Thursday 30 January 2014

Poundland Jess White Polish review and swatch

You probably all know by now how much I love a nice cheapie (hee hee).  When I was doing the rounds at Poundland last weekend, I spotted a whole rack of a new polish range called Jess so I thought I'd give it a go. 

For anyone not living in the UK, I should explain that Poundland is (I'm imagining) our version of the Dollar Store, although at the moment a dollar is worth about 61 pence, so I wish it really was the equivalent.  Let's make the "61p Store" a thing people!

They had a pretty good range of colours actually, but because I didn't know anything about the brand, I thought I'd just try one.  My bottle of Alpine Snow is getting a bit gloopy, so I thought I'd go for the white.  White is always a good test of formulation and brush.  I've had quite a few disappointments, most notably a Calvin Klein white polish which had an awful brush, although the polish itself was okay.

So anyway, without further ado, let's get on with it.  Apologies in advance, I know my nails and cuticles aren't top notch right now.  I had to use my leftie for this because the cuticles on my right hand were cracked and bleeding, yuck.  I did take photos, but they were just too gory to use.

Wait a minute, didn't I say without further ado?  Here's the bottle and brush shot:
The brush was actually pretty good, no different from a regular high street polish, think Rimmel or Barry M.  A slim flattish oval, I could do one finger in three or four strokes.  Reasonably flexible but not floppy, the polish had a pretty good flow from it.  I did notice a tiny amount of bubbling during application, but they weren't left on my nails at the end.

Here's the first swatch, natural light, but indoors at the window because it was raining:
Here we have two coats.  As you can see, the line at my cuticle is quite neat, this is with no clean up.  The first coat was quite patchy, and I did find the formulation slightly gloopy, but actually no different to OPI Alpine Snow.  It didn't remove any first coat when I applied the second coat, as can sometimes happen.

Here's another swatch, this time under artificial light:
I wish I'd done another coat on my ring finger, it is heavily ridged, and they show through on the finish.  All these pictures are taken without top coat, and still it had a pretty decent shine to it, which can be tricky for a white polish.

Originally I only put this on to swatch it, but I liked it that much that I actually kept it on for work the next day, and I did have a few favourable comments.  I did have some chipping at the end of day two, but I am pretty hard on polish, so I wasn't surprised.  Next time I wear it I'll topcoat it, just for longevity.

Talking of the white stuff, we've had some snow here in Cumbria last week!  This is near to where I work, luckily the roads around the base of the mountain didn't get any:
Snow just the way I like it.  Beautiful, but quite far away, haha.  The lines through the middle of the photo are power cables.

Thankfully my blog mojo is starting to return.  I have a few comparison posts to do, and some pretties on the way from Mei Mei's Signatures and Born Pretty Store which I can't wait to show you.

I haven't done any nail art at all since Christmas, which is unheard of for me, to be honest I think I burned out a bit, having to post regularly got on top of me.  I was always just used to posting as the inspiration took me, and have come to realise that scheduled posts just aren't for me.  I like to create, then let it fly baby, yeah!

So, have you tried any of the Jess nail polishes?  Any colours that you'd recommend, or any I should steer clear of?  Would be interested to hear!  If you've reviewed any, pop a link in the comments.

Until next time,

MASPOOASE x x x
~Wendy~