Nail Polish Stress Test: Orly Color Blast Mistress Of All Evil

I have not had a lot of luck with Color Blast polishes so far. However, I find I can get the Disney polishes from Walgreen's for $1.59 pretty consistently if I’m patient. I don't mind buying potential loser polish at that price. This time my patience has been rewarded with today’s test subject: Mistress Of All Evil from the Disney Villains 2015 collection.

I discovered is that this polish appears to be a relabeled Rainbow Color Flip from their core collection. Another Color Blast I reviewed a while back, Frozen, is a relabeled Sky Blue Color Flip.

Here’s my Disney Polishes.

Here’s the Core Polishes.

If I were a completist, this would aggravate me, but since the only place near me that sells the core Color Blasts is Kohl’s, and they never do polish sales, I’m more than happy with my Walgreen’s clearance finds.

Mistress Of All Evil is a dark gray jelly base with duochrome shimmer. Indoors I mostly saw pink, but outside the color shift really shows, with shifts to orange, yellow, pink and green. I really love polishes like this! I used three coats with one coat of Seche Vite on top.

Sadly I couldn’t get this one to stamp or water marble. It’s just too sheer.

So, how did it hold up?

This one actually made it two whole days! That’s darn good for this brand!

Verdict: Good

Hooray! Another decent Color Blast polish! I haven’t tried enough of them to make a solid judgement, but I’m starting to think that the non crème polishes are the way to go.

Nail Polish Stress Test: Color Club Sorry, Not Sorry

I’ve been having a lot of fun reviewing Color Club’s Oil Slick collection. I’ve been gradually working on completing the set every time Color Club has a sale. So far I've reviewed Burnt Out, Cash Only, It's Raining Men, and We'll Never Be Royals. Next up is Sorry, Not Sorry.

Sorry, Not Sorry is a duochrome that shifts between pastel pink, peach and gold. I actually managed to get a good shot of the color shift on my nails without a fuss this time!  I’d say this is the most conservative polish of the collection, yet it’s still fun to look at. It looked mostly peach to me indoors. Outdoors the color shift was more pronounced. I think this would look great with a tan. The formula was nice and smooth. Only two coats were needed to get full coverage. I used my usual coat of Seche Vite on top.

This polish stamped and water marbled beautifully. I mattified it so it’d be easier to see here.

So, how did it hold up?

Fantastic! It made it a solid three days before I needed to take it off.

Verdict: Excellent

I think everyone needs a bottle of this polish. This is good for any occasion, and I love the fact that it’s nail art friendly. I’m totally not sorry I bought this, and you won’t be either! It's available from Color Club's website.

Nail Polish Stress Test: L.A. Colors Dare Devil

It seems like everyone’s getting into the wannabe gel scene these days. Today’s subject is a from  L.A. Colors new Color Craze Gel line, Dare Devil.

Dare Devil looks like a blue toned purple crème in the bottle that’s supposed to have a high shine. The reality is it’s more of a red toned purple jelly on the nails. I used two coats as per the directions. I thought it looked a bit streaky. It also wasn’t particularly shiny. I used one coat of their top coat, which did help somewhat.

This polish will stamp, but not easily. It didn’t do great with finer lines and details. Larger designs came out much better. It water marbles pretty nicely. The color did bleed somewhat, so I don’t recommend using this with contrasting colors.

So, how did it hold up?

 This only lasted one day, which seems to be par for the course when I test wannabe gels.

Verdict: Party Polish

This might be worth picking up if you’re into water marbling, or if you’re on Team Office Job. It actually performed the same as other wannabe gels I’ve tried, and this is one of the least expensive ones out there. This line of polish can be found at Family Dollar and is $2.49 a bottle.

Nail Polish Stress Test: Deborah Lippmann Don’t Worry Be Happy

I’ve always wanted to try Deborah Lippmann polishes, but I’ve always been scared off by the high price tag. $15 is more than I want to spend on nail polish science. Then the other day I happened to find a few at TJ Maxx for $3.99, so I grabbed a color I knew I didn’t have in my stash; Don’t Worry Be Happy.

Don’t Worry Be Happy is an orange creamsicle color polish. The formula on this one was kinda sheer. Not unusual for an orange polish, but I was hoping this one would be more opaque. I used three coats with a little extra to touch up some streakiness. I put my usual coat of Seche Vite on top.

I’m not in love with the bottle design. The square shape is a bit uncomfortable to hold while doing my nails, and there’s a bit of an edge on that ridge at the top of the cap.

This polish is too sheer to stamp with. It wasn’t interested in water marbling either.

So, how did it hold up?

It did okay. It went two days before it was time to take it off.

Verdict: Good

I feel like I paid a fair price for what I got. However, there is no way on Earth I would pay $15 for it. If you’re interested in, definitely check out TJ Maxx or Marshall’s. Otherwise, I’d let this one go.  

Nail Polish Stress Test: KB Shimmer Ruby

I love checking out independent nail polish makers, or “indies” as they’re called. They seem to drive the innovation of the nail polish world, and make more fun polishes than traditional brands like Revlon do. I don’t actually buy many because they’re also pricier. This is fair and understandable, yet I hesitate because I don’t want to spend $$$ on loser polish. However, I’m finding as I blog that if I’m wondering if something is any good, other people are too. So, let’s find out together if today’s polish is any good; KB Shimmer’s Ruby.

Ruby is from their recently released Birthstone collection. It’s an incredible looking polish! They put metallic flakes in a cool toned red base, with a little holographic glitter added for spice. Photos do not do this justice! It is much shinier and sparkly in person! I used the recommended two coats with one coat of Seche Vite on top. It’s not quite smooth when it dries, but top coat takes care of that.

As you can see, this polish can stamp. Before you try this yourself, I want you to be advised of a couple things. First of all, the flakes in this polish are actual metal, so you do run the risk of scratching your stamping plates. This didn’t happen to me, but if it concerns you, maybe don’t use this polish for that purpose. Also, Ruby doesn’t play nice with every stamping plate.  It didn’t work with any of my Bundle Monster plates, but I had pretty good luck with my Pueen Stamping Buffet plates. The ones with the deepest etching seemed to work the best. The results to me are totally worth it. All of the sparkle transferred to my nails. This is as close as I’ve ever come to the look of stamping with glitter, and I totally love it!

Water marbling didn’t work. I so wanted it to, but this polish dries way too fast. Such a pity, that would have looked amazing!

So how did it hold up?

Not so well, it got big chips in one day.

Verdict: Party Polish

This may be Party Polish, but this is one party you want to be invited to! Realistically speaking, Ruby is not something I would normally wear to my warehouse job.  This is something I would totally wear for special occasions, and because I know it has stamping potential, I would absolutely wear it for nail art. This is a polish I will enjoy using in the appropriate situations.

I paid $8.75, and I have no regrets about it. You can order it from kbshimmer.com or Amazon.com. It’s available outside the US through Harlow & Co.

Nail Polish Stress Test: Wet N’ Wild Pretty Peas

I consider wannabe gels to be polishes that claim to wear at least a week, but rarely survive one day on me. I know it’s possible to have this type of polish perform well, so I keep trying them. Therefore, today’s subject is Wet N’ Wild Pretty Peas.

Pretty Peas is from their new 1 Step Wonder Gel collection. It’s a nice frying pan pastel green creme.

See?

The label on the bottle does accurately represent the color of the polish, which is a nice change. The formula was a bit of a pain. It was very easy to get too much polish on the brush. I had to do over my first couple of nails because I sloshed too much on them. Streakiness was an issue as well. I ended up using three thin coats and no top coat. I felt it could have used one because I didn’t think it was all that shiny.

This took a long time to dry, upwards of half an hour. Clearly I’m spoiled on quick dry top coats, but traditional polish doesn’t take that long! It also has a fairly strong smell. I didn’t find it overly bothersome, but it’s enough that I feel it’s worth mentioning.

Pretty Peas is too sheer to stamp with. Water marbling was interesting. I attempted it with traditional polish, but was too goopy. It also left a film on top of the water that was hard to get rid of. I’m not sure if this was a result of two formulas not getting along, or because of Wet N’ Wild’s formula. I think it’s sheer enough to make it not worth it.

So, how did it hold up?

It didn’t go well. I wrecked it in one day.

Verdict:  Loser Polish

I have a feeling this one is better suited to Team Office Job. At $4.99 a bottle (which you shouldn’t be paying because Wet N’ Wild goes on sale at least once a month) the price is very reasonable for this type of polish. However, between the tricky formula, long drying time, and uselessness in nail art, I can’t recommend it.

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.