So I got a little impatient waiting on my nails to grow (I managed to break two so they’re a little stumpy), and decided to ‘swatch’ my handmade polishes today. I write swatch with the inverted commas because I’ve never really swatched before, and to be honest I didn’t nail it. Most swatch photos I’ve seen are photographed really well; the products look lush, the persons nails are long and there’s loads of shots at different angles. Unfortunately you’re getting my 2-dimensional, stumpy nails to look at.
(For those of you who don’t know, ‘A Mermaid’s Life‘ is my first trio set of handmade polishes. I wanted it to tell the life story of a Mermaid so it includes her tales, tears and dreams.)
First up we have ‘A Mermaid’s Tale’. This is a creme polish, made from mica powder; it dries super quick and has a sort of matte finish. On the left we have two coats and the right is one coat. I felt you could really get away with only one coat of this polish as it has a pretty good coverage. It’s super smooth and displays gold/green tones depending on the light and has a beautiful, natural shimmer. Even though the polishes can all be worn individually, I created this one with the idea of it being the base colour.
Secondly is the ‘A Mermaid’s Tears’. Some of her tales are a little sad I’m afraid. It’s made from ‘ultra fine’ (0.008) hex glitters, it’s the glitter topper of the trio. But it can be worn by itself – it gives your nails a little bit of glittery interest without being overwhelming. It dries a little ‘gritty’ so does need top-coating and due to the glitter being in the iridescent category it can be pink/blue/green/purple/and so on which is okay for me, but could be misleading as in the bottle it looks true blue! (I got too carried away and painted all my nails with a second coat, so had to do a weird mashed together photo for a fair comparison. )
Finally, it’s the jelly of the trio – ‘A Mermaid’s Dream’, full of glittery goodness. I used a blue tint, teal stars and silver square glitter for this creation and personally it’s my favourite. One coat looks a little rubbish, but two coats is certainly wearable if you’re wanting to wear it as a solo polish. Even though this one does dry smooth (and relatively quickly actually) I would still recommend a top coat due to potential pokey-outy star points that could catch *shudders*. I felt my brush loaded fine with the square glitter but I did have to fish around for the stars, I suppose that could be due to their shape and size though – I’ve never used a polish with stars in it to compare it to though!
Can I just add how cool it looks with a matte top coat applied! This is two coats ‘A Mermaid’s Dream’ and one matte top-coat. You can really see the glitter and I much prefer it to the glossy look.
Still with me? You’ve probably just been looking at the picture right. As I previously said, they were designed as a trio for the option to layer together. In the following picture, I have layered the dreams on top of her tale on the left, just her tale in the middle, and then tears and tale to the right. I LOVE how the dreams and tale look together. What’s your favourite out the trio then?
I played with them further, but what I came up with will be revealed on Friday, mwahahaha. I will give you a slight peek though, what a tease… This is tale, tears, and then dream painted as an ombre effect.
WonderfulWolf 