Thoughts in Little Boxes

Ever since I bought the Barry M Red Glitter roughly… ooo, six years ago (?!) I’ve been after a green glitter. I will happily admit that it’s purely a Wizard of Oz thing, well that and the fact that I’m like a magpie whenever I’m near anything shiny and emerald green. No, really, it’s a problem. I’m almost guaranteed to like something more by roughly 35%. Anyway, I’ve always been a bit dubious of 3D glitter polishes as I didn’t really understand the necessity for the term or really understand the term itself. Alas, when I saw the Nails Inc Piccadilly Arcade on ASOS for £7.50 instead of £11, I thought I would give it a go. It has now returned to the full price on ASOS.

In the bottle it looks like any standard glitter polish with one exception, the colour is immense. It is the most perfect green I’ve ever seen in my life. It’s so green that the crazy part of me was worried that the wicked witch Mombi would lock me in the Emerald chamber from Return to Oz (yes, I’m a geek, what of it?). On closer inspection the 3D terminology makes more sense. The polish consists of fine, regular glitter as well as medium and large sized hex glitter. The term makes even more sense when it’s on the nail which I will cover in a moment.

Applying the polish is rather an odd experience as far as applying polish goes. It’s a clear base polish that is packed to the rafters with glitter. It’s definitely one of the densest glitter polishes I’ve used. This also means that the application cannot be smooth in the traditional sense of the word.

When applying, it’s fairly easy to stay neat but you do have to paint quite thick layers. The polish starts drying really quickly so you have to work quickly and have to re-dip after every second stroke.

To get a nice opaque colour you have to apply two coats and to have a nice, smooth, longer lasting finish, I would recommend using at least two layers of topcoat. And while we’re on finish, the 3D effect the different sizes of glitter gives the polish depth and it makes it look like it actually does have different plateaus.

Now, the bad news. This week I have applied this polish twice. The first time I applied two layers over a basecoat and didn’t apply a topcoat. After 12 hours, it started chipping. After 36 hours, it had to be removed. The second time I applied two layers over a basecoat and added two layers of topcoat. It lasted the night and then by the evening it had started to chip so I added a third layer of topcoat. By day two, it started chipping at the edges. By day three, whole nails were coming off like scales.

So, it’s a massive dilema. It’s a beautiful nail polish that many people have commented on BUT you do have to use quite a lot of polish to make it opaque (as the glitter is so dense, one nail is roughly the same as three from a regular polish) and it doesn’t last at all.

I probably will use this when I have a special occasion and it will look fabulous at Christmas but it’s definitely not an everyday polish due to it short life span.