REVIEW of Nailtini Lacquer in Caviar Cocktail With SWATCHES

Hello little eggs,

How are you? I still don't have access to my laptop. It is becoming a thing. Anyway, enough of that. I'm reviewing my first (and probably only) Nailtini Lacquer for you today. I received it in my November Ipsy Glam Bag. While I'm always happy to receive nail polishes in my ipsy bags, I wasn't so thrilled about the color of this one. I still kind of have mixed feelings on the polish itself. Let's break it down.

Color: Caviar Cocktail is a gunmetal gray shimmer polish. The shimmer is a little frosty though and the brush can create streaks if you apply too much pressure. Or even if you don't. But more on that later. Obviously I did not choose this color for myself so I don't automatically have that relationship with it where I am either happy it's what I expected it to be or disappointed in how it looks on my nails. Still, I don't hate it and I think it might be useful to have around for nail art if I want to paint something metallic like little robots.
Brush: The bottle has a long cap, the stem of the brush is long, and the bristles of the brush are long so you end up with an unusually long brush. It's just something to keep in mind. I don't think it affected my control of the brush. The brush was also a bit wide. I'd say it was wider than an Essie polish but not as wide as a Sally Hansen polish.
Formula: This Nailtini Lacquer had a very thick formula. I'm not sure if this is the norm for these polishes as I've never tried anything else from the brand. Also, it smelled truly awful.
Application: Painting with my dominant hand, the brush glided very smoothly but there were very visible brushstrokes. The brush also didn't really want to bend to get into the corners of my nail which makes me suspect that the bristles might be stiffer than those of the other polishes I work with but I can't be sure of that. I only needed two coats to get this polish opaque though I had to go back and add another coat because of a few bald patches. Yes, I am a perfectionist. But I think that if you did a really clean application you could get away with two coats.
Painting with my nondominant hand, the polish did not apply as smoothly. Visible brushstrokes were much worse and I noticed something in the polish. I could not tell if they were bubbles or unidentified lumps. I had seen one or two when I was painting the nails on my other hand but I'd overlooked it and covered it with another layer of polish.
Wear: I wore this polish for five days and experienced a notable but not awful amount of tip wear. As you know, my polish pretty much never chips so tip wear is usually the worst thing I get.

CONCLUSION: I would say that based on my experience painting with my nondominant hand, it's hard to recommend this polish enthusiastically. I'm also not that thrilled with the color and I think you could easily find a dupe from another brand. The visible brushstrokes are a negative. And also, this polish is more expensive and not as easy to come by as polishes from other brands. So no, I would not recommend this polish.

SWATCHES

November Ipsy Bag

Hello bunnies,

I'm not really sure how I feel about my ipsy subscription right now. On the one hand, I think you definitely get your money's worth for $10 every month. On the other hand, I'm not sure if I like the actual products. The bag itself feels rather cheap this month. The fabric seems cheap and somewhat flimsy. I think it's probably synthetic but it kind of feels like paper or a cheap plastic tote bag. It's a snakeskin textured gold makeup bag and while I'm not too fussy about this kind of thing I still won't be taking this around with me. But as always, I won't complain about extra storage. I'll probably use it to store art supplies.

I suppose the item I was happiest to see was the Be a Bombshell Lip Crayon in Hot Damn. It's not like I need another lip crayon because I already have a few I need to test in addition to the ones I've already reviewed but they are one of my go-to lip products and I'm happy I received red as opposed to any other color. I'll start trying this out once I finish up with my current slate of lip products. They're sitting in a box on my bed like a constant guilt trip. This lip crayon seems to be a bright red with a subtle shimmer but I haven't swatched it on my lips yet (I've learned to make sure I'm not allergic to a lip product before testing a bunch of lip products at the same time).

I was very excited to see the em Lash Gallery Mascara I received until I saw that it was brown. Now, even if I didn't always want the blackest mascara formula in my vain attempt to find a mascara that will make my lashes stand out, I wouldn't want a brown. I have black hair. Oh well. At least I'll get a chance to try the product out. The mascara comes with a bristle brush that is a bit oddly shaped but maybe it'll end up working well for me.