In case you haven't seen that post, here's a refresher. I'm going to post my manicure when "warm" and "cold" so you can see how the glitter in "Blue Cocktail", concentrated around the base of my nails, looks when paired on top of a light or a dark gel. The color changing gel underneath is DIY Hard Nails "Pink Frost", which I've linked the review to above. I'm also going to post photos of both hands, because...well, you'll see soon!
DIY Hard Nails "Blue Cocktail" is a rather simple gel polish in theory: it consists of four styles of hexagonal glitter in a clear base. The small glitters are predominantly a light cyan blue color, with some silver holographic glitters mixed in. The large glitters are about 1mm big, and are predominantly silver holographic. Mixed in with this, though, is a 1mm blue holographic glitter, too--it looks almost like the same cyan color as the smaller glitter at first, but on closer inspection, it has a holographic reflection that shines from dark blue to a yellow green in the right light. I took a pretty good macro shot showing this applied with a single coat and three coats, and while you can tell that this is a sparser glitter that is not going to build up to be "opaque" on its own, it IS a pretty fun and unique shade! It fits right in with the ideas and themes behind the Gelish "Trends" collections, although it's also quite different than anything in that line.
May I also add that the application of this gel in particular was near perfect. I'm sure any nail polish lover knows how tricky complex glitters can be to apply: they can leave bald spots or spots where all the glitter pulls to one corner, and sometimes you have to fish and dab larger glitter spots on. But I had almost none of that with "Blue Cocktail"! It applied evenly, and I was even able to create a pretty nice gradient effect just using the brush that comes with the bottle. On top of that, even though creating my gradient required some more dabbing and working with my gel polish than normal, this gel did not "move" or flood into my cuticles while I was working--it stayed right where I put it. I only needed one coat to get the look I wanted for my nails in these pictures. And here's another thing this polish didn't do: You know how sometimes glitter "flakes" off of a gel manicure because the smooth surface resists the gel trying to cover it? I had absolutely no faulty, flaking glitter problems with this gel.
The only downside to this gel polish that I noticed is where the photos of each hand come in. Remember when I said I didn't need to fish and dab the larger glitter on my nail to create an even manicure? Well, I was partially right... If you pay close attention, one hand has a lot of 1mm blue holographic glitter, while the other hand has nearly none. Yeah, don't ask me how that one happened! It must have been a fluke, because obviously I still got a lot of 1mm silver holographic glitter on my brush. Luckily, it didn't look much different from far away. :)
Once again, I did receive this gel polish color to review for free from DIY Hard Nails--but my experiences and reviews are all my own. I was pleasantly surprised by this new brand, and I want to share the love!
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