17 Fast Finish : Fury

It's August already! If you're in the UK you'll already know about the loooong rainy spell we had (OK so it was more like a biblical flood), followed by one measly week of actual summer sunshine. That was last week, and it didn't last - we're already back to rain :( It is in honour of the rain's return that I show you today's polish - Fury, by Boots 17. Mainly because if that one week is all the summer we get, I will be furious!!

Now I'm not going to lie. I have a bit of a love hate relationship with 17 polishes. They have some gorgeous colours, but the formula on every 17 polish I have tried before has kind of sucked - especially with the 'Fast Finish' polishes, which seem to take FOREVER to dry. However, I saw this colour, and I liked it so much I figured it would be worth another try. Armed with quick-drying topcoat, I dived in.

In the bottle, Fury is a rich antique gold with a subtle green duochrome shift. Once on the nail, you mostly lose the duochrome effect, although it retains a sort of green 'hint' to the gold, it's not very easy to see the two colours separately. Depending on the light, it's either the same sort of antique gold you see in the bottle and on this picture here, or else it's more of a coppery bronze colour like in the picture below.

Application wasn't as bad as I expected, although patience was required and I had to do a couple of fingers twice. You need to let each coat dry completely (I used two coats here) before adding the next or you get horrible brush marks and the polish underneath smudges. You also need to apply the polish quite thickly for it to look smooth, which can make it a bit of a pain getting a nice cuticle line. Finally, you'll need a lot of time, or a quick drying topcoat (I used Orly Sec 'N' Dry), because it may say Fast Finish on the bottle but frankly Slow Finish would have been a much better name. It's worth persevering though because the end result is actually a really nice colour and finish which wore surprisingly well. In these pictures I have already been wearing Fury for three days and the tipwear is only just starting to show.

What I liked about Fury:

It's a gorgeous colour, quite unusual - there's a lot of gold/green duochromes out there already but this one is more of a bronze/green.
It wore well - no tipwear until the end of the 3rd day.

What I didn't like about Fury:

It takes forever to dry
It needs very careful application to look good.

Bin it or Keep it?

Keep, because I like the colour so much - but if I found a dupe with a better formula then I would probably ditch this one and keep the dupe instead.

17 Fast Finish : Sulk

Today's mani is from Boots 17 : 'Sulk', from its autumn/fall collection 'A Woman Scorned'. 

(Please excuse my cuticles; I'm using the world supply of hand cream and cuticle butter right now but apparently they don't care. Stupid winter >.<)

Sulk is a gorgeous jewel tone green; in the bottle it looks closer to turquoise but once on the nail it dries most definitely green. And shimmery. It's not quite so sparkly in real life as it appears in these pictures, but it's most definitely there.

Application is average. There's nothing special about the brush (it's not bad, it does the job well enough, but I did notice the neck of the bottle is small enough that the brush tends to catch on it and get all splayed out. Not really a big deal but you do have to be careful if you don't want polish everywhere). The consistency is a little thick, not unpleasantly so, but it's gloopy enough that it does make it hard to do thin coats (I like thin coats. Not everybody does, though, so if you're a medium to thick coater, this one will be perfect for you!). Sulk is nicely pigmented; two coats is more than enough and it wears well too, BUT it's very far from the 'fast finish' the bottle promises you. This mani is one coat of nail envy, two of sulk, and after 15 minutes it was still really tacky. Like, 'has it even started to dry yet' tacky. So I added a coat of Orly Sec'N'Dry and that fixed things.

Or so I thought.

Check out the sheet mark on my index finger!! And I didn't go to bed for FOUR HOURS after I painted my nails! The bottle shots were taken straight after painting, and these other two were taken after I woke up the next morning. All I can think is that this nail must have had an extra thick coat of Sulk, and even the Sec'N'Dry couldn't save it from doom. (Though I will say that the mark is less obvious in real life than it seems here).

This polish gets 5 out of 10 overall. It's a gorgeous colour; there aren't too many jewel toned greens out there (at least in drugstore brands) that are properly green; most of them lean a lot more towards teal/turquoise/blue tones than this one does. It's also cheap and cheerful at £2.99. But I didn't enjoy the application much and it took way too long to dry for a so called fast dry polish. If you don't rush it and keep your coats thin, plus use a fast dry topcoat, it'll be fine - just don't reach for this one when you only have 5 minutes to paint your nails!