The swatch-a-palooza continues! It marches on with relentless determination, like an army slogging across the desert. Or … something. I know I just mentioned, about a week ago, how I felt like this project has been going by much faster than I expected. Today doesn’t feel that way. Today, this project feels huge and cumbersome and ridiculously out of reach. It could be that I’m just in a bad mood today. I have a headache, and depression is nipping at my heels for a number of reasons. In all, I’m feeling “bleh”.
At the same time, I keep reminding myself that this project is moving forward. I am making progress with it. It might not be quick progress, but it’s steady. I am nearly at the end of the mainstream part of my collection. I’ve reached my “straggler” brands. These are brands I don’t regularly purchase, but I might have a few of them from clearance sales or things like that. Today, I decided to group a few of these together, and I have 9 polishes, total, to share.
SECHE:
I am mainly familiar with Seche for their Seche Vite top coat. I wasn’t familiar with Seche polish at all, and, actually, I still am not. I happened upon quite a few of them on clearance at Sally’s. This was some time ago — probably a year or more — and I am not sure Seche still makes polish. I still visit Sally’s for my base and top coat needs, and I always check out the clearance sale and the racks. I don’t purchase often, particularly since I have fallen down the indie rabbit hole in such a big way. But I haven’t seen this polish brand on the shelves since I purchased these.
I have 5 polishes to share from this brand today.
Candid is a red jelly base with red glitter running throughout. It has a nice formula that is generally opaque in 2 easy coats.
This is a beautiful polish. I like the color of the base, which is a nicely wearable red. I love the sparkle and glow from the glitters, like little bits of fire down in the base. And it has a pretty great formula, too. At the same time, this is yet another sparkly, glittery red … like Ruby Pumps. I went through a phase where I felt like I had to have every sparkly red I ran across in my shopping adventures. Eventually, I realized I already have Ruby Pumps, which I love and which, to me, is the ultimate sparkly and glittery red. So, I don’t need any others. I had planned on destashing this one to a new home. Sadly, when I went to check the bottle in preparation for destashing, I discovered it had completely dried out. I have no idea what happened. The cap was closed tightly. There wasn’t a lot of polish glooped and dried on the mouth of the bottle. And yet, it was rock hard. No amount of thinner was going to bring it back to life, so I ended up tossing this one. (In a responsible manner, of course.)
Vivacious is a green-blue/turquoise creme. It has a lovely formula. It was opaque for me in 2 easy coats.
This is a beautiful polish. In general, I love this color tone. And, again, the formula is pretty nice. But … I know I have other things in my collection that are either dupes for this or close enough to satisfy my urge to wear turquoise or green-blue. This is a destash.
Ambitious is a slightly dark royal blue (or, maybe, a slightly light navy blue) jelly or crelly polish. It has a great formula. Application is nice and smooth, and it is opaque in 2-3 easy coats. Opacity is decent at 2 coats, but the 3rd covers a little more nail line.
This is a gorgeous and deep blue. I love it. I love the jelly/crelly consistency of this polish, too. It has a great formula and looks beautiful and clean on the nail. I went back and forth on whether or not to keep this one. I know I have other dark blue jelly/crelly polishes (China Glaze, Simply Fa-Blue-Less comes to mind immediately). But I am weak. I can’t walk away from a fantastic, deep blue like this with a great formula. This one is a keeper.
Calla Lily is a white creme. The formula is good, for a white. It applies fairly smoothly and evens out with minimal streaking. I think I needed 3 coats for it to be opaque.
This is a decently nice white. It has some streaking, but the streaking isn’t horrible. I generally use OPI, Alpine Snow when I want a white. And I found I didn’t prefer this one to that. I don’t use stark white very much, either under nail art or as a manicure on its own. So I decided to destash this one.
Whimsical is a dark, bronze-y copper metallic. The formula is good. It is opaque in 2 coats and almost opaque in 1. It has minimal brush strokes, which is pretty impressive for a metallic polish.
I generally love coppers and bronzes and browns. This one is a nice one, both in color tone and in formula. I like that it has virtually no brush strokes. As I was going through my stash to retake my swatch pictures, it really hit home how many colors I have like this. I decided I didn’t need yet another, so I am going to destash this one.
MORGAN TAYLOR:
I have mixed feelings about Morgan Taylor as a brand. At the time this brand started appearing in stores, I couldn’t decide if I wanted to get into another expensive mainstream brand. I was already loving on OPI, China Glaze, and Zoya. There have been a couple of times when I considered buying a newly released collection. But I always seem to talk myself out of it. As a result, I have never purchased much from this brand. I started out with 4 polishes, and I destashed 1 of those in my first round of swatching. That leaves me with 3 polishes to show today.
Make Me Blush is a soft, slightly warm pink creme. This has a nice formula, particularly for a light, pastel pink. It was opaque in 2 coats with minimal streaking and dragging.
This is a nice pink. I think it’s a shade that will look beautiful on a variety of skin tones, and I think it could also easily cross all four seasons. At the same time, I am not a fan of pinks. I realize I’ve had more than my share of “pink moments” recently, but this is still a shade I don’t wear a lot. I was tempted to keep this just because I liked the formula so much, but I decided to destash it.
Gotta Have Hue is a vibrant teal creme. It has a fantastic formula that is opaque in 2 easy coats.
This is a great color and a beautiful polish. It looks so pretty on the nail, and I love it against my skin tone. In general, I’m not a fan of teal, and I have been fairly ruthless in destashing this color tone in other parts of my mainstream swatch-a-palooza. This one is so nice, though, that I am going to keep it. I think it will fill the small need for this color in my stash.
Water Baby is a pastel blue creme. It has a good formula, for a pastel blue. There is some streaking, but the polish also levels out pretty well. It is opaque in 2-3 coats.
I’m such a sucker for blue. And for pastel blues. Which is why I have so many of them in my stash already. Today, I would likely look at this polish with a certain amount of longing, but I would also tell myself I already have this color in spades. And so, this one is a destash.
SAVINA:
This is another brand that was a random find for me. I found a few of these on clearance at Nordstrom Rack, and I decided to try them out. I originally had two, but I destashed one of them in my first round of swatching. So I have 1 remaining polish to share today.
Meteorites is a topper. It has a clear base with different sizes of black and pastel blue matte glitters. I think all the glitters are hexes, although the smallest ones might be circles. They are so tiny that they basically look like dots on the nail. This will never be opaque on its own, but it is not too base-heavy. It is nice as a topper at 1 or even 2 coats.
I feel like I’ve started destashing a lot of my toppers. I have come to realize I don’t wear them very much, and I have a few indie toppers I love. But, I really like this one. I love the color combination, as well as the glitter shapes. I also love that the glitters are matte, instead of metallic. This topper has a nice glitter distribution, too. It’s a keeper.
THE WRAP-UP:
I keep my swatching notes in mini Moleskine notebooks. I was hoping today’s post would finish out one of those little books. Alas, it was not meant to be. I sat and thought about it, but it would have been a post of massive proportions — 20 polishes, at least. It was tempting, but, ultimately, it felt like too much overload. Next week, I will try to remember to start with the same notebook. If I do that, I think I will finally finish the whole thing! I’m getting a little excited at the thought of it. It’s a small milestone, but, still … a milestone.
Destashing-wise, I think I did pretty well today. I had 9 polishes in this post. I destashed 6 of them and kept 3. I feel proud of myself!
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