Color Club Back to Boho : Nomadic in Nude

There's a lot of brands out there, most of them releasing special or limited edition collections, and usually I'll want one or two from this collection or that, but not all. There are a few brands, though, where I have to hide my wallet to prevent me buying everything they ever release ever - and Color Club is one of those brands. I can't decide if it's a shame that they're quite hard to get in the UK, or whether that's a blessing (for my wallet, at least) - but between TK Maxx and Ebay I seem to have amassed a nice enough collection of these little beauties in spite of the lack of 'proper' Color Club stockists over here!

Back to Boho was the 2011 Color Club autumn collection (that's fall, for those of you who are across the pond), a  shabby chic, vintage 70's styled collection that promised to bring 'Boho Glam' to your nails. Amongst the 12 was Nomadic in Nude, a pale putty nude creme that the press releases described as 'off white', though I'd say it was closer to grey-beige. I don't have a lot of nude polishes (most of them look a bit odd against my olive skin tone), but I loved the way this one looked in the bottle, so I tried it anyway.

Application - well, it's a creme. Not only that, but it's a pale creme (which for me tend to show the same application problems as pastel cremes), and kind of sheer to boot - so it was hard to get it completely even and smooth. It would have been better if I'd done three thin coats, I think - but I was impatient - instead I applied two thick coats, after which it was opaque, but a bit brush strokey. My fault more than the polish! Nonetheless, the formula was mostly nice - dried reasonably fast, went on smoothly (when I wasn't rushing it and blobbing it on too thick). I had no trouble with cuticle pooling, either. No clean up required :)

Wear was really very good indeed. It took over a week to chip and by that time there was only a small amount of tip wear despite my having spent a lot of time with my hands in water and even scrubbing things with a pot scourer!

What I liked:

The colour. It looked pretty nice even against my usually nude-hating skintone, against which most nudes tend to look too orange, or too pink. I liked how it looked almost white in some lights, grey in others, and even like pale chocolate milk at times.

The wear. It lasted forever!

What I didn't like:

It could have done with being a little more pigmented - then two thin coats would have sufficed. I dislike having to do more than two coats of polish (maybe I'm just lazy).

The formula wasn't quite as nice as some of the other Color Club polishes I've tried. It's very far from being horrible, though.

Stash or Trash?

Definitely stash. I can see me using this one as a palette cleanser, as well as a nice neutral/nude polish that doesn't make me cringe to see it against my skintone.

NYC Expert Last : 165 Carrie'd Away

Things have been a little quiet here at Glitter Mountain : I had some offline drama to deal with and it took me away from the computer (and from polishing my nails) for a while. Sorry about that; I'm back now!

Today I'd like to share a new-to-me brand: New York Color, or NYC. This brand has been around for ages, but it's only recently that I managed to find a shop that stocked it - and how excited was I to discover their polishes are all as cheap as chips, yet there were some really nice colours amongst them! My nails were a bit stained at the time, which made it hard to go 'bare', yet I knew I wouldn't have time to look after my nails much for a while, especially anything that takes as long as buffing out stains. What to do?

Enter NYC Expert Last, in Carrie'd Away. 

This pretty shell pink/nude colour was supposed to cost the princely sum of £2.48, hardly bank breaking in the first place, but I got it on special offer so it worked out about £2. I wasn't expecting too much from anything that cheap, but when I got home and tried it out, I was amazed! 

Firstly, the bottle and brush. I wasn't too keen on the shape - the top is bigger than the bottom, which made it look a bit odd and wasn't too comfortable to hold, but it wasn't unbearable. The brush was reasonable: nothing fancy about it, but nothing unpleasant either. It held the right amount of polish, didn't splay too much, wasn't too stiff etc. It did the job it was meant to do.

Secondly, the formula. This polish is very sheer: don't come calling at Carrie'd Away's door if you're not a fan of seeing your nail line, but I don't count that as a bad point since this is the kind of colour where you're supposed to have VNL. It's like a french mani, but more subtle, without the full on white tips. (It'd also make a great polish for an actual french manicure; just add white tips and you're away!). Pictured here are three coats over nail envy:

I like the colour a lot; it's close enough to my skin tone to look nice and clean, not too pink, not too peachy, and I can see me using it a lot as a palate cleanser as well as for when I want that bare nail look without actually having bare nails. 

Since it's sheer, it also tends to be a little runny; watch how much you're loading on the brush or you'll flood your cuticles, but as long as you use a moderate amount and aim for thin coats, it's not a big deal. Drying time isn't bad, and as you can see it dries nice and glossy (this picture was before topcoat). 

The real surprise for me with this polish was how long it lasted. I kid you not; it stayed completely free from any signs of chipping OR tip wear for a whole week!! SEVEN DAYS! In the end I had to take it off because it started lifting around the cuticles (out of sheer old age!), but still not a single chip or flaw on the tips. I'd used a coat of Orly Sec'n'Dry as topcoat, but I use that for almost all my manicures and whilst I'll admit it does make things last longer, I work in a job that requires a LOT of typing and even with the Sec'n'Dry, the only time I've achieved more than a couple of days without at least a bit of tipwear was with Essie Bordeaux. For a polish that costs so little, I find this utterly amazing; I'm excited now to try the other colours I picked up along with this one!

Rimmel 60 Seconds : Euphoria

Another Rimmel for you today - this time one of their fast drying polishes, shade 510 'Euphoria'.

Euphoria is a beige shimmer with a pink flash. It comes with a smaller version of the wide, rounded brush Rimmel use in their Lycra Pro range and which I love so much - application is easy and fast, at least in terms of not messing up your cuticle line. However, as I applied this, I got serious deja vu - it's quite thick, prone to bubbling, and takes waaaay longer than the 60 seconds claimed before it's dry. In fact, every one of the same things I noticed about the last Rimmel 60 seconds polish I reviewed : Green With Envy.

I guess it's just the 60 second formula: it claims to be a one coater, when like Green With Envy, it isn't really. A second coat leaves you waiting ages for it to dry. However, I waited patiently and after two hours I decided it was safe to go to bed. 

Check out the sheet marks! Clearly this polish is one that needs a quick drying top coat (which I didn't use this time; my bad). Anyway, formula issues aside, this is still quite a pretty colour, especially in the sunlight:

Yes, I did say sunlight. Look, girls! The sun came out for the first time this year! I almost fainted. Then I ran around cheering. Then I grabbed my camera :)

I can't lie though. My overall reaction to this polish is 'Meh'. I overlooked Green With Envy's application issues because it was such a stunning colour and that made it worth persevering with, but this one, while pretty, doesn't really look that great against my skin tone so I probably won't wear it again. Someone with less olive skin would probably look great with this polish on, but I struggle a little with light pinky shades, you know?