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: 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: Sinful Shine Royal Flush

A little while ago, I reviewed my first Sinful Shine polish, Prosecco. It ended up being the highest scoring polish I’ve ever reviewed, so the natural thing for me to do was buy a couple more when they were on a buy one get one free sale at Rite Aid, including today’s subject, Royal Flush. Is it as good as Prosecco? Let’s find out!

Royal Flush is a fuchsia purple crème. I was a little worried as I applied it. While it went on fine and all, the formula reminded me of previous wannabe gels I’ve reviewed. It had that same lacquer like texture when it dried. I used two coats here, with one coat of the Sinful Shine topcoat.

This polish will water marble. I used another Sinful Shine along with it, Diamond In The Raw, which I will be reviewing at some point in the future.

It turns out that Royal Flush also stamps, although I had some issues with that. Royal Flush is opaque enough to stamp over darker colors. However, you can see from this picture that the silver underneath makes it look different. More importantly, the top coat smudged the design somewhat. The formula has some “grip” to it when it’s applied, even when I used a fairly heavy coat to avoid that problem. I don’t want to make a judgement call based on my experience with one polish, but I’m kinda thinking this kind of polish may not be ideal for stamping.

So, how did it hold up?

It didn’t, and that makes me very sad. It was wrecked after one day.

Verdict: Party Polish

Looks like we’re back to standard wannabe gel performance. Phooey. I really wanted this to be another polish on par with Prosecco, but that definitely didn’t happen here! I’m not giving up on this product line yet though. I have three more Sinful Shines to check out. I hope they’re more like Prosecco, and less like Royal Flush. Being usable for nail art is no good if it’s not going to last. Definitely skip this one.

Nail Polish Stress Test: Sinful Shine Prosecco

So over the past few months, I’ve tried various polishes I consider wannabe gels. These products claim to have extended wear and gel like shine for a fraction of the cost. So far, I have yet to find one that wasn’t loser polish. I keep hoping I’ll find one that actually works though! That brings me to today’s test subject; Prosecco from Sinful Shine.

Prosecco is a cool toned beige with golden glass flecks in it that have quite a bit of sparkle. It looks more iridescent up close. I used three coats, and the Sinful Shine topcoat you’re supposed to use with these polishes. It went on as if it were ordinary polish.

Let me be up front; this shade is not my thing. The main reason I went with Prosecco is that by the time I was aware my local Walmart finally got these polishes in, the display was pretty bombed out, and my choices were down to this, and basic colors like red and pink. I’d rather avoid reviewing the same color in twenty different brands, so Prosecco it was. Enjoy, because you won’t be seeing much of this kind of color here!

Furthermore, I’d just gotten a couple new stamping plates in the day before. Based on my track record, I figured I’d throw this on, fail it, and play with my new stuff. Did that happen?

NO! Not even close! I put this on Monday, and although it did get some tip wear, it was still looking acceptable on Friday, when I took this pic. Just to be clear about what I do to my manicures, this was on through two showers a day, washing dishes, cleaning, sticking my hands in boxes eight hours a day, and getting pretty filthy in the process, so the fact that this looked passable after all that is amazing! In fact, I kept it on through Saturday, when it finally started to chip.

Sadly this won’t stamp. Water marbling isn’t impossible. This polish takes significantly longer to dry in water for some reason, so I would recommend using the decal method if you want to do this.

Verdict: Outstanding

This is THE best polish I have reviewed so far. At $2.99 each for the polish and top coat, it’s also a fantastic value. Obviously the color hides some of the damage, but still….wow! I am totally checking out more of this line!

You know what the funniest part is to me? Sinful did not make any claims about wear time; believe me, I checked. If you see this polish, GRAB IT.  

 

Nail Polish Stress Test: Sinful Colors V.I.Peach

One of the major gaps in my polish collection is yellow. More specifically, I need a good pastel yellow. There aren’t many of those out there, so when I saw V.I.Peach, I snapped it up right away.

V.I.Peach is a pastel yellow “demi-matte” polish from Sinful Colors’ Class Act collection. The first thing I thought when I looked at the name is that they might have mixed up the labels during production. I don’t associate peach with pastel yellow. Checking the Sinful Colors website, it turns out they really meant to do that. This is supposed to be a “Spanish Peach” color. Googling “Spanish Peach” did not convince me, but hey, when I start my own polish company, I can use whatever color names I want. The color makes me think of the yellow chalk my teachers used to hate using in school.

This polish went on in three coats. The demi-matte finish winds up being what I would call an eggshell finish. It’s not glossy, but it’s not fully matte either. I did not use any top coat with this one.

It will water marble okay. Stamping…..I tried using a bunch of different plates with it, hoping I’d get a decent amount of opacity, and with it, a chalkboard look. Didn’t happen. It does work, and depending on what you’re trying to do, it might work for you. However, in my opinion,  this polish really isn’t ideal for stamping. I used a matte top coat on two of my nails, and a glossy one on the others to try and get different looks

So, how did it hold up? It did well considering I didn’t use a top coat, and the finish. It went two days before it was done in. It chipped strangely; I got more damage closer to my cuticles than the tips of my nails.

Verdict: Good

This did better than I expected given the circumstances. I like the fact that you can make it go all the way glossy or matte with the right top coat. For $2, this is an easy purchase to make, although ideally, you should wait for Walgreen’s to put it on sale for $.99.

Nail Product Stress Test: Sinful Colors Henna I Do Nail Wraps

Continuing on my nail wrap journey, I came across this set from the Sinful Colors Bombay Nights display for $2.99. As of this writing, it’s still available in Rite Aid and Walgreen’s.

I honestly wasn’t sure how to use these. The directions on the package said how to apply them, but I was unsure how these would look on bare nails. Was this supposed to be like a negative space manicure? I debated for a bit and decided to put them on my nails straight. Nail wraps traditionally don’t go over polish, right?

The designs themselves are pretty, and have a little bit of sparkle in them. I was hopeful when I applied them, but when I was done, I got……..

…that.

These look awful.  Application was difficult. These things wrinkle like crazy for one thing. No matter what I tried, I couldn’t avoid it. The fact that the wraps are clear helps make it less noticeable, but I know this looked bad. Then there’s the design. It’s not nearly dark enough so it looks…..well…..like crap. There’s no way anyone with a darker skin tone could wear these on their own.

Then there’s the matter of trimming them at the end. I tried using a file left over from the Essie wraps, a nail file, my buffer, it didn’t matter. I ended up with horrible looking ragged edges.

They reminded me of Essie’s wraps in that it feels like I coated my nails in a heavy layer of glue. At this point, I really didn’t like how they looked or felt on my nails. I was thiiiiiiiiis close to taking them off, but I figured I’d wear them to work and see how they held up.

The fact that they’re mostly clear helps, but the tips got pretty messed up by the end of the day. Granted, they had a head start, but this was total fail.

Just for science, I thought I’d try using a couple of the leftover wraps over some neutral polish. This is more like it. You can actually SEE the design, but application is still a problem. I found there was no way to reposition the wrap if I wasn’t happy with how it looked. They seemed to stick to the polish somewhat, and when I peeled it off afterwards, the wrap lost its adhesion. Basically, if you can’t nail it the first try, it’s not happening.

Using the wraps over polish had no bearing on their durability, they still got messed up after one day. If you do decide to buy these, using them over polish is definitely the way to go. 

Verdict: Loser polish

This is a great concept, but the execution leaves a lot to be desired. Don’t buy this. For $3 you could get three bottles of their polish instead.