Finger Paints - Artistic Azure and Icing - Starlight

Sometimes I don't know when to leave well enough alone, and this is one of those times.  Artistic Azure has been in my untrieds FOREVER.  I did a mini-swatch of it some months ago, and in the maybe three minutes I had it on, it stained like whoa.  I know this put me off wearing it, but I'm glad I did.

Basecoat:  Salon Sciences Fiberglass Network (2 coats, didn't help)
Color:  Finger Paints Artistic Azure (3 coats)
Color:  Icing Starlight (1 coat)
Topcoat:  David (1 coat)

The camera just does not do this color justice.  I actually wish I had skipped the coat of Starlight altogether, AA is that gorgeous.  It is a little bit more green-tinged than comes across in the photos - despite the blue you see in the Starlight bottle, it doesn't affect the color of the polish underneath at all.  I imagine it would if you wore it over a really light color, though.

Artistic Azure reminds me a little of China Glaze Frostbite - it's very, very vibrant in person.  It's so vivid it's distracting.  Just gorgeous.  And yep, this stained like crazy, even with two coats of basecoat - and I picked off almost all of it before I got out the remover.  In the same vein, cleanup sucked.

And, even though I wish I hadn't used Starlight on top, I do really, really like it - I intended to put one coat on my thumbnails as an accent nail and liked it enough that I used it on all my nails.  Some glitter topcoats can really be a pain to work with - the glitter distribution is uneven and you end up doing multiple coats just to get even coverage.  Starlight isn't like that - what you see is one coat, with no attempt at ALL to arrange any of the glitter.

These are both huge wins, just maybe not together.

Orly - Here Comes Trouble

Orly - Here Comes Trouble is a bright leafy green glitter.  The glitter is different sizes and shapes.  This collection has another polish similar to this one in a pink-purple color (of course, it's untried).

Basecoat:  Gelous (1 coat)
Color:  Orly Here Comes Trouble (4.5 coats)
Topcoat: Gelous (1 coat)
Topcoat:  David (2 coats)

I opted to wear this alone, because I'd seen other swatches where it was worn alone and fairly opaque.  Also, I knew I would just end up wearing even more coats if I used a similar color underneath.

This polish has a clear base.  At one coat, I gotta be honest, I wasn't sure this was going to cover completely.  At three coats it was almost right, so I went with one more coat, and dabbed on more where I had bald spots.

This one is a top-coat eater, for sure.  I did one coat of Gelous and a coat of David, and 24 hours later (yeah, I totally waited until the next day so I could get rid of the extra glitter on my skin) I still needed another coat of David.  Also, as far as cleanup goes - I recommend just being careful.  Cleanup will be a real biatch near the cuticles, so you can probably just give up on that now.

This probably really sucks to remove, too, but as usual, I picked this off, so it wasn't really a concern for me :)

Wet N Wild - 9.0.2.1.Orange

Wet N Wild 9021Orange (I'm not going to type out all those periods) is a glass-flecked orange.  It looks like it would fit in perfectly in one of the Zoya collections we've seen recently.

Basecoat:  Gelous (1 coat)
Color:  Wet N Wild 90210Orange (3.5 coats)
Topcoat:  Sally Hansen Insta-Dri (1 coat)

Application was not too bad for this polish.  It got glitters EVERYWHERE, though, so cleanup was kind of a pain.  As you can see, I have very visible nail line after 3.5 coats, and it's more obvious in real life.  That said, I do really like this color, and it is super sparkly.

Misa - Mermaid Dreams

Mermaid Dreams is a glass-flecked medium blue that has a strong pink/purple duochrome flash in the bottle.  It's from Misa's summer collection.

Basecoat:  Salon Sciences Instant Artificials (1 coat)
Color:  Misa Mermaid Dreams (3 coats)
Topcoat:  David (1 coat)

I had a hard time capturing the purple/pink flash in the bottle, and it is totally invisible on my nails.

Mermaid Dreams had a very nice application - what I usually get with a Misa polish.  Not too runny or too thick, easy to control. not a bad cleanup.

But. I have beaucoup bubbles.  I also have pretty good tip shrink, maybe two hours after I finished applying, and it's going to get worse, I'm sure.  I've never had this happen with a Misa polish, but I also honestly can't remember any other non-creme Misa that I own, either.

So, I'll be trying this one again at some point.

Savina - Purple Hologram

Well, today I have kind of a weird one for you.  Savina Purple Hologram is, in the bottle, a pale lilac with holographic glitter.

Basecoat:  Salon Sciences Fiberglass Network (1 coat)
Color:  Savina Purple Hologram (3 coats)
Topcoat:  Sally Hansen Insta-Dri (1 coat)

In the photos I have very noticeable VNL, but it's not quite as visible in real life.  The polish was a little thick, but it does a great job of suspending the glitter (it wasn't like some glitters that I have to shake like crazy to get it evenly distributed).  Cleanup was super easy, but I might think that because the polish is pretty light in color and not as noticeable.  The glitter is also very noticeable and does not get covered up by an opaque color, too.

Here's where I am on the fence.  I would never in a million years wear this color if it didn't have glitter in it, and definitely not this sheer.  Is the glitter enough to rescue this polish from my pile of polishes to purge?  I don't know.  I'm leaning towards tossing this one.

Orly - Royal Velvet

Yep, another Orly.  I don't really know why I'm pulling these out of my untrieds so often.  Royal Velvet is a gorgeous blue/purple duochrome that I keep calling Royal Navy even though it is not even remotely similar, so please pardon if I do it again in this post :)

Basecoat:  Salon Sciences Fiberglass Network (1 coat)
Color:  Orly Royal Velvet (4 coats)
Topcoat:  Nubar Diamont (1 coat)

Gorgeous!  My bottle of Royal Velvet is a little bit runny and thin.  So, I needed four thin coats to totally cover up any bald patches.  This did stain my skin a little despite my best efforts.  One thing I noticed it that I rarely saw both colors at once - while I had this on I could either see blue, or purple, but not really both.

Icing - Orange shimmer mini

I picked up this Icing mini set probably a year ago or more.  All of the polishes have a barely visible shimmer, and all of them are fairly opaque.  I wouldn't call any of them neons, but they are definitely bright polishes.  This set contained a blue, apple green, yellow, and orange.  I'm sure it probably had at least one other color, but I've forgotten since.

Basecoat:  Gelous (1 coat)
Color:  Icing orange shimmer (3.5 coats)
Topcoat:  Seche Vite (1 coat)

This polish was pretty thick - possibly because it had been sitting in my untried drawers for a while.  It was opaque but still streaky.  I used 3.5 coats because I thinned it right before my third coat, and so the .5 is to cover up any remaining bald spots.  The shimmer doesn't really come across either in my photos or in real life.  Still, this is a nice color - again, it's not quite neon, but it's definitely bright.  I have a noticeable drop in bottle level, which I don't usually notice in mini bottles of this size.  That's disappointing.