Swatch Sunday 2: Sula Beauty’s Paint and Peel in Haze

Surprise!! There’s a bonus swatch for this week! Since I had an easy-peasy peel-off polish in the swatch queue, I decided I’d just get it out of the way this week. This is Sula Beauty’s Paint and Peel in Haze; I’m wearing three coats without base coat or top coat. Also, apologies for not delivering the cleanest swatch ever. Paint and Peel is water-based and didn’t work with the usual acetone clean up.

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Haze is a dusty blue creme. Application was okay; my bottle is old, and so the polish had a thickness that, due to the water-based formula, I wasn’t sure how to resolve. A few nuggets of dried product were also in the bottle, likely from being on the neck of the bottle and falling in when opened. Despite this, I still got a good clean-ish application. Coverage is good; I had a nearly opaque first coat that evened out with a second. It dries quickly and with a glossy finish.

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Paint and Peel is pretty cool stuff. It’s the least nail-polish-like polish I’ve ever used. It’s water-based, as I mentioned earlier, so it lacks that harsh solvent smell that a typical polish would have. It does have a smell, but it’s a different smell, sort of like clay. It peels off very easily by pushing the edge of the color away with an orange stick. It reminds me a lot of the peel-off Tinkerbell nail polish I had as a child.

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Of course, if lasting color is something you’re after, base coat and top coat will add to the life of this polish. Me? I’ve never been able to keep this polish on. As soon as I’m done applying it, I’m already looking forward to peeling it off because peeling is fun.

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Now, here’s the sad part. I don’t know that Sula Beauty as a whole exists anymore. Their website is a logo and an email link, and their Facebook page hasn’t been updated since 2012. If they’re really gone, that’s a huge shame. I would love to have more of these peel-off polishes, and they made some other good stuff as well. Hopefully they’re still out there somewhere.

I bought this polish myself.

Manicure Monday: Blue and Silver Half-Moon Dream Nails

I have really mundane dreams. They’re always about washing dishes, picking up dry cleaning, standing in line at the bank. Even in my dreams, I can’t escape the banalities of everyday life.  Some night a few weeks ago, I had a dream about painting my nails, and I gave myself the best manicure ever. Upon waking, I decided that I was going to do it for real. Here’s how it turned out.

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It’s not really my style, but I’m very happy with it. The silver is much shinier than I anticipated, but I like it anyway. There are tons of imperfections, but I’m not going to bore you with those details. I’m so pleased with it that I don’t even care.

Bonder, Haze, Hard to Get, Celeb City, Out the Door

Bonder, Haze, Hard to Get, Celeb City, Out the Door

One thing about this manicure: it took me ages to find the right blue. Eventually, I settled on a color called Haze by Sula. I’ve ever seen this polish anywhere but Ulta, and its formula is much like the stuff we used as children, the stuff that came in garish colors and peeled right off. I used it as a base color in another manicure and had good results, so I tried it again. This time, though, I used the French manicure guide strips to get my half-moon shapes, and it hadn’t occurred to me taping and peel-off polish wouldn’t work well together until after I’d nearly pulled a few of them off. Luckily, everything went according to plan.

Did I mention that I’m pleased with these? I’m very pleased with these.