially stamp, but you have to work really fast. The color....urgh..... Instead of a "naturally robust and earthy wine red", it came out as an ugly bright rust red that doesn't look pretty. Assuming you're happy with how your design came out, odds are good it'll get trashed when you try to put top coat on. This happened to me multiple times with different top coats. It's just not worth the hassle. 

Trying to water marble with this polish will break your heart. Initially I thought it was going to work great, but it shriveled afterwards. A lot. The first time I tried it, I thought I'd dinged it without noticing. Nope! I had the same results the second time. I don't know if it's because the formula was incompatible with the other polish I used, but it was bizarre. The pigment also bled like crazy. I shudder to think what would have happened if I'd used it with a contrasting color!

It held up about as well as the average wannabe gel polish, taking on major tip wear over the course of one day.

Verdict: Loser Polish

I’m inclined to be kinder to this polish because of the price. At $2, my expectations are far lower than they would be for $8 polish. Nobody said anything about this polish being longer wearing, which is a consideration. Still, this got beat up pretty quickly, and it's useless for nail art.  There are better quality polishes available in this color, so I’d pass on this one.

Nail Polish Stress Test: Claire’s Money Bags

Last year I tried Sally Hansen Color Foils nail makeup. Color Fail would have been a better name. They sucked at everything except water marbling Christmas ornaments. I still haven’t given up on the concept though, so when I found the Liquid Metal polishes at Claire’s, I figured I’d give it a go. Was that a bad idea? Let’s find out!

Money Bags is a terrific minty metallic green. It seems very similar to the Color Foil polishes in that it comes in an opaque bottle and has the same chrome finish. However, unlike the Sally Hansen polishes, it doesn’t say anything about not using base or top coats. The formula is more like traditional polishes and dries in the same amount of time as the average lacquer. I strongly recommend using a base coat or buffing your nails before you use this as it’s going to highlight any ridges you have on your nails. I buffed mine a couple times before I was ready to take pics with this stuff on. Spoiler alert: This polish will stain too.

I used two coats with one coat of Seche Vite on top. Since this polish was so similar to the Color Foils, I strongly suspected it wasn’t going to hold up well, so I decided to try this one out on a weekend as well. 

 

The very best thing about this polish is that it stamps beautifully and reliably. It has yet to fail me in this regard. It will watermarble, but care has to be taken with what polish you pair this up with. Money Bags spreads out a lot. I’d pair this with polish that spreads out just as much or you’re going to end up with goopy results. 

 

So, was I right to test this on a weekend?

Yep! It got wrecked by the end of the day. I’d even made sure to do all my housework and cleaning before I put it on! I guess this breed just isn’t very hardy.

 Verdict: Party Polish

If you’re not into nail art, I wouldn’t bother with this. If you’re into stamping, you need this polish, and the other colors in the series; they all work the same way. They’re a decent price at their regular price of $5.50. I’ve found them on sale more than once at $2. That’s awesome for stamping polish! Honestly, I wish they’d make these in a few more colors. I’d totally buy them!

Nail Polish Stress Test: Claire’s Purple Mood Polish

Every so often, I’ll see a gimmicky polish that looks like fun, even though I know it might not work. Claire’s Mood Polish would be a good example. Being as it’s winter, I figured this would be the perfect time to test it out.

Although the label on the bottle says Purple, it never really looks that way on. It starts out looking like a darker pink, and turns to neon pink when warm. I didn’t really like how it looked in its transitional state. Normally I like how mood polish will create a French manicure look. This just looked like my nails were dirty. Meh. 

Here's how it looks all the way warm.

 

It’s a crelly, with a matte finish, so if you hate visible nail lines, turn back now. I used three coats, plus my usual one coat of Seche Vite on top to make it shiny. This doesn’t wholly come as a surprise to me, but this polish will not water marble or stamp.

Here's how it looked after one day.

I adjusted this photo to get the polish color accurate. This is its cold state.   

This particular morning, I did little more than get dressed and head out the door. No washing dishes, cooking, anything that might accelerate the doom of a manicure. Just as I started my car I noticed I already had some chipping. It only went downhill from there. Even with low expectations, this was a bottle of fail. 

Verdict: Loser Polish

While the color change effect is neat and all, what’s the point if it’s going to chip if you so much as look at it wrong? This one’s a waste of money.

Water Marbled Christmas Ornaments

One thing I had fun with last year, was using the technique of pouring nail polish into Christmas ornaments to make custom decorations. I wanted to do that again this year with smaller ornaments since my tree is small, but I couldn’t find any plain clear ones the right size. Then I hit on an idea. What if I water marbled them instead?

I got a couple different kinds of ornaments in the name of science. There was a set of black, white and silver ornaments at Wal-Mart I saw as blank canvasses, and I got a box of small clear ones from Michael’s that had an iridescent coating on them. 

I didn’t want to waste good polish on this, so I figured I’d try some Sally Hansen Color Foils on them. I picked up a couple when they first came out. (I should have waited.) Ocean State Job Lot has them for $2 right now, which is about the right price for party polish. When I tried water marbling with Purple Alloy, Liquid Gold and Minted Metal, I wasn’t happy with the results. However, Pink Platinum and Cobalt Chrome work great. I found I got the best results when I combined one of the great ones with one of the difficult ones. I also used a bottle of Claire’s Gold Roses, which is another reluctant to marble polish. 

I ran into some pitfalls along the way. First of all, if you’re going to try this, go easy on the polish. Don’t do this:

If you use too much,  they take forever to dry, leaving the design highly vulnerable to damage. Assuming that doesn’t happen, the dreaded air bubbles appear. Or, you get both. 

I really liked how they worked on the clear ornaments best. They made me think of blown glass.

The other ornaments worked well too, so depending on what look you want, these are totally viable options.

All in all, this is a great way to make fantastic looking ornaments. I’m totally doing this again next year!