polish review - revlon buttercup and calla lily

revlon has really been coming thru lately with me  on their polishes.  they are a great price point, come in some great shades, including some amazing dupes for high end, fantastic color range and good formulation.  i've been looking for a lovely yellow for a while now and youtube has really been buzzing about the buttercup shade. so the day i went into ulta revlon products were on sale for bogo 1/2 off.  i decided to pick up the buttercup shade and also the calla lily.

buttercup is a lovely light pastel yellow.  nice and creamy, everything you'd want in a spring yellow.  calla lily is a creamy off-white with lovely micro shimmer glitter (i wasn't really able to capture it in the pics).  here's where the praise for these polishes starts to diminish in my opinion.

i think i must have just got a bad bottle of the revlon buttercup.  for starters the brush seemed shorter on it than the calla lily shade and also some of the bristles were rough and a bit longer.  it just made application a pain.  also, the color was very streaky and thick.  if i tried to put on a thin layer i only had streaks.  so i ended up having to use three layers of the buttercup to try to get it to look decent.  thankfully seche vite top coat can cover a multitude of "sins". ha!

now onto the calla lily shade.  i could tell from the bottle that it would be a sheer color, but i was hoping i could get it opaque in three layers.  wrong!  it took five.  i will say though that it applied much easier than the buttercup shade.  this is a lovely shade though and would be beautiful with an opaque white applied under it first.

even though the application was a bit of a headache, i have to say that both shades were really lovely.  so if you don't mind working with them a bit, they are a great purchase.  like i said though, i do think the brush on the buttercup shade i purchased was just a lemon.  oh, and the wear on these polishes was very good for me.

~ jess

polish review - china glaze for audrey and revlon aloof

so you know the other day when i said i don't really do blue polishes... i think i jinxed myself.  ha!

seems i can't get enough of the color lately and keep buying up blue polishes.  and i finally decided to jump on the blogger/youtube bandwagon with china glaze's 'for audrey' which is supposed to be a perfect tiffany & co. blue.  i'm not sure if it is or not since i don't own any tiffany & co. boxes, but i will tell you it is a very lovely color.

i started out by applying my regular base coats (nail magic nail hardener and china glaze strong adhesion base coat) and then two coats of revlon's aloof which is a very soft silvery metallic polish.  it is a tad thick, but definitely easy to work with.  since i was going to use a sticker to create a design i went ahead and applied a layer of seche vite polish to speed up the drying.

now i would recommend that you work on one to two nails at a time for the rest of these steps.  once the polish was set i used round stickers to cover the top section of my nail.  then applied china glaze's for audrey.  since i already had two coats of the revlon aloof i only applied one coat of the for audrey.  as soon as i applied that i peeled the sticker off that nail.  then i would let that sit for a few minutes before applying a final coat of seche vite over the entire nail.  i really liked the final look.  the china glaze for audrey applied beautifully and wore really well.  i would definitely recommend this color if you are looking for a lovely blue.  also the revlon aloof is a great color, although i'm not sure if it was a limited edition or in their permanent line.

~ jess

review - essie trophy wife & revlon whimsical

i'm not usually a blue polish kind of girl.  idk why, but i never feel like i can pull it off unless it's a blue-green.  i saw a youtuber talking about essie's trophy wife and thought i'd check it out.  that same day i found revlon's whimsical.

essie's trophy wife is a frosty deep teal that pulls a bit more blue i think than teal actually.  not only is it a frost polish but it shimmers like it might have some kind of super micro glitter.  it reminds me of the ocean when the light hits hit. soooo lovely.

revlon's whimsical is a light blue-gray with small and chunky blue and pink glitter.  i would guess w/ 2-3 coats you could have it opaque on the nails.  but i wanted to try it as a top coat.

so for this look i applied 1 coat of nail magic nail hardener and 1 coat of china glaze strong adhesion for my base.  i followed that with two coats of essie's trophy wife.  the polish was a great consistency and applied beautifully!  then on my ring fingers i applied 1 coat of revlon's whimsical.  i wanted some of essie's trophy wife color to pull through so that's why i only used 1 coat.  i followed that up w/ seche vite for my top coat.  i wore it for 3 days before i noticed chipping.  i actually was so busy that it stayed on my nails for 5 days, which by then it looked pretty rough.

my verdict:
essie's trophy wife - A
revlon's whimsical - A

~ jess