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.

Nail Polish Stress Test: Milani Sardina

Every time I stop in a drug store, I have to check the nail polish displays to see if there’s anything new and interesting I’d like to try. In this case, it was Sardina, part of Milani’s Fierce Foil collection.

Sardina is most definitely pretty – like I’m going to spend my hard earned cash on an ugly polish! (Oh wait...I did. Oops!)  I wouldn’t call this fierce or a foil for that matter. It’s pearly white flecks in a sheer shimmery base. I needed three coats to get full coverage.

I couldn’t resist doing a little nail art with this one. It’s a shame I wasn’t able to stamp or water marble with it.

So, how did it hold up?

It did well. I got a solid two days out of it before I felt the need to take it off. I probably could have pushed it to three since this kind of polish hides damage. Once I know it’s there, it bugs me though.

Verdict: Good

This is a good polish to have if you’re into more conservative colors or French Manicures.

Nail Polish Stress Test: Orly Color Blast Snow Queen

I like Orly polishes a lot. It seems like I’m buying something from most of the collections they’ve come out with, so when I saw the Color Blast line at my local Walgreen’s, I thought I’d pick one up. Was this a good idea, or was my brain frozen from the eternal winter we’ve been enduring here? Let’s find out!

Right off the bat, this polish had something to prove. It’s $6.99 a bottle, yet it’s half the size of a bottle of standard Orly polish. I couldn’t help looking at the two together and thinking “O RLY?”.

 Snow Queen is from the Frozen collection. It’s a white crème with a blue flash that only seems to exist in the bottle. I found that to be quite frustrating because that’s what attracted me to this one in the first place. It definitely didn’t show up on my nail, and I couldn’t get it on camera either. The formula wasn’t the easiest to work with either. It was patchy as heck even though I let each coat completely dry before I added the next one. In the end I used three coats, and tried to patch up the bare spots as best I could before I finished it off with my usual coat of Seche Vite. 

 

I had pretty low expectations considering my application issues, but it turns out Snow Queen will stamp and water marble! I did not see that coming!

 As for wear, this looked pretty bad after one day. The tip wear was super obvious because of the bright white, so off it came. Bummer.

 Verdict: Party Polish

This would be loser polish if it wasn’t for the fact that it’s good for nail art. Even so, I wouldn’t buy this again unless it was on sale. A good one.