Some SquareHue polishes revisited

I’ve been subscribing to the polish-of-the-month (POTM) club called SquareHue since January, and have swatched and reviewed each three-polish box.  Several times I’ve said, “Oh, I should try this” or “I should try that” with some of the polishes — either a different look or giving a polish I thought was too streaky another try — and I’m finally going to do it.

If you’d like to see all my original review posts:

January

February

March, part 1 and part 2

April

May

As you can see, over time you’ll start to build up a varied and interesting collection.

I mean, is this a gorgeous gaggle for spring or what?  (One from January, three from April, two from May)

I had no issues at all with the January collection, but don’t feel I showed the sparkly top coat, Arctic Frost, to its best advantage.  I took a photo of it over the light blue of Glacier Skies and you could barely see the top coat.  Here’s Arctic Frost over a much darker color, February’s Dear John which is a blackened red shimmer:

Speaking of February, I’d found the peachy-nude shade, High School Crush, thin and streaky.  I tried it again over a base coat of opaque white, which worked sooooo much better.  Also, I was more careful to mix up the bottle before application.  Here I have two thin coats of High School Crush over one coat of white.  I like this much better than the four coats of HSC I tried originally.

Oops, I didn’t wrap the tip, but otherwise it’s great.

On to March.  I had problems with Blond Ale and this time I made sure to mix the bottle more thoroughly since it had been sitting for a long time.  Three coats was sufficient instead of four, although the frost finish showed brushstrokes.

Then I tried a matte top coat from Butter London that practically eliminated the brushstrokes.  An interesting look, like suede.

April’s box was perfection.  Wouldn’t change a thing!

Yesterday when I swatched May’s box I had a hair-pulling fit with the frosty Mother’s Pearl.  Today I tried to slow down more in my application, and also I topped three coats of it with the matte top coat.

Whoa, soooo much better, although I got a little sloppy.  What can I say; I’m tired.

So when you have a polish of any brand that’s just not working right for you, try these tips.  If it’s thin or patchy, use an opaque base coat — white/light for light colors, black/dark for dark colors.  If the finish isn’t to your liking, change it with a top coat — clear and shiny, matte, glitter, and so on.  If it’s too thick, use nail polish thinner (not polish remover!).

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Some readers have asked me what other POTM clubs or subscriptions are available.  Here’s a brief roundup that is by no means complete.  I haven’t personally tried any of them.  Check with all companies regarding features, availability, commitment, prices, and so on.  By the way, there are some companies that take your money and then send an old bottle of OPI or whatever.  Beware of those!  Also beware of ANY company, polish or not, that isn’t up front about cost.

Julep is probably the Big Mama of POTM clubs.  You take a style quiz which asks for your email to receive results and then you can either go with whatever style they think fits you or browse all the styles.  Some boxes appear to contain two nail polishes plus one other beauty product and some contain three polishes.  You know in advance which colors you’ll get, but the polishes are only 0.27 oz/8 ml, which I consider a mini.  Some people like the bottle shape, which is tall and skinny, and others don’t.  There are many reviews online regarding formula and wear time.

Lacquerous is one where you rent polish.  That’s not a typo.  Rent.  It’s $18 a month and you receive three polishes that you can use up to three times each (yes, appaRENTly they measure it upon return and they reserve the right to charge you for the full bottle price if you use too much) and then send back in prepaid packaging.  They have designer brands like Chanel and Dior, plus more quotidian ones like OPI.  From the web site it sounds like you get to pick the ones you want to try, and I don’t know if you’re limited to, say, one Chanel a month or whatever.

Sorry, but I don’t want to use polish that’s already been used by strangers, plus how do you know someone didn’t sneak in some cheap dupe?  Sharing with friends is one thing, but this is different.  If I’m going to spend the money I want keepers, and besides, my luck would be that the last person to use the polish I got was Typhoid Mary.  (I kid.)

Color Me Monthly appears to send one polish a month for $7.  I’ve read very little about this program but the reviews I have seen are generally favorable.

Are you more into nail art?  Nail Art Society has a club that sends one polish plus some nail art supplies.  I’m not into feathers and sequins, but if you are, it might be worth finding some reviews of the company.

As for me, I’m very happy with SquareHue, but it’s good to have choices.

Hope you all have a wonderful weekend and a fantastic Mother’s Day!!

The SquareHue May box — The Madonna Collection

Thanks to the vagaries of the U.S. Postal Service, it took over a week for my May subscription box from SquareHue to arrive.  But finally it’s here — The Madonna Collection.

From this teaser photo, I’d guessed the trio of polishes would be heavy on pinks.  No kidding, it’s all pinks!  Now, I love pink and I love cool-toned shades, so I’m fine with three cool-toned pinks, but there’s some grumbling in the ranks (more on that later).  I really thought the box would contain two pinks and then a white or a peach.  Let’s meet the trio:

Happy Creme is a bubblegum pink creme, Mother’s Pearl is a medium-light carnation pink frost, and Day Glow is a hot pink creme.  The latter two look similar at first glance in the bottle but they’re very different.

Happy Creme’s formula was fair, a little streaky.  I used three coats and since it wasn’t super-glossy on its own I added a clear shiny top coat, which really improved the look.  One thing I’ve found with the SquareHue polishes is that I need to use a light hand with the brush.  Don’t press down hard.  I don’t know if the bristles themselves in the brush are slightly stiffer or harder than other brands, but they seem to dig into the polish more, if that makes sense.

Here’s Happy Creme under indirect light:

In this light it appears to have a faint orchid tint.  I like it a lot.

Mother’s Pearl, being a pearl/frost, showed brushstrokes terribly.  A top coat didn’t help and actually seemed to make things worse.  Three coats:

Eek.  I like the color but not the finish.  It’s way too frosty and streaky and I can see where most younger women would call it a “grandma color.”  But if you wanted a retro look, hey.  A matte top coat instead of a clear one might look better.

Day Glow is super bright!  It’s a dark geranium pink that dries semi-matte.  The formula was smooth and perfect.  Three coats without and then with a clear top coat:

This one’s my favorite.  Would look great on toes, and would probably really pop over a base coat of opaque white.

Now, just because you have a pink creme, that doesn’t have to mean plain.  I tried three different top coats over Happy Creme.

Left to right:

• Lavender Sparks, a lavender and holographic glitter (micro and small hex) from Maybelline
• Hefesto, a holographic shimmer from Hits
• White Veil, white small hex glitter and gold medium hex glitter from Sally Hansen

I like the middle look best.  You could get something similar with Fairy Dust from China Glaze.

About the colors being all pink, I gather from Facebook that some people were unhappy with that.  It goes with the Mother’s Day/Madonna theme, though, just like I won’t be surprised if the July colors are red, white, and blue.  There’s no guarantee that the three polishes in any one SquareHue box will be from different color families; they’re surprises.  Over time, you’ll see a variety of colors from the boxes.  If you must know what the colors are going to be in advance, SquareHue’s not for you.  There are other polish-of-the-month clubs, but none I’ve been tempted to join (price, quality, number of polishes).

The preview picture for the June box is sure vibrant.  It’s called The SoBe Collection.  South Beach, right?  I’ll guess a teal blue, a bright orange, and then I don’t know what else.  Maybe black?  Khaki or sand?

Frozen Solid

How ironic that I picked up a polish named Frozen Solid while we’re in the middle of a cold snap.  It was part of my ongoing search to find a duplicate of a limited edition polish that Chanel released last year called Sky Line.

Since Chanel is not in my budget ($30 a bottle for LE shades!) I’ve been on the hunt for an inexpensive duplicate.  Oh, sure, I have a couple that are close, but Zoya’s Jo is too dark and Essie’s Blue Rhapsody is closer but still a bit too silvery and streaky.

So the last time I was at the drugstore I picked up Frozen Solid from the Hard As Nails line from Sally Hansen ($1.99 for 0.45 oz./13.3 ml).  It looked like the right shade but a different finish.

Alas, it’s much, much too sheer.  But then I thought perhaps I could layer it with another polish.  Frozen Solid is a very sheer light blue with ultrafine silver flakes.  Application was good and the finish is very smooth with no visible brushstrokes.

In this photo I have one coat of Frozen Solid on my little finger to show you how sheer it really is, and four coats of it on my ring finger but you can still see my nail line.  Definitely not a polish to wear on its own if you want full coverage.  On my index finger (far left) I have two coats of Blue Rhapsody and on my middle finger I have one coat of Frozen Solid over two coats of Blue Rhapsody.

Ding ding ding!  We have a winner!  The top coat makes Blue Rhapsody just a tad more blue and also disguises the brushstrokes that come with the chrome/frost finish.  What do you think?  I think it’s pretty darn close to the Chanel.  As close as I’m going to get, that is.

Get ‘em before they’re gone… maybe

As reported last month, Pure Ice is discontinuing a fair number of their polishes and will be introducing some new ones in 2013.  I have a few discontinued colors to show you in case you’re wondering whether to get them or not before they’re gone.

First is, appropriately, First Time.  It’s a light leaf green pearl/chrome; Pure Ice calls it a pearl moss green.  Man, I wanted to like this one so much!  It is a very pretty shade of green, and at a distance it gives a chrome look, but brushstrokes were terrible and the more I tried to correct them the worse they got.  I think you could make it look better if you sponged on the polish, but I wanted to just use the provided brush.

It might also look good with a matte top coat but that would obviously negate the chrome appearance.  Here’s First Time in reflected cloudy outdoor light (where the brushstrokes don’t look bad) and then with the flash:

Next I tried a sheer iridescent white-green called Mint Dream.  It’s a top coat for other colors or would give your nails a very sheer greenish cast.  Not crazy about this one; it seemed to have kind of a “space alien” look to it.  In the following pictures I have Mint Dream alone on my index finger (two coats) and one coat of it over First Time on my other three nails.  Overall it’s too frosty for my taste.

Iced Copper is called “pearl copper” by the company but I’d call it a shimmer.  It’s a pretty shade of copper with lots of silver sparkle in it.  Now this one, I like!  It covered well in two coats.  If you’re looking to pick up an inexpensive copper shade and you like shimmers, this would be a good one.

Finally, I have a very unusual creme to show you.  When I received the bottle I thought the polish was dark brown.  When I held it up to the light, I thought it was purple.  When I opened it, I didn’t know what to call it!  Pure Ice calls it “dark blood red,” but I wouldn’t say red.  It’s definitely a blackened, vampy shade.

The first and second coats were streaky but the third looked good, and it’s very shiny.  I either should have used a fourth coat or shouldn’t have rushed my application, since I see  few thin spots near my cuticles.  Scandal is much darker than what I usually wear, but it’s so different that I like it.

Pure Ice polishes are 3-free and retail for $1.97 at Wal-Mart.

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Samples provided by Pure Ice.

The Old Bill and West End Wonderland

With the great Butter London sale going on, I thought it was time to get off my duff and swatch some of the BL colors I’ve acquired but not tried yet.  Today I have two gold shades, a metallic/frost and a glitter.

The Old Bill, which is Brit-slang for “police,” is a bronze-copper-gold metallic and frankly I’d hoped it was more bronze than it turned out.  Frosty gold isn’t a flattering color on my cool-toned medium Caucasian skin yet I idiotically keep buying polishes that are that color.  Someone please stop me.  I really thought The Old Bill looked different (darker) in the store.

It went on very smoothly and covered well in two coats but the brushstrokes were rather obvious.  Here’s The Old Bill in indirect outdoor light and then with the flash:

I think it’s just “eh” on me and would look better on someone with either very light or very dark skin, but I’m my own worst critic.  My sister thought it looked great on me.

It’s similar to Fall Mood from Revlon and Penny Talk from Essie, both of which I showed two days ago here.  Of the three, Fall Mood is my favorite, largely because of the no-brushstrokiness.  Which is not even a word.

Let’s look at a bright microglitter next, West End Wonderland.  It’s a clear base with mostly gold and a bit of copper and looks very flashy.  I’d probably save this for a holiday look, or try one thin coat over another color.

Again, application was great and two coats gave good coverage.  Under indirect outdoor light:

And with the flash, which really makes it sparkle:

West End Wonderland is a bit similar to China Glaze’s I Herd That, but the latter contains more copper and looks warmer.  I posted about I Herd That and another CG color, the butterscotch creme Desert Sun, in September.  Here’s I Herd That on my little (right-most) finger:

So these two Butter Londons are pretty but not my favorites.  I’ve swatched so many fall colors of gold, copper, brown, etc. lately that now I’m dying to dig out a bright red or teal for a change.

New L.E. Zoya trio from Zang Toi

Just announced!  This spring-looking limited edition trio from designer Zang Toi was just announced at New York Fashion Week.  If you want it, pounce on the offer here.  While there’s no free shipping this time, you’ll get a free bottle of Trixie, Zoya’s silver foil that’s one of the best metallic silvers I’ve ever tried (and believe me, The Silver Nail has tried a few silvers!)

The colors are:

Julie — A full coverage icy cool lilac
Gei Gei –  A full coverage icy pink
Piaf — A full coverage icy light yellow

I LOVE that there’s a color named after one of the greatest singers of all time, Edith Piaf, “The Little Sparrow.”

But enough rambling — if you want this set put it in your cart ASAP, because these limited edition sets sell out in a day or less.

A summer frost

No, not the cold weather kind, although it’s still chilly here.  I’ve got a new frosty nail polish to show you, Blue Blowout from Maybelline’s Color Show line.  I picked it up earlier this week at CVS Pharmacy, where it was $3.79.  I later saw it at Wal-Mart for just $2.79, and I’ve read it’s the lower price at Target as well.

It’s a light blue metallic or chrome or frost, and while I like the color, the application was frost-typical difficult.  Every brush stroke shows.  Every bit of dust is magnified a hundredfold.  It did cover well, however.

One big caveat is the size of the bottle.  It only contains 0.23 oz. or 7 ml, which is what I’d call a mini-bottle, yet its overall appearance is deceptive.  It looks almost the same size as other brands that hold a more standard 0.45 oz. or so.  The brush is very short which I found awkward, and the handle is large compared to the size of the brush which was also clumsy.

Two coats, no top coat, under indirect outdoor light:

With the flash:

And under artificial indoor light:

As mentioned, you can see what a problem the brushstrokes and dust particles were!

I have mixed feelings about this polish.  The color is quite similar to Essie’s Beach Bum Blu that I swatched previously, but Blue Blowout is a little more silvery and Beach Bum Blu is a little more teal and sparkly.  The application was more difficult because of the sizes of the handle and brush.  But if you wanted to try a blue metallic/chrome, this Maybelline one might be good especially if you can get it for $2.79, keeping in mind that you only get half the usual amount of polish.  (The Essie was $7.75 for twice the polish, making the Maybelline a better buy.)

If this finish was any shade of pink, it would look frosty and old-fashioned, like the OPI I swatched here.  But its being blue makes it not a Grandma color, so make of that what you will.

I’m also wondering how close Blue Blowout is to the blue polish in Essie’s upcoming Mirror Metallics that I previewed here.  Too soon to tell!

Your Web or Mine? — from OPI & Spider-Man

Today I’m swatching the third of the colors in OPI’s “The Amazing Spider-Man” mini set.  Have you signed up for my giveaway for a brand-new mini set?  You can enter the drawing here if you haven’t already.

Your Web or Mine? is a frosty light pink with a slight coral tone.  Did I say frosty?  I meant ultra-frosty.  Über-frosty.  Très frosty.  The first coat was thin and streaky, and while the second coat covered better, the brush marks were extremely visible.

I’ve read multiple online reviews of the Spider-Man polishes and have yet to see ANY love for Your Web or Mine?.  The blogger Nails and Noms called it “2 coats of brush stroke grandma shade goodness.”  Bloggers and commenters alike have widely dissed it for being an ’80s or ’90s look, much too frosty, and a Grandma color.

At any rate, here it is.  First under indirect outdoor light, then with the flash, and then outdoors on a cloudy day:

I like the color but not the overly frosty finish.  If this was a foil I’d love it.  But wait!  Is there something I could do to make it look better, to hide those horribly obvious brushstrokes???

I broke out my bottle of matte top coat from Hard Candy called Matte-ly in Love, and yes, I think it makes it look better.  In the following photos I have the matte on my ring and little fingers so you can compare it to my middle finger, which has no top coat.  Outdoor light:

With the flash:

Now that’s better!  Still, Your Web or Mine? isn’t a polish I would seek out and buy.  It’s a pretty color that looks good with my skin tone but it’s just too frosty.  If I want a pink foil look, I’ll buy a pink foil.

Nails and Noms has a fantastic review of the entire collection here.  She includes all seven colors of “The Amazing Spider-Man” set, including the three that aren’t in the mini-set:  a light-gray-almost-white, an orange, and a green crackle.  Aren’t her photos great?  Be sure to look at her macro photo of Number One Nemesis, the foil-like gray.  She was able to capture the multicolored flashes of blue and greenish-gold that I could not in my review here.

Dr. Frankenpolish, I presume

Have you ever heard of “frankenpolish”?  Sometimes it’s just called a franken.  It’s when an individual creates her own nail polish color or formula, using other existing polishes and ingredients.  It can be mixing two or more colors, or adding something like craft store glitter to a polish.

Just for fun, a while back I thought I’d give it a try.  I was wishing I had a shimmery light blue-green, and none of my polishes were exactly what I had in mind.  Since I wasn’t sure how my experiment would turn out, I used very inexpensive polishes as my ingredients.  Wouldn’t recommend dumping who knows what into your $25 bottle of Chanel.

I started with a frosty light blue Bon Bons polish for less than a dollar from Wal-Mart.  It doesn’t even have a color name and is a very tiny 1/8th-ounce bottle.  I poured a little of it out to make room — always be sure to dispose of any polish safely — and added a few drops of a kelly green creme from Sally Hansen Xtreme Wear called Going Green (a polish I’d tried before on its own and didn’t like, too bright of a green, gave me lobster hands) until I was satisfied with the color.  That was it!

Application was a pain because the handle and brush of the Bon Bons bottle are so miniscule.  And it turned out that while I liked the color, I didn’t like the formula — it was too thin, too streaky, and still too frosty.  Oh well, nothing ventured, nothing lost.

I used four coats (bleh) and here it is under indirect outdoor light and then with the flash:

Here are the polishes I used, or similar ones, and another one thrown in for comparison:

On the left is Milani Beach Front, which I did not use but which is close to the Bon Bons color I started with, although a bit darker.  Next is Going Green.  The little Bon Bons bottle holds my final product, and on the right is Zoya’s Wednesday, which is the closest color I have to my baby franken.  Wednesday is a creme and not a shimmer, though, and the formula is certainly far superior.  I might try putting a few drops of Wednesday into my franken to make it less frosty and streaky.

So maybe mixing your own polish might be something you want to try, just for fun or to be creative.  Perhaps you have a polish you don’t want but you could tweak the color until it’s something you do want!

Beach Bummin’ around

Our weather is unseasonably hot and dry, Memorial Day weekend is fast approaching, and I’m dreaming of the white sand beaches we used to visit on day trips when I was growing up in North Carolina.

Ah, the beach — we’d play in the sand and the surf, drink ice tea by the gallon, and load up on seafood and hushpuppies at Tony’s, aka “The Sanitary” in Morehead City.  Then we’d head home exhausted, full, sunburned, and happy.  At home, Mama would put Noxzema on our burns and I’d drift off to sleep, still feeling the rise and fall of the waves, as if my bed was the air mattress we’d played on all day.  Good times.

Now, in a landlocked state, I don’t get to see the ocean very often but we have lots of lakes to visit and I still love summer.  Which brings me to a summery nail polish called Beach Bum Blu from Essie.  It’s a bright medium teal blue, very metallic, bordering on a frost.  As with most frosts/metallics, visible brushstrokes can be a problem.  I recommend using a good base coat and then putting on several coats of polish neither too thickly nor too thinly.  Don’t keep poking at it, trying to sweep away the brushstrokes or it’ll just get worse.

This polish was $7.75 at Wal-Mart and I think it’s a great color for just about any skin tone.  Here it is, two coats, in indirect outdoor light and then outside in the bright sunlight.

One thing you can do to help disguise brushstrokes is to add some kind of textured top coat.  I got out Essie’s As Gold As It Gets, a gold flake in a clear base, which I swatched over dark red before.  I really like it over Beach Bum Blu!  Makes me think of sunlight sparkling on the beach.

Man, I miss hushpuppies….