How I Decide

Back in the US, when I would shop for polish at grocery stores or drug stores, I would paint one of my bare nails with a polish to test the color and opacity before I bought it. I know some people hate when others do that, but I would say 99% I ended up buying the polish. At the very least, I would open the bottle to see how the brush looked and how the polish looked on the brush. If a polish takes 90 coats to cover VNL, then I was not interested.

In Germany, I haven't done this. Maybe the girls in my polish group on Facebook have scoffed at this behavior enough that I am refraining. Who knows. But I know I have to see what the polish looks like on the nail before I decide what I want to use it for, so after polish shopping last Thursday, here is what I came away with.

Catrice:

• Aretha's R-E-S-P-I-N-K
• King of Greens
• I Wear My Sunglasses at Night
• Blues Brother Volume II

Essence:

• Red-y to Go
• Choose Me!

Flormar:
They don't seem to name their polish, so I can only provide a brief description to accompany the #-

• #50, a metallic spring green
• #38, a fuschia jelly base with what appears to be purple, pink, and blue fine glitter

In these pictures you will also see two polishes that I hadn't yet tried on the nail:

• Catrice New York from their Big City Life collection
• China Glaze LOL from the OMG collection. 

The lovely Debbie Crumpet swapped me so I was able to get my hand on LOL! :D I used it yesterday since we finally had some sunshine and it did not disappoint. I was so excited to use this polish that I painted it on a quarter of my thumb nail during this swatch-run because I didn't want to waste it on a whole nail. lol. Oh polish addict logic!

From top left to bottom: I Wear My Sunglasses at Night, King of Greens, Blues Brother Volume II, Aretha R-E-S-P-I-N-K, and Flormar #50


I Wear My Sunglasses at Night is beautiful in person, but I don't expect I'll be able to photograph it well. It's a black base with multi-color micro glitter in it (mostly pink, purple, and silver judging from the bottle). It wasn't a color I was worried about buying until Kirsten from GeekyOwl made me buy it for her as part of a large swap we are doing. Darn you Kirsten! lol Not really. I really like the color and it definitely makes for an interesting black.


I love the Flormar #50 and King of Greens! They both go on so smoothly and look how shiny #50 is on its own! That is without topcoat! The Blues Brother is absolutely gorgeous, but I love blue, so there is no way I wasn't going to like it. As you'll be able to tell in my next post, I love the brightness of Aretha's R-E-S-P-I-N-K. It is so fun! It isn't quite bubble gum pink or Barbie pink. It reminds me of Sally Hansen's Xtreme Wear Twisted Pink, but without the shimmer. It works well for stamping too!

From left to bottom: Red-y to Go, New York, Choose Me!, Flormar #38, and LOL

In this photo, Red-y to Go shows some VNL, but you couldn't see it in real life. It's a nice metallic red. I stamped with it once, but you'll see that in a later post.

I love the dusty gray blue of New York. I ended up not keeping any of the other Big City polishes after testing them on one finger, but this one I liked. Choose Me! is a polish I have seen many other bloggers rave about, but in the stores, I just never heard its siren call. I went shopping for my birthday club and picked up some colors I thought the next birthday girl might like. I ended up going over budget, so I ended up keeping this one. It's a lovely teal with gold/teal shimmer/fine glitter. The Flormar #38 is the only polish I wasn't in love with. It will take a lot of coats to be opaque, but it might be good over a base color of some sort. Maybe white? It reminded me of two polishes I had when I was younger where the bottles were shaped like bears. Did anyone else have those?

I know I said I wouldn't do swatch photos, but this is about as swatchy as I will ever get. Do you like these posts or should I just stick to nail art and leave the proper swatches to the pros?