Thursday, June 16, 2011

Maybelline Blue Brilliance

Maybelline Blue Brilliance (three coats over Zoya Phoebe.) This looks like a pretty cool polish, doesn't it? It's all duochromey and stuff. That's why I was drawn to the bottle on the display. It's a pale sky blue with green, purple, pink and orangey duochrome, just like the awesome duochromes I remember. Sadly, this is crap. Seriously. It made me remember why I stopped buying Maybelline polishes after the Wet Shine Diamonds / Colorama cool stuff was discontinued.

The first problem with this polish is the brush. It has to be the worst brush in drugstore polish. It's long, squared off, thin and floppy. It's totally uneven and limp and that makes it pretty much impossible to achieve a good application. The bristles splay out every which way and they're not all the same length. It also has these weird hard edges on some bristles that scrape the polish as it applies it, exacerbating the streakiness of the formula. The signs of a good polish brush? Smooth, firm (but not stiff) springy bristles with no frayed ends that leave no streaks or scratches in the polish when applying. A dense brush that holds enough polish to cover the nail smoothly, and that gently curves into a c-shape when pressure is applied. This Maybelline brush? The exact opposite of all of that.

The second problem is the formula. It's a runny, globby, streaky nightmare. It streaks worse than almost anything I can think of, runs into your cuticles no matter what you do, and makes weird globs when it settles on my nails. The fact that this is a frost finish doesn't help, though I'd hope their cremes don't streak like this. And the whole '50 seconds' express finish quick dry thing? LIES. Takes forever to dry.

The third problem is the color. What looks like an amazing duochrome in the bottle is actually a watery sheer streaky frosty blue on the nail. I tried five coats of it alone and ended up with a gross striped looking sheer frosty mess. Here I layered it over a bright blue to add more of a blue punch to it, but it barely helped. Why is this so sheer?!?! We finally get an old Sally Hansen Nail Prism-style 3-free drugstore duochrome and it's too sheer to wear alone? And even layered, only the pink side of the duochrome really shows up. I was hoping to get the strong green/orange side that shows in the bottle.

I've heard similar things about some of the Scherer Chameleons. I have a few of those and I've never used them. Maybe it's about time I break them out and try them on.... They can't be worse than this.

Man... they build my hopes up with duochrome dreams just so they can get my $5 and then smash my rainbow-reflecting expectations with a sledgehammer. I think I'm going to go hug my Nail Prisms collection for a while.

22 comments:

  1. It looks pretty but man.....just reading about the brush is :/!!!

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  2. Is it too late to return that garbage to the store? I'm so disappointed for you.

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  3. I actually enjoy the Scherer Chameleons ... I hardly ever wear them alone though, instead use them often in frankens.

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  4. I clicked because I haven't seen a cool Maybelline polish in ages too! looks similar to Orly's Sky Blue Pink

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  5. My reaction arc went from OOOOOoooo to Ewwwwwww... bummer. :(

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  6. I made the same experience with German drugstore polishes. Awesome duochrome in the bottle, nothing on the nail. I just looked lovingly upon my nail prisms (turquoise opal, amber ruby and garnet lapis. lovelovelove them), those are real duochromes. Quattrochromes, even.

    Such sheer polishes should not make it to the shelves. They are a disappointment for anyone who tries them. If I ran a nailpolish company, I definitely hadn't released that one.

    But to add a little comfort - your manis are always awesome, I visit your blog daily and I love the shape of your nails :)
    You are a very cool person :)

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  7. Um, can you still return the Chameleons? It's possible to be worse.

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  8. Hm, I have only tried one of the Chameleon colors so far but the application was great! Sorry about the Maybelline, though.

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  9. LOL @ "I think I'm going to go hug my Nail Prisms collection for a while." So cute. :D

    Sorry to hear it's such a problem child. The brush descirption alone makes me shiver. And I hate it when the bottle cheats on you with fake promises of colours that don't show on the nail. It always makes me get rid of the polish, even if it's nice, because I feel like I'm missing something.

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  10. Gah! Sounds like a terrible polish. But I am really not too surprised it was so bad. I tried one from the Summer collection. It. Was. Gross. I returned it and bought polish I actually like. No more Maybelline polish for me unless they do a major overhaul of their brush and formulas.

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  11. i was unfortunate to buy this polish as well, along with the yellow and pink similar to this one. both of them just as crappy as the blue. don't get it. maybelline polishes used to be so good!

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  12. I have an orange/ pink Chameleons, it's pretty good. I have only worn it a few times but I don't remember any application issues. The one I have is too opaque for layering.

    I made my own pink/ turquoise duochrome polish by layering Sally Hensen's HD LCD over POP Beauty's Brave. Got sick of trying to find one.

    Maybelline's polishes are some of the worst. I don't even look at them any more when I go to feed my polish addiction. Even .99 BonBons are better.

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  13. Yea I hear your pain about the brush! I bought this one, it has potential... but GAH the brush!

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  14. I liked the yellow version of this, but I shied aways from the blue- I knew they were lying to me, it's maybelline! lol Still pretty on you tho

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  15. I bought this too....and was thoroughly disappointed!

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  16. I have passed on those at the drug store. Too watery looking.

    What a bummer

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  17. I actually never noticed anything yucky about the express finish nail polish brushes but the bottle color vs. nail color thing happens FREQUENTLY with that line and it pisses me off. I don't understand why so many of them are sheer. I bought this gorgeous blue with gold flecks a while back and it was just so sheer.. it looks decent over other polishes but it also bubbles like no other. Sigh.

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  18. I think I rememvember a rumor of someone adding black to this to bring out the rainbow. It would be a good excuse to decant it into a bottle with a far less failtastic brush. Best of luck!

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  19. "Man... they build my hopes up with duochrome dreams just so they can get my $5 and then smash my rainbow-reflecting expectations with a sledgehammer."

    Hahaha.

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  20. How frustrating! I own two Maybelline Express Finish polishes and both of them lived up to expectations (Timely Turquoise and Sheer Satin Slip - pics on my blog).

    Then again, I'm not a massive nail polish connoisseur so my expectations are probably below average anyway. Regardless, haven't had awful experiences with them... and the drying time IS quite impressive!

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