Polish Bar Holiday Collection

I've been meaning to get this post up for a while because, well, this amazing line is coming out TOMORROW.  I wanted to pimp the hell out of it, but good god, life has decided that I had other things to deal with lately.  And it's a shame, too, because these polishes are just gorgeous.  Let's take a look at three of the Polish Bar's Holiday polishes that come out tomorrow at 3 pm pst here.  Tonight, we have City of Lights, Chocolat, and Jingle Stars!  Get prepared for some serious picture spam!

*I was not financially compensated for this post. I received samples of the Polish Bar's Winter Collection for review purposes.  All other polishes in this review were purchased by me for my own use.  The opinions are completely my own based on my experience.  For more information, please see my Disclosure Policy in the tab above.* 

City of Lights

Color: Dark teal.

Finish: Holographic – pigment gives polish a rainbow in the sunshine.

Bottle / Brush: Round mini bottle – wand and brush are just long enough to reach the bottom of the bottle.  However, the fact that it’s a mini makes application a little tricky.  Requires a steady hand to apply evenly without pooling.

Opacity: Medium – achieves opacity at three coats.

Glitter Application: N/A

Consistency: Fluid – thin but flows easily from the brush but can flood the cuticles if you are too heavy handed.

Overall Ease of Application: Medium – applies well with minimal pooling, dragging, streaking, or balding.  Spreads well without much manipulation.

Stampability: Not tested for stamping.

Dry Time: Long – dry to the touch with minimal smudging in over 8 minutes.Overall Thoughts:  While the mini bottles are a little tricky to maneuver, this polish was a lot easier to apply than most polishes that come in minis.  It's such a gorgeous dark teal that it almost looks black in low lighting, but once you get it in the sun?  It's this just stunning deep teal.  I don't have anything like it in my collection at all.  Application was fairly easy, but I did have to watch out for flooding my cuticles with the tiny brush.  I could've probably gotten away with using 2 coats, but I used three for the photos.  I wanted to make sure you guys could see the richness of this polish.  Also, I wanted to show you just how shiny the Polish Bar's polishes really are by leaving the pinkie finger free of topcoat, which is why it got a long dry time.  City of Lights and Chocolat are seriously the glossiest holos I own.  They're simply stunning!

Chocolat

Color: Dark chocolate brown.

Finish: Holographic – pigment gives polish a rainbow in the sunshine.

Bottle / Brush: Round mini bottle – wand and brush are just long enough to reach the bottom of the bottle.  However, the fact that it’s a mini makes application a little tricky.  Requires a steady hand to apply evenly without pooling.

Opacity: Medium – achieves opacity at three to four coats.

Glitter Application: N/A

Consistency: Fluid – thin but flows easily from the brush but can flood the cuticles if you are too heavy handed.

Overall Ease of Application: Medium – applies well with minimal pooling, dragging, streaking, or balding.  Spreads well without much manipulation.

Stampability: Not tested for stamping.

Dry Time: Long – dry to the touch with minimal smudging in over 8 minutes.Overall Thoughts:  Application for Chocolat is much the same as for City of Lights, but this time I didn't use topcoat on any of my nails.  See how glossy they are?!  This is all with just the polish itself!  If you're not doing anything for a while, I really suggest wearing this beauty without a topcoat.  If you're in a hurry, though, it does take quite a bit of time to dry, so you'll definitely want to use a quick dry topcoat.  Chocolat isn't as holographic as City of Lights, but it's still very pretty.  Plus, it's darker than any of the other brown holographics that I own.

Jingle Stars

Color: Clear base with blue, black and white metallic and holographic glitters in bars, hexes, squares, shreds, and, of course, stars.

Finish: Glitter Top Coat – glitter in a clear base to be worn as a top coat.  Here, I've worn it over (from thumb to pinkie): Deborah Lippmann Let's Hear it for the Boy, Barry M Blueberry Ice Cream, OPI Can't Find my Czechbook, Zoya Robyn, and Cult Time Traveler.

Bottle / Brush: Round mini bottle – wand and brush are just long enough to reach the bottom of the bottle.  However, the fact that it’s a mini makes application a little tricky.  Requires a steady hand to apply evenly without pooling.

Opacity: Glitter topcoat – not designed for full opacity.

Glitter Application: Medium – requires the dab method, but glitters are easy to extract and spread evenly.  It's a bit sparse, so these photos are with two coats of Jingle Stars.

Consistency: Fluid – thin but flows easily from the brush but can flood the cuticles if you are too heavy handed.

Overall Ease of Application: Medium – applies well with minimal pooling, dragging, streaking, or balding.  Spreads well without much manipulation.

Stampability: Not designed for stamping.

Dry Time: Medium – dry to the touch with minimal smudging in 3-8 minutes.

Overall Thoughts:  Jingle Stars is a gorgeous glitter topcoat with such a beautiful array of glitters that I couldn't decide what to wear it over.  Obviously, I chose them all and did a skittle mani!  I think my two favorite colors to wear it over are Let's Hear it for the Boy and Time Traveler because they both showcase the glitters to their fullest extent.  The glitter to base ratio is a bit more in favor of base, so if you try to load up the brush with glitter, you will have issues with pooling.  However, it builds up really nicely if you use two coats, which is what I did here.  If you do get a little pooling, cleanup is quite easy, so no worries there!  The stars were a tad more difficult to get out than any of the other glitters, but they're easier to get out if you flip the bottle upside down for a bit before application.  If you purchase the holiday trio, you will receive a baggie of shaped glitters to help with application since the larger glitters tend to sink no matter what kind of suspension base is used.  Here, I've used some snowmen, a bell, and snowflakes to go with my blue wintry theme.

You can purchase the Holiday Collection at the Polish Bar's Etsy store tomorrow, 12/4/2013, at 3 pm pst.  Follow her on Facebook here for news and updates.

*I was not financially compensated for this post. I received samples of the Polish Bar's Winter Collection for review purposes.  All other polishes in this review were purchased by me for my own use.  The opinions are completely my own based on my experience.  For more information, please see my Disclosure Policy in the tab above.*