OPI DS Jewel Swatch

OPI DS Jewel ... an elite designer series lacquer, guaranteed to make your mouth water in some nail polish induced joy ... right???

Wow. This is once seriously ugly nail polish.

 

DS Jewel has a streaky, corpse pale, smokey base that causes the first coat to give you slightly shimmery dead nails. The second coat does not improve things much. The third coat does give it some depth with the red-violet glitter, but that semi-translucent smokey base curdles the shimmery goodness.

No wonder you do not see swatches for this. Who would pay good money for this crappy polish when given an option? OPI "Teasy Does It" is a much better warmed red-violet glitter option.

I love a good jelly, and VNL rarely bothers me. However, the juxtaposition of this warm shimmer riding on a ghostly ugly cool base is a definite turn off.

Maybe DS Jewel would make a good layer polish ... but that is what CND Effects are for, yup.

Barielle Hydrating Ridge Filler

I placed my last Barielle order in late September of 2010.  Which is about when I opened my newest bottle of Barielle Hydrating Ridge Filler with Silk Fiber for Dry, Brittle or Ridged Nails.

It has been my go to base coat for well over a year now.  This is my second bottle.  It is moisturizing to a point, and has a protein compound to help strengthen nails.  However, I did not get very far through this second bottle, before it developed the same kind of cloggy, aggregating flakes that my first bottle developed.

These odd flakes are impossible to prevent, regardless of how clean I keep the bottle or how much contamination I try to avoid.  Between the price, $16 a bottle, and how quickly this second bottle has flaked, I am left disgruntled.

The flakes are laid down upon the nail, resembling an odd glitter lump on the nail.  So with any lightly pigmented lacquer the white grit bumps show through.  And anything creme shows the lump.  Perhaps not visible to the casual eye, but how many of us look casually at our manicures?

Here is the old bottle with a picture of the new bottle right beside it.  You can see the flakes coating the inside of the bottle.  No way to get rid of those unless I filtered them out.  Hm.

My disappointment in this fail leads me to investigate several other moisturizing base coats.  

I now have in my arsenal:
Citra 2 for soft, peeling nails by Nail Tek
Nail Strengthening Basecoat by Poshe - this has mineral spirits in it, *REALLY*, hydrocarbons ... I'm sure a replacement is available Poshe
Nail Rebuilding Protein by Barielle - this has camphor, so I expect the smell to bother me