Monday, August 3, 2009

Quirius (Part I)

Thanks to Body and Soul, I discovered Quirius nail polish: $3 per pop and decent shipping as well. I had ordered a dozen polishes and was so taken by how gorgeous they looked in the bottle (and impressed by how cute they included an extra polish with a personalized message) , I immediately ordered half a dozen more. Buying in half dozens is the way to go with these guys: they have a deal where you can pick 6 for the cost of $5, i.e. $15. I mentioned Polish or Perish in my order and they very kindly sent over an extra five polishes for free for my swatching -- and your viewing -- pleasure.

First, a fun pic of all the bottles from my first order.
From left to right: Love is Blue, Starry Night, Deep Denim, Autumn Bronze, 24K, Cresskill Eve, Ivy Wreath, Caribbean Turquoise, Jamaican Dream, Erin Island, Yellow Tulip, Sunshine Orange, Sweet Mimosa.




Seriously, how pretty are those??

Anyway, down to business: overall, I've tried about four or five of these polishes now.
They are gorgeous, vibrant and (for the most part) interesting colors.
The application is a little bit tricky however.

The opaque cremes I've tried so far (mostly oranges and yellow -- yellow, the problem child as usual),
they're streaky and a bit thick for the first two coats; by the third, they usually become uniform.
They are also less glossy than some polishes but this isn't anything that a layer of topcoat won't immediately fix. But when you've got three coats plus topcoat, they are beautiful true colors: they are what they look like the bottle. The shimmer polishes I've tried so far (mostly gold), however, apply smoothly and beautifully and are opaque in two coats.

Here are a couple. More will be posted as I work my way through my... rather sizable
collection of these.

Sunshine Orange



I don't find many oranges that I like but this one is such a nice summery color. :)




Sweet Mimosa



I believe it's listed as "Sweat Mimosa" on the website but English has some really strange vowel bigrams
which can be pronounced in a variety of ways.

The one that annoys me the most is "oo": say "good food". It's NOT the same vowel sound
for most of us.





24K Gold



AAHHHH! A gold that's named "24K" that ACTUALLY resembles the color of REAL soft 24K gold.
This makes me happy.





Ivy Wreath



Though the photo is slightly brighter than what it is IRL, it's actually somewhat dupey
to Nubar Green Tea and OPI Green-Wich Village: it's like closer to the color of the OPI
but opaque and not-as-glossy like the Nubar (the OPI is actually kind of jelly).