Just a little of this and a little of that today.
I wanted to report back on my “wear test” of the two bright pink polishes that I swatched earlier in the week. I had Zoya’s Lara on two fingers and Wet n Wild’s Lavender Crème (which is not lavender) on two. The colors were almost identical, but I found that the Zoya lasted longer without chipping. Both of my WnW-polished nails chipped or flaked after two days, and that was even with a topcoat. Still, if you like the color, it’s hard to beat the 99-cent price and it will probably be fine for a day or two.
Speaking of different brands of polish, you may have heard of a report in the past week from the California Environmental Protection Agency Department of Toxic Substances Control about the ingredients in various brands of polish, and how most of the ones tested that claimed to be “3-Free” — free of toluene, formaldehyde, and dibutyl phthalate (DBP) — actually were not. Here’s one of the news articles from USA Today: http://www.usatoday.com/news/health/story/2012-04-10/nail-polish-toxins/54142508/1
If you want to read the actual report, knock yourselves out: http://static.ewg.org/pdf/NailSalon_Final.pdf
I’ll admit that I’ve never heard of many of the brands they tested. But I’m thrilled to say that Zoya’s claim of being 3-Free is true! Another reason to love them. Zoya is also vegan-friendly and is not tested on animals, if that’s important to you.
OK, enough organic chemistry. A while back I swatched Pink Promise, a top coat of fine silver flakes in a sheer pink base which was just so-so on its own. See that post here. A reader suggested I swatch it over a pink creme, and that’s just what I did.
I brought out the pink creme that I used in my Easter Skittles manicure, Pink Blink from Sally Hansen’s Insta-Dri line. It was my favorite pink last year, and I still love it — great color, nice spatula-style brush, really does dry quickly. One thing about the Insta-Dri polishes, though, is that the bottle contains 0.31 oz. which is much less than most standard-size bottles that contain 0.45 oz. or 0.5 oz. Something to keep in mind, although as I always say, I’ve never used up a whole bottle of nail polish; it dries out or I get tired of it first.
Here’s Pink Blink by itself, two coats in indirect sunlight:
Pretty enough, but here it is with one coat of Sally Hansen’s Pink Promise from the Diamond Strength line, in the same light:
I love it! Why, you may wonder, bother with a shimmery top coat over a creme polish — why not just buy an opaque shimmery pink polish to wear on its own? Well, of course, you can do that, and I do. But you can add this top coat to a variety of other polishes to multiply the possible looks, like putting it over white or lavender. Here is the combo with the flash:
And outdoors in direct sunlight:
Here’s a closeup in sunlight:
Well, I should push away from the computer today and get out in that beautiful April sunshine!
