MUA Love Hearts Nails

This review looked like it was going to be a "gimme."  I love MUA products from the UK.  I love Love Hearts candy, also from the UK.  And I LOVE nail polish.  I ordered 3 of the Love Hearts colors and they are really pretty!  I got "I Want U", which is an orange.  "U & I" is a lovely buttercup color.  And "Love U 24/7" is a medium purple.  All of these colors are creams.

The first thing I couldn't help but notice was that the brushes are not the best.

As you can see, the purple and orange brushes are spread out with strays coming off the side.  The yellow one has an uneven slant to it.  In any event, all of the brushes are very course, which made for not optimal application.  As you can see, with two coats, there are very visible lines in the polish left by the brush.  Once I saw this, my review of this product was over.

And just to show this is NOT an isolated case, I bought a glitter crackle polish by MUA while I was in England.

Part of me hopes this is just a fluke, part of me wants to demand replacement polishes.  These brushes are unacceptable.  I love the colors, but I doubt I'll use them.  And I have to remember that these only cost 1 pound,, about $1.60 or so.  So I suppose I have to remind myself that you get what you pay for.  I just expected more from MUA since I like their other products so much.  

I Don't Usually Like Flakes...

Of course, I mean flaky people!

Recently, I've seen blogs and heard my girlfriends rave about Nubar nail polishes.  I've wanted to try them and I keep them in my watch list on eBay.  I covet the "Gems" and the "Sparkle" collections...you know me and glittery things.  Then a friend of mine posted about this color called "Opulent Pearl."  It's a flaky nail polish, meaning it has sparkly flecks in it that are not uniform in shape.  Think of how an opal looks.  And flakies come in all colors.  It can get confusing because you may think you're getting a blue one, only to find that the flecks are purple in a clear blue base.  Or a peach one, only to find the flecks are green.  This one is unique because it is in a subtle, white frosty base and reflects red, green, blue and purple.  It really is quite lovely and looks very much like an opal.

I decided since Opulent Pearl seemed to be such a great color, with such a great effect, that it should be what I picked up first.  No major investment in a whole collection of colors, just one pretty multipurpose polish.

I find that this polish looks best in extremes.  I like the naked nail the best and the dark color overlay second.  The reason why I don't really love it over darker colors is that the base polish is a white pearl.  It's not as subtle as I thought it would be.  Once you start layering, it creates a haze over the other color, which means you have to paint it well if you don't want darker colored edges peeking out.

Because of the milky haze that the Nubar polish has, I decided to search for more flakies.  I really like the ones that have ALL the colors, like an opal.  Although, the ones with fewer colors do look great when they are enhancing similar colors.

I already had the NYX polish on hand, although I hadn't tried it out yet and I had just picked up the Finger Paints, so I decided to paint my nails black and start comparing.

Once I had these side-by-side, the Nubar polish quickly became my least favorite.  The translucent base was simply not what I was looking for.  The NYX was nice.  But my goodness!  Look at the Finger Paints!!  My nail looks like a gemstone!  They each had 3 coats of flakies and the Finger Paints had way more depth and fire.  It was exactly what I was looking for.

I am thinking I may try out some of the Speciallita flakies next.  Which ones do you like best?