Joe Fresh – Butter

Haven’t blogged in a while, sorry about that! But now I’m back to show you some more Joe Fresh polishes.

Joe Fresh Butter, a light pastel yellow creme. I’ve been wanting a colour like this for a while and finally settled on this one. Application wasn’t particularly smooth, but it was decent, considering the reputation that yellow creme nail polishes have for being thin and streaky. As a result, I needed three coats. The brush can cause quite a bit of drag on the nail, so use a light touch when applying. All things considered, the end product (with top coat) looks pretty flawless. And I can’t find it in my heart to fault Butter on its application issues when it looks so pretty and perfect for spring!

OPI Pirates of the Caribbean – Stranger Tides

I saw the display for the OPI Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides collection ages ago, and thought the collection was a bit…strange. If you do a quick Google of it, you’ll notice that it consists of several pastel shades and another shatter polish (Silver Shatter–I actually really want this, as it looks amazing over the pastel shades). Doesn’t really scream Pirates of the Caribbean to me. Then again, I always thought the collaborations with movie franchises somewhat odd. But no matter. I purchase nail polishes for the colour and not so much its affiliation with a movie or celebrity (coughJustinBiebercough. More on this later :p).

I ended up getting OPI Stranger Tides, which is a muted, pale grayish-green creme. It looks sort of ugly in the bottle, but I love it on the nails. Quite a unique green colour if I do say so myself. I don’t own anything like it. The closest colour I can think of is Essie’s Sew Psyched, which is several shades darker with subtle white shimmer running throughout. I love that, despite being an uncommon polish colour, Stranger Tides is still very wearable.

This colour also had a great formula and needed only two coats to reach full opacity. No issues with streaking here. And it goes without saying, but I love OPI ProWide brushes. Makes applying nail polish such a breeze, seriously.

Joe Fresh – Moss

So according to my friend, the name “Moss” for a nail polish is not very appealing. I’d beg to differ!

Joe Fresh Moss. Okay, admittedly this is not the most delicately pretty nail polish in the world. I know a lot of people are turned off by green nail polish to begin with, let alone one that is yellow-based. I, however, love this! A flat medium-dark green creme that is heavily yellow-based. Mossy is the perfect word to describe it. Again, no problems whatsoever with the Joe Fresh formula and application. A definite good buy!

Essie – Smooth Sailing

I need an intervention. I need to stop buying nail polish. Someone stop me! This week alone I’ve bought at least six new colours. This has officially become a problem. Uh, well at least I have new material for the blog?

I couldn’t say no to this :( Essie’s Smooth Sailing, that is (which is part of Essie’s Summer 2011 collection “Color Me Braziliant”).

Smooth Sailing is a lavender/periwinkle blue with tiny flakes of glass-fleck glitter (again, the type that seems to sit on the surface on the nail). Officially, this is described as a “a breezy lavender blue with a reflection of pearl”. Hmm. I’m not sure this is a “pearl” finish type of shimmer; it definitely uses visible glitter suspended in the polish as opposed to a pearly shimmer that’s only visible in the sunlight. Application was perfect in two coats. Absolutely no complaints here!

I’m beginning to really love glass-fleck polishes. The glitter seems to catch the light no matter how dimly lit the room is, which makes them perfect polishes for the spring and summer sun. :)

EDIT// Commenter Robin asks if the base colour of this is similar at all to previously blogged Joe Fresh Iris, and my conclusion is that it’s not. Smooth Sailing is much more blue and Iris is more purple. Quick bottle photo as a comparison:

Hope that helps you out, Robin! :)

holycrapyouneedthis: Joe Fresh – Twilight

Joe Fresh, knocking it out of the park again. Starting with a close-up this time!

Ugh. Joe Fresh Twilight is a $4 polish, people. And it has flakies in it. Beautiful duochrome-tastic flakies. It has a sheer black jelly base (that, upon first coat, looks utterly crap), that builds to an opaque black in two coats. And suspended within it are the most hypnotic bits of misshapen glitter flakes (“flakies”) that flash blue, green, orange, and gold (the bottle photo below shows it particularly well).

Uggggggggghhhhh (just to be clear, all these guttural noises are meant to evoke feelings of desire and lust, and not of disgust).

I cannot contain my love for this polish. There was only one of these left on the racks at Superstore, and when I picked it up, I audibly said to myself: “Oh my freaking God”, and put it into my basket within two seconds of picking it up. I knew instantly I had to have it. I can even look past the fact that it shares a name with my least favourite teen vampire franchise.

I do realize this polish is better suited for the colder months—in fact, this would make a kick-ass Halloween manicure. But I don’t care that it’s May and was 16 degrees yesterday. I’m going to wear whatever awesome nail polish I want (keep in mind, this is coming from the girl who has been aching for the return of spring and summer for the past couple of posts now. What can I say? I just can’t commit to one season).

Spring is in the air! Joe Fresh – Iris

Ah, life is good. Exams are over, my final marks have been released (and…they are satisfactory :D), I’m traveling to Europe in a little over a month, and the sun is out! What more could you ask for? Yeah, maybe a nice nail polish. Yesterday alone, I hauled five polishes. Even for me, that’s excessive. This was one of them:

Joe Fresh Iris. I also bought Moss and Gunmetal (Joe Fresh polishes are $10 for three). What a lovely spring-y colour! A medium blue-purple (“blurple”) creme, just like an iris. And for once I’m not wearing it to make myself feel better, but to rejoice in the sunshine!

This colour went on smooth and opaque in two coats. It dried just a bit matte, so if you desire an ultra-shiny look, make sure to finish it off with a good top coat.

I’ve blogged about Joe Fresh polishes before, but just to reiterate: the brush is a bit wider and flatter than your traditional polish brush, much like the OPI ProWide brushes. It is attached to the clumsy, short white cap. I do wish the cap was removable (like Chanel polishes) to reveal a skinnier, easier-to-hold lid. It’s not a huge problem though, because the brush works well and the formula flows smoothly.

My experience with Joe Fresh polishes has been really good so far, so I’d definitely recommend them!