Let me explain a little bit about my nails first. For this manicure, I'm wearing DIY Hard Nails "Pink Frost" with DIY Hard Nails "Blue Cocktail" dabbed at the base of my nails. The blue and holographic glitters you see are the added sparkly-ness of "Blue Cocktail"--which I will review separately. I did receive these complimentary in order to review and provide a video on, but that isn't affecting my review at all--I've never had a color changing gel polish before, and my enthusiasm is truly genuine!
DIY Hard Nails "Pink Frost" is a bit of a misnomer, because it's not a frost in the traditional, highly shimmery and metallic sense. Instead, it's an almost sheer jelly like base filled with four different sizes of hexagonal glitter. The largest size is about 1 millimeter, and the smallest is, well, actually a little too small for me even to see to classify as a hexagon! With the jelly like base of the polish, this adds a lot of depth, and it looks dimensional and speckled.
What about "base" color of this gel? Well, that's the fun part: it's a thermal reacting (AKA color changing) gel! When warm, the base color is a sheer milky white with just the tiniest hint of pink--it makes your nails look very dainty, especially with the layers of glitter glinting in the light. When cold, however, the base color is a very saturated, opaque hot pink--almost fuchsia--and the silver glitters stand out more against the bright pink background. I don't know if it's the bright pink color or the juxtaposition of the pale white to hot-pink color change, but for some reason this gel polish makes me think of Revlon's "Cherries in the Snow" lipstick, which was one of the first red lipsticks I ever bought. :)
Warm:
Cool:
The temperature range at which this color changes is perfectly suited to me! When I wash my hands in cold or warm tap water, the colors change. When I'm freezing in the air conditioner or my hands are heating up in the sunlight while I'm driving, the colors change. When I grab a hot cup of coffee or a cold drink from the fridge, the colors change. Basically, what I'm trying to say here is that it doesn't take an extreme temperature to get this color changing gel polish activated. When changing temperatures, though, it can take on a mind of it's own.
Sometimes it's more like a smooth gradient:
(Bonus macro shot of the glitter! I was trying to capture a more intense gradient on my thumb):
At other times it's a bit mottled looking--but it looks almost purposeful, not patchy, thanks to the speckled look the multitude of glitter adds (by the way, these next two shots were the only flash images I could capture--all others are in sunlight):
Most of the time, though, the free edges of your nails gain or lose heat faster to equalize with the air around it--which means the resulting temperature difference from nail bed to free edge gives you what looks like an instant, hassle free French Manicure:
Pretty cool, huh? I'm glad I could let my nails grow out a little this week to let the full effect of this gel polish shine through--on shorter nails, a French manicure look may appear, but it probably wouldn't look so bold.
By the way, did I mention I only used two coats for this manicure? Yeah! Two coats of "Pink Frost", and my manicure was even and lovely--not to mention surprisingly strong. Some other gels I find myself layering on just for strength, but there was no need to waste time on that with this color. It lasted just as long as any other gel, too. And-and-and (I can keep adding ands here!), it was also extremely easy to work with: it didn't shrink from the edges of my nails, it didn't flood into my cuticles, and the glitter didn't all want to pull in one place or separate itself from the gel base, as it is sometimes wont to do. Not to mention, when you cure the polish the heat emitted from the reaction causes the gel polish to change colors, too--so it may go under the light looking pink, and come out of the light looking sheer white! The minute amount of radiating heat is just enough to turn the next layer white too--as you apply it. It's kind of a mind game when applying!
Yeah, this gel polish had me a little excited.
I'll review "Blue Cocktail" next time--hopefully not too far away! School's kicking my behind lately.
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