I did a mani with Keeping It Teal last night too, as a matter of fact. No glitter. Gonna put my thoughts below.
OK, so I bought all the CG neon jellies except the blue and have experimented with 'em and have done manicures in Heat Index and Keeping It Teal. Here's my lowdown:
These are JELLIES. SHEER JELLIES. Not all of them are equally sheer, but most of them are. SHEER JELLIES have their own really unique properties, that you kind of have to respect. It's a love it or leave it scenario. Yes you will see the nail line - not in all lights, but quite often. Just remember - YOU are noticing the nail line more than anyone else is going to. The light source really matters too - in some lights, just because of the way the light's hitting your hands, they'll seem more or less opaque. This is the beauty of jellies. I think we were seeing jellies that had more of that matte, rubbery finish that the clear, very shiny finish these have and sort of forgot what to expect out of them.
Now, on to the formula. I think it's excellent and not streaky at all, if you apply it with a few precautions. DO apply the first coat very thinly. Try not to even it out by going back over your strokes - that makes it streak - just use the brush as lightly as possible. It'll be sheer as hell! THEN, let the coat dry really well before you do your next coat. Now you have options - you can do a thick second coat, or do 2 thin coats - it will come out looking pretty much the same. Just allow the polish to SELF-LEVEL - these actually do that quite well - it doesn't seem like it will, and then it does, a minute later when it's drying. If you're doing 2 thin coats, you absolutely have to let them dry really well. You also have to let it dry super duper well before you apply a top coat or again, it will tug and streak. I think it's because this is a very glossy formula - the higher the gloss, the longer it takes to dry usually.
Base and top coat issues: The first mani I did was using Heat Index. I used Deborah Lippman's ridge filler base underneath, because it's a pale beige. I figured it'd minimize my nail line, which is pretty noticeable - my tips are much whiter than my nail beds, which are quite pink, and they start kind of low down on the nail. Also I figured being a bit beige, it'd brighten up the color of the polish. The result? It did make the polish appear a bit brighter under all lighting conditions, but at the expense of the translucent jelly finish - it made it more opaque looking and took away a lot of the uniqueness. My second mani, I used a clear base coat (the OPI Sephora standard one) and that was much better for my taste. I've used a top coat on both my manis, but I did feel like it did detract slightly from the natural finish of these. You HAVE to let everything dry to perfection before applying the top coat. I could see some top coats reacting weirdly to these too. You don't really need one to make it look good - the next mani I do with these, I'm probably going to skip the top coat entirely.
The thing about these jellies is that they go from looking much softer indoors and then outdoors in the sun, they get CRAZY bright and more dense looking. This is what's so nice about them - they're like neons that go from gentle and soft to super bold. They're just thrilling outdoors on a sunny day and indoors, they are much more demure. If you want bright 24/7, that's not what they're for. Even indoors, if a ray of light catches your nails, BOOM suddenly bright, but usually they're more dainty. I love this effect, but it took me a few days to get used to. You can definitely do an extra coat to make them more opaque or do them over the white or beige base like I was saying, but then you'd just be better off finding neon creams to use in the first place, seriously.
Finally, some individual notes on the colors. The purple Are You Jelly? is the most satin, rubbery, opaque style jelly of the bunch. It's not sheer (it's 95% opaque in 3 coats) or glossy and I think it'll be best to leave it without a glossy top coat to enhance the effect. Keeping It Teal is the most transparent of the ones I have (I didn't buy the blue), but it's so so gorgeous - it's a brilliant jade/emerald green that really goes from soft to intensely bright with the light - it's like looking into the heart of a cabochon emerald. So gorgeous. When I did this mani, I'd done a rather thick second coat on my left hand, but a thinner one on my right, so I did a third, thinner coat only on the right, and both hands look the same. Heat Index didn't operate so much like this - 3 thin coats looked more opaque then 2 thicker coats. Maybe this was because of the beige base coat, but it didn't look quite right - the more opaque you make these, the brighter they get under all light conditions, meaning that indoors, it often looked like you were wearing two different colors of polish. You need to be consistent when you do your nails with these. Heat Index is a standard, warmer pink - a bubblegum or barbie pink, while You Drive Me Coconuts is much more of a light magenta or fuchsia pink. Normally, if I had a choice, I'd take the more magenta color, but Heat Index is really nice as far as the transition between demure indoors to BRIGHT outdoors, so I really love it. You Drive Me Coconuts is the second most opaque and rubbery, after the purple. You could do a top coat on this one or not - it can go either way. It's more of a match to Candy Yum Yum or Pink Pigeon than Heat Index is. Shell-O is a pink coral and also super duper cute - looking soft and ladylike indoors and then VAVOOM bright outdoors. It's very similar to CG's very popular Flirty Tankini from last year - only brighter out in the sun.
What will be very nice is a pedi in the corresponding cream shade and a mani in the jelly, so they almost match, but don't. Also, I think you could get some really sweet effects from doing a french mani or other simple nail art design using the jelly as the base color and the corresponding cream as the accent. I want to talk about the creams too, but I'll do that later. I think this is a great collection if you want some colors that act pretty work safe indoors but immediately go bold in the sun or out at a club under colored lights. Love it - but it took me a week to wrap my mind around it!
Also, exposing your polish to light on an open shelf isn't going to prolong its life. I keep mine tucked away in a cabinet, but I do regularly pull a few out to admire the colors. They all still look best on fingers and toes - I just make sure to change my color 2-3 a week to satisfy the urges!
I also need to have things out and about or I wont use them, I think I'll store my fav brands on the Ikea shelves and then tuck the rest away in my malm dresser. I mean, I can always rotate things if I need to!
I can't imagine why it's relevant on a makeup forum :dunno: Perhaps they were included in an emoticon package.[/COLOR]
