Saturday, September 29, 2012

Pomegranate Nail Lacquer - Curator

This is Pomegranate Nail Lacquer
in Cardigan.
Hi again! Today I have another review for you, and this time it's sort of a mixed bag. I struggled with this for a while, trying to decide how to present this (or if I should present it at all). I decided that I need to be honest with you guys, no matter what. So, take this in the spirit in which it's intended- this was my experience, and I'm sharing the pros and cons with you as I see them.

Recently I was sent two bottles of polish from a new-to-me brand called Pomegranate Nail Lacquer. I was able to choose which colors from their fall collection I wanted to try. I had a hard time choosing, but I finally settled on Cardigan and Curator. Today I'm sharing my experience with Curator.

I found Curator really interesting in the bottle. Pomegranate describes this as a "luxurious black polish ... packed with gold and silver glitter." I think this is a fantastic description, because as you can tell it does look absolutely packed with glitter!

As you can see in this bottle shot, Curator is packed with tiny gold glitter and larger silver glitter. On the nail it's harder (for me, at least) to distinguish between the gold and silver. Instead, it ends up being a homogenous mass of luxurious velvety sparkle. This polish is seriously sparkly, and takes black from what could be dull and flat into something that's perfect for a night out. I can see wearing this for New Year's Eve... it's flashy and extravagant enough for the occasion while still being simple and quick to apply.

Unfortunately, I had a strange issue with this polish that I've never had before. This could be a problem with this particular bottle, or this batch. When I applied this color, though, it behaved very strangely- the polish was stretchy, almost like trying to polish my nails with Silly Putty, or maybe warm taffy.

This was so incredibly frustrating for me. I would brush on the polish only to have it stretch out in peaks from the tip of my nail. Then the polish would clump up and be hard to distribute across my nail. It was downright bizarre to me!

I'm not sure if it's a reaction between the polish and my base coat or just a weird bottle of polish. It might need thinning to loosen up the formula, or it might be something else entirely. All I know is by the time I got my nails finished, I never wanted to use this polish again!

Of course, once everything had dried and I'd smoothed the tips of my nails with an emery board to get rid of the pointy bits I absolutely fell in love with Curator. It really is a velvety-looking polish, and I keep finding myself drawn to it. I love how the glitter peeks up through the sheer black polish, giving it a sense of depth and mystery. I also love that even though the black is sheer, it gives complete coverage in two coats.

And let's not forget wear. This polish has been wearing like a trouper. I've seen no flaking, chipping or peeling, so maybe the weird application issues could be overlooked. Ask me the next time I wear this.



So, overall? I have to give this polish a thumbs-up, even with the weird consistency. It's absolutely gorgeous, even if it did cause me to say quite a few curse words while I was applying it.

Pomegranate Nail Lacquers are available for $9 each on the Pomegranate website. Bottles contain 16.5 milliliters/0.56 fluid ounces. For reference, a bottle of OPI contains 15 milliliters/0.5 fluid ounces.


Polish was provided by Pomegranate for consideration.
See my disclosure statement for more information.