Models Own Fruit Pastel Collection Review and Swatches

Hi there everyone
 
Hope your weekend's going well.  The sun has finally come out to play here, and it's brought back my mojo with it!  Lots of exercise yesterday, and a bit of shopping, all in all a good day :-)

A few weekends ago, I was having a drink (surprise) and a chat on Twitter with my lovely friend Swishie Nails about the Models Own Fruit Pastel scented polishes.  She told me that they were available as a set on the Models Own website for £20 with with free shipping.  How could I not know this?  So in my inebriated state I got online (dangerous I know) and ordered myself a set.  I then promptly forgot until the morning, and when I checked my emails it was a nice surprise!

It took about a week to come, which isn't bad, but as soon as I got the package I knew I had a problem as I could smell polish.  When I opened it up, somehow the top had broken off on the blue.  I tweeted Models Own, and they sent me an email address to send my picture to.  Once they got that, and my order number, they arranged to send out another, which came even quicker.  Top marks for customer service. So then I had the full set:

Pretty, right?  As a sucker for pastels I couldn't resist.  It also came with a file/buffer which I wasn't expecting.  I haven't tried it yet, but it felt like OK quality.

So, as I have learned by now, the hard way, I swatched them from light to dark.  I started off with the yellow, Banana Split.  Here it is in sunshine:

The formula was quite good, and it flowed nicely off the brush.  The first coat was patchy, but alot of pastels are like that.  This is two coats, and as you can see, I dented it because I can't sit and be patient haha.

Here it is in the shade:

Dry time was medium to fast, and it dried just a slight shade darker than it shows in the bottle.  It's a creamy yellow rather than a straight white based pastel, and I actually preferred it that way. My favourite of the bunch.  Bunch, bananas, geddit? 

Here's another pic:

Next up we have Strawberry Tart:

Funny enough, as soon as the sun came out yesterday, I was in the mood for a pale pink polish, and this fitted the bill perfectly!  Strawberry Tart had the same nice formula as Banana Split, again the first coat being patchy.  This is two coats.  Here it is in the shade:

Again it dried just slightly more intense than the bottle.  Not much in it though.  One last pic of this one:

I also liked this one alot.
 
Next one on my fingers was Apple Pie:

A nice, true pastel green.  Again first coat patchy, not much different to say from the rest.  The brush is good, not too hard or bendy.  Here it is in the shade:

And here's the bottle-less shot, just because all the rest got one:

Next one I tried was Blueberry Muffin, the one that was originally broken.  For some reason the brush was slightly different on this one.  I don't know if they're all like that on this colour or just because this was from a different set, but this one was slightly flared, and it had a few stragglies.  It didn't seem to affect application too badly though:

As you can seem it's still pretty neat around my cuticles, I didn't need to do any proper clean up on any of these.  Occasionally I ran my opposing thumb nail around my cuticle just to tidy the odd overshoot.  Here it is in the shade:

And, true to form, here it is with no bottle:

And last, but not least, we have Grape Juice:

The formula on this one let the team down a bit, I found it gloopy, and as a result, slower to dry.  I smudged my ring finger, and had to take it off and re-do it.  It is a pretty colour though, and I reckon I'll thin it and give it another go.  Here it is in the shade:

And bottle-less:

Quite delicate, and pretty.
 
So being me, I thought I would do a little bit of nail art.  The first attempt was a bit of a fail:

I decided to still share it though, because it shows how nicely the colours go together.  The Fruit Pastel Collection is truly mix'n'match.
 
My next attempt I was a bit more pleased with:

I have Grape Juice as a base, and then the larger dots are Sinful Colours Verbena, and the brighter smaller dots are Nails Inc's Devonshire Row.  I used these colour solely because I had them in my swatching basket and I didn't want to wake other half up by going upstairs for more colours.  As it happens, I like this so much, I might even do my other hand.  Always the sign of a good nail art attempt.
 
So, as you can see from the bottles, alot is made about these polishes being scented.  There's a scratch n sniff label on the lid, which is a nice touch.  Whilst there is a scent to them once they dry (the wet scent is a polish-y smell), it is very subtle, and I wouldn't recommend buying these JUST because they're scented.  And certainly don't expect your fingers to smell as fruity as the scratch labels, because they won't.  But I didn't buy them for the scent so I don't mind that.
 
Here's a picture of the brushes, all the brushes were nice & neat, and quite slim, apart from the blue one:

And there we have it.  So what do I think?  I like it!  The formulas on all except Grape Juice were pretty good, not one coaters, but not many pastels are.  They dried medium-fast and were good and opaque in two coats.

For £20 for the set, I think this is worth the money and I'm glad I bought it.  You can buy them on the Models Own website (here) and they also sell the individual polishes for £5 each, if there's just one you fancy. 

Models Own polishes are cruelty free and vegan friendly, so it's all good :-)

What do you think, are you into pastels like me?  Do you have a favourite?

Until next time...

MASPOOASE x x x
~Wendy~