Laquer Lundi

I tried out a couple of new (to me) polish brands this week - Essie and GOSH. Being a collector at heart (have you seen my fabric stash stats?), I always love a fresh conquest. Just recently I found some nifty olive metallic polish at a local dollar store - I almost bought it until I noticed it had no ingredient listing. Heaven only knows what was in it. Fearing the worst - heck, it could have contained every carcinogen and mutagen known to science - I left it on the shelf. Sometimes being a chemist can really take the fun out of things!

On to the pretties:

Essie - Mesmerize
- purchased at Trade Secrets for $9.99 CDN

This is the first Essie polish that I have used. Typically Essie polishes do not interest me - it seems like most of the collection offered by my local source is various shades of pink (blech!) which are more girly than I can handle. Lately, however, Essie has come out with some amazing, fashion-forward colours - blues and greens and neons that are more up my alley. I spotted Mesmerize at a local Trade Secret and I knew I had to try it and I have to say if the formula is this good for the rest of the Essie polishes, I may be a convert.

This polish slid on easily and covered beautifully in two coats. It held up well for the three days that I wore it, with only minor tip wear. My only complaint is with the brush - it is miniscule - I prefer a wider, more substantial brush for a quicker, less brush stroke-y application.

This colour truly is mesmerizing. I have several blues in my stash, but nothing quite like this one. I even got a compliment from a 20-something woman from a local spa - she said (and I quote), "Woah, that colour is, like, freakin' amazing!" I think that means she liked it too.


BB Couture - Tangerine Scream
- purchased from overallbeauty.com for $8 US

I love a good bright orange polish and Tangerine Scream certainly fits the bill. This polish is certainly not for the wallflower - it basically grabs all passersby around the throats and demands to be gazed upon.

Tangerine Scream went on streaky at first, but became completely opaque with a second coat. I wish I could say that it wore like iron, but it was chippy within 24 hours. So on a scale of 1 to ten, colour gets a 9, application gets a 6 and wear gets a 4 - all in all, okay but not stellar.

If you don't want to pay BB Couture prices, but still want this type of colour, look for China Glaze's Japanese Koi (scroll down in this post to see a swatch).


GOSH - Wild Lilac
- purchased at Shoppers for $6.00 CDN

I had seen GOSH cosmetics at my local Shoppers Drug Mart over the years, but sadly the offerings had never included nail polish. The other day, I noticed a Tropical Passion display for Summer 2009 that had three pretty polishes. I picked up Wild Lilac and Peachy.

The Wild Lilac formula is good. The polish went onto the nail easily, however it was very streaky for the first coat. The second coat essentially evened it all out, but a third coat probably would have been ideal to eliminate all the bald spots. I had minor tip wear and no chipping over the two days that I wore this polish. Not bad for a "cheap" drug store polish!

Unfortunately, trying to get colour accurate pictures of this polish was impossible. I have included a flash (above) and a non-flash (to the right) picture, but neither fully captures the Wild Lilac colour. In real life, it is a darker, more dusty purple and it is absolutely gorgeous.

Sally Hansen Insta-Dri - Lightening
- purchased at Zehrs (local grocery store) for $5.99 CDN

First off, let me get one thing straight - Lightening is SH's spelling, not mine. I'm not sure what the deal is with this name. Did they mean the name to be "Lightning", as in a discharge of electrical energy normally associated with a storm. Or were they actually going for "Lightening", which means to make less heavy (not likely), to make lighter in colour (maybe) or other things I don't want to think about (um, yuck). I guess we'll never know.

Grammar aside, this is a great colour - fun, bright and full of super summery goodness. However, excellent colour comes at a price - this yellow (like all the other yellow polishes I've ever tried) goes on streaky, streaky, streaky. Even after two carefully applied coats (I typically only need one coat with these SH Insta-Dri polishes), I still have streaks. Alas, I think I'm more aware of the streaks than anyone else - my husband thought the colour was cool and didn't say a thing about the streaks. So, I have decided to just adore the colour and get over the application issues.