Claire's Ocean Breeze

Blue skies and butterflies...

I admit, I bought this polish purely out of curiosity. I had never tried a layered polish before, and I wondered how it would come out on the nail. It was also part of the ten-for-ten-dollar polish sale I lucked into a while back at Claire's, so for a dollar I figured I'd give it a try.

Well, it came out blue. I'm not sure why; as a sticker on the top of the cap instructed, I did not shake it, and I tried to be careful to dip the brush all the way down into the bottle to try to pick up some of the layered colors. It still came out blue.

It is, however, a very lovely blue, a color that makes me think of cloudless summer skies. Here it is in the shade:
And in the sunlight:
Although the polish seemed a little thick (I'm guessing maybe it has to be to maintain the layered effect in the bottle instead of all mixing together) it went on very smoothly, dried in a perfectly reasonable amount of time, and was completely opaque in two coats. (The fact that it's flooded onto my cuticles in the pics is entirely the fault of my shaky hands, not any flaw in the polish consistency itself.) The wear is good, as I've found it to be with all of the Claire's polishes I've tried so far - no chipping, smudging, dinging, or tip-wear after two days.

Before I took the pictures, I decided to fancy it up a bit with some pink and white butterfly and flower nail art stickers on the middle finger (which is usually where things go horribly, tragically wrong for me because I'm apparently sticker-challenged and always end up with the darn things stuck firmly somewhere I don't want them, and then ruin my manicure trying to pry them off and re-stick them. That's why I only did one nail on each hand; it turned out pretty well this time and figured I'd best not push my luck!)
I absolutely love this shade of blue! :)

I wonder, though, is there a trick to applying layered polishes that I just don't know? Has anybody else tried them and gotten a multi-colored effect?

Jordana Lilac Hearts

This one is little shiny lavender hearts mixed with tiny iridescent glitter in a clear base. Here, I've layered it over black to get the little hearts to stand out more. I think it would probably also look good layered over a darker purple, or maybe even white for a more subtle, pastel look.

Pics are two coats over a black base, plus top coat.

It's a sweet-looking polish, very girly with all its little shimmery hearts, but the only problem with it is that, like some other similar polishes I've tried, the little hearts really don't want to be picked up by the brush. After two coats which ended me up with about six little hearts unevenly divided among all ten fingers, I resorted to digging the hearts out of the bottle with a toothpick and sticking them on my nails. It ended up being a little time-consuming for what I'd originally planned as a quick, just-for-fun Saturday manicure. Also, a few of the hearts had fallen off by the time I took these pictures on the afternoon of the second day.

Overall, though, it's a cute effect if you have the time and patience (or are more skillful than I am at coaxing the hearts to stick to the brush), and it's certainly worth the money I paid for it at the dollar store - not the Dollar Tree, but a little local independently-owned one. I don't think they carry the full color selection of Jordana polishes, but they're the only place I've found them around here. They also had versions of this polish with pink and red hearts, respectively, which I also got and will be swatching at a later date.

We finally got a little weak sun late this afternoon after a day of July downpours, so you can see some of the sparkle from the glitter in the sunlight in the third picture.