Funky Fingers - Berried Treasure, Fro Yo, Puffo Gelato and Mint Choco-Chip Swatches & Reviews

So yeaaaah, these polishes have been around for a while. They were on clearance at my local Five Below for 5/$5 so I was like what the hay-hay.

What the hay-hay indeed.

I tend to overlook Funky Fingers as a brand, mostly because my first experience with them made me go 'meh'. I've since gotten a few colors that are actually quite excellent, and for the normal price of 3/$5 it's hard to be too upset with them if they're not, like, a-maaa-zing, you know?

Three of the four polishes (Berried Treasure, Fro Yo and Mint Choco-Chip) consist of a milky crelly base with various sizes of black and sheer white hex glitter, while the other (Puffo Gelato) is a crelly base with only black hex glitter in various smaller sizes. The glitter with these dudes (with the exception of Puffo Gelato) was all kind of clumped at the bottom, and I struggled to get an even amount of it out, as you can see in my pictures. I would have liked them a lot more if their glitter was like PG.


First up is Berried Treasure, the sheerest of the bunch. The soft, little-puppy-nose pink is sweet and feminine but even after three coats you can still see bald patches on the nail.

Shown below is three coats with topcoat.

Fro Yo is a pastel purple. The formula was better with this one in terms of sheerness. The white glitters, consequentially, weren't very noticeable as a result.

Shown below is three coats with topcoat.

Puffo Gelato is my favorite, and not just because it's blue. This one is the most egg-speckly, least sheer and lacks the white glitter (which, honestly, they all could have done without since the glitter is also sheer). I muuuch prefer the smaller glitter in this type of polish; the distribution ends up being more even and more interesting to look at, in my humble opinion.

Shown below is three coats with topcoat.

Finally there's Mint Choco-Chip. It's, uh, mint green and like, just below Berried Treasure on the sheerness scale. I've said the word 'sheer' like, a hundred times I feel like. It's just such a better word than 'milky'... gag. Anyway, I don't know. It's a nice color and all of that. Things.

Shown below is three coats with topcoat

So there you go, guys. Swatches of an older set of polishes you can probably still find at your Five Below, possibly on clearance. I don't hate these but I'm not in love with them either. I like the idea of them, you know? I wish the glitter was more eager to hang out with me, on my nails. OKAY BUT FOR A DOLLAR. Okay, I know. For a dollar each, they're cool.

The Polish Bar - Shiny Pebbles Swatch & Review

Frans.

I've had two nail breaks in the last four days; the ring finger of my swatch hand and the middle finger of the other. I'm right-handed so my right hand's nails don't usually ever get to grow past the very tip of my finger because of how gawky-handed I am. I do believe I've mentioned this.

Also my skin is soooo dryyyy. This Ohio Winter has been rough. I'm ready for Spring and flowers and sunshine and.. allergies. The bad with the good, blah blah blah.

I hadn't heard of The Polish Bar prior to seeing Shiny Pebbles on a Pinterest ISO board. I pinned the crap out of it and went about my business as I had just enforced a no-buy. So lame, no-buys. Anyway, after a few polish sales, I kicked that no-buy in its stupid face and bought a couple polishes from my want-list and Shiny Pebbles was one of them. Glitter in a milky base will forever be my favorite polish genre, however much I hate the word "milky". Ugh.

Shiny Pebbles is a milky white base packed with orange, light orange and brown hex glitter in varying small sizes and turquoise small square and micro glitter. The result is a non-literal translation of what reminds me of river rocks and it is so great.

The formula, despite the amount of glitter, is smooth and super easy to work with and reaches opacity in two medium coats. I used three thin coats over a coat of Rejuvacote, finished off with another layer of Rejuvacote. I need more fast-dry topcoat ASAP-- my Essie G2G has turned into a gloopy disaster and I finally accept that, sigh.

So, uh, yeah. I love it. There is such an ungodly amount of awesome indie polish out there, a lot of which I'm sure I'm not even aware of yet. 

It looks like Shiny Pebbles is out of stock (and I'm not sure if it's going to be restocked anytime soon or what) but you can see and purchase other lovely polishes by The Polish Bar here.

Sinful Colors - Pride Swatch & Review

HEY.

I GOT COLORS TODAY.

Sinful Colors - Pride is red and pale yellow and green and blue and magenta hex glitters in varying sizes suspended in a slightly thick, clear base. I have a couple other polishes like this (Ulta - Pinata-Yada-Yada and Milani - Gems) but this one definitely has the best glitter payoff. The formula isn't unbearably thick, either. I feel like this would be perfect for a glitter gradient!

Swatches show Rejuvacote as the base, a thin layer of Essie - Waltz, three medium coats of Pride and no topcoat.

For good measure, I then added a thin layer of Essie - Waltz. I looooove how it dulls the metallic shine of the glitters. This reminded me of a more muted China Glaze - It's a Trap-eze, which I don't yet own but have been considering getting. I have such a thing for glitter in a white base, which I'm sure I've said before.

Party on my nails!! This was, however, a little bulky what with the layers. In the future, I'd probably be a little lighter-handed with Pride and stick to using it as a full-coverage polish as an accent nail or two.

Leaf NOTD (China Glaze: Budding Romance & Striping Tape)

Firstsies, this is the best picture I have ever taken of my nails, or possibly anything:

"I'm Leafnails and I approve this picture."

Secondsies, it took me 948293841983749 tries before actually coming up with something leaf-inspired that didn't suuuuck. And it was the least, like, doing-things idea that I had the whole time.

Totally real pine cone.

I wasn't smart enough to do a toot-torial, but I can explain things super good so here you go.

How-to-do Leafs! <3
Step 1: Put striping tape on your bare nails in a leaf way.
Step 2: Paint your nails a leaf color.
(Optional Step 2.5: Keep going over the polish until you accidentally start dragging it to the edge of the nail but by some stroke of luck it totally works for what you're doing. Make sure you cannot successfully duplicate that happy accident on any other nail.)
Step 3: Don't let the polish dry all the way because it's getting late and you're tired and have already tried 948293841983749 things.
Step 4: Remove striping tape.
Step 5: Use acetone to fix all of the wonky parts from the goopy polish gooping all over the place.
Step 6: TOP COAT TIMMMMMEEEEE.

My nails are so stained. It's pretty horrendous. But!, that kind of worked out for this. Plus Budding Romance is, like, the perfect shade for leaves-just-about-to-turn for Autumn. I love that it's more yellow-toned the less layers of it there are. I don't like green polish usually, but this is my jam.

Essence: Gorgeous Bling Bling Swatch & Review

 Gorgeous Bling Bling. Gorgeous. Bling. Bling.

Oh, what a silly name for a polish. For this polish, specifically. It's gorgeous, but it's not exactly bling blinging. Gorgeous Pumpkbling, maybe. Gorgekin Pumpling. Anyway, I picked this up at Ulta on clearance and I'd do it again! This is three coats, topped with SV.

Sunlight

Shade

Gorgeous Bling Bling is the color of pumpkin pie, of crunchy fall leaves, of every pumpkin-scented candle ever made, and also it has very pale gold glass flecks scattered throughout. It looks pretty squishy when applied, so I'm gonna go ahead and call it a crelly because this is MY blog and I do what I want! The shade picture is more accurate in color than the sunlight one though it's not quite as red-tinted in real life.

I, um, have nothing to say about application, really. Or wear. Which I probably should since I'm reviewing nail polish aaaand those are kind of important key details. Sorry. Sorry guys.

In other news: THERE IS A GIGANTIC BEETLE FLYING AROUND MY LIVING ROOM. It sounds like a tiny airplane. Blicky.