Guys, I am dragging into my blog at the very end of Topic Tuesday. I am so, so, so tired. I haven’t slept well at all for the last several nights, and I am feeling it now. I was thinking about skipping this post entirely today and leaving it for another day. But the little “law and order” crazy person who lives in my brain kept jumping up and down, yelling that it wouldn’t be a “Topic Tuesday” if I did it on a Wednesday or a Thursday. I know. She’s crazy. But she is also insistent. So … Here I am.
POLISHES YOU REGRET BUYING:
I’m pretty lucky. In many ways, I think. Including the fact that I feel like I don’t have many polish regrets. I have several polishes I have realized aren’t for me. Maybe they are a color I don’t love to wear, or they are a finish I don’t particularly love. I’ve been going through my stash with an eye toward weeding it down in size. Stuff is getting destashed. But, even though I’ve decided these polishes might not be things I particularly want to wear, I don’t regret buying them. I’m not sure if this makes any sense at all. But I guess what I’m trying (ever so inelegantly) to say is that regret is a whole different category in my brain. It’s something deeper than “sorry, pretty polish, this just didn’t work out for us”.
When I sat down to think about this topic, there were a few polishes that immediately came to mind. There is some bitterness associated with these, and, yes, there’s some Regret. With a capital “R”. In my Topic Tuesday collage, above, from top middle, there is China Glaze, Celtic Sun; OPI, Coalmates; OPI, Green Come True; and China Glaze, I Sea Ponies.
Let’s start things off with a bang that will singe our eyeballs! China Glaze, Celtic Sun.
This is probably my biggest polish regret. Whenever I think about polishes I regret buying, this one has the dubious honor of being first on my mind. I fell for internet hype on this polish, big-time. It looked so great in YouTube videos and online swatch photos. It also seemed like “everyone” loved this polish. It seems to have a nearly cult-like following. I figured it would also look fabulous on me. The entire polish-loving internet couldn’t be wrong. Could they?
Um … yeah. They could. I was so excited about this polish when I purchased it. I rushed home and put it on my nails right away. And. I. HATED. It. I hate the way this polish looks against my skin tone. I hate the formula. I hate that I felt like I had to put this over a white base coat. I pretty much just hated everything about this polish. I also hate my swatch picture, by the way. But I destashed this one long ago, which means a better picture isn’t possible.
OPI, Coalmates.
It is painful for me to admit this one is a regret. I was instantly in lovey-lust with this polish from the first moment I saw pictures of it online. It was gray and blue and steely — but steely in a good way. Steely in the best of ways. And it had this subtle glitter and sparkle to it. This was the polish I wanted the most from its collection. So, I went to the store — to an actual, brick-and-mortar store — in search of this polish. My first look at it in the bottle told me it would be everything I expected and dreamed it would be — and more.
And then … I put it on my nails. I feel a little bitter about this, just typing it out loud. This polish looked nothing like what I hoped when it was on my nails. It’s very blackened-gray. The steely look that I loved in the bottle didn’t come through for me on the nail. And, the worst part was this: the blues take such a backseat that they might as well not be in the polish at all. I wanted this one to be much more obviously blue than it is. Anyhow, I ended up destashing it.
OPI, Green Come True.
This polish is only a partial regret — like a half-regret. I love this shade of green. It is bright and vibrant and beautifully “Spring” and oh-so-pretty. But this polish is so thin that it might as well be colored water. I think it would take approximately one gazillion coats of this on my nails to get the vibrant color in the bottle as a full manicure. If I put this one over a white base coat, I still needed at least 3 coats for the beautiful look I wanted.
But this polish has one saving grace, which is the reason it’s only a half-regret. This polish water marbles like a maniac. It spreads beautifully over the water. It stays nice and flexible, so that you don’t have to worry about rushing to draw your design. And the vibrancy of the color really comes through. I love it with yellows and pinks. It’s gorgeous, and one of my favorite greens for water marbling.
China Glaze, I Sea Ponies.
This is another half-regret. I fell into the internet hype over this polish, also. Luckily, I got it on a buy one get one free sale. Technically, that makes this polish a freebie. Even so, I regret it. After seeing so many stellar reviews about this one, I expected to see beautiful rainbow flashes bouncing off my nails in a sea of silvery goodness. Instead, I saw … well, this. A plain, regular silver. I don’t think I saw even one rainbow when I wore this polish in a full manicure. I did notice a little bit of a yellow tint around the edges of this polish, though. This did not endear it to me.
But (!!) this polish stamps perfectly. I have found it works beautifully, even with intricate and small designs. And, once it is stamped over a base color, the holographic shows up really well. This one now lives with my stamping supplies.
THE WRAP-UP:
So there you have it: all my bitter nail polish regrets. Well, two regrets and two half-regrets. I had a whole outro thing in mind. It was going to be witty and awesome and all that stuff. But I got down here, and it totally drained from my mind. Probably because I have a headache and a half. Oh, and did I mention I was tired? Um. Yeah. I’m heading to bed to read and, then, hopefully get a good night’s sleep at last.
I’m still hoping for sunshine in the next day or two, so that I can get new pictures of that darn Glam Polish trio. I will get those pictures! I am determined! I got the most wonderful of wonderful emails yesterday — my shipping notification for my May Polish Pickup! It should be arriving on Thursday. Aaaaaand, there may be some Quixotic Polish lovelies in my future, too. There’s lots of polish excitement happening over here. Yay!
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