... Bourjois #17 Bougainvillea No Chips ...

Wow - Friday Favourites rolled around quick!! Here's one that I swatched earlier in the week for you guys.

Bourjois #17 No Chips

Purchased from Priceline - $13.00
[They have a special until July 18 - buy 3 for the price of 2]

I was asked by a real life friend to keep testing out the "long wear" polishes that have appeared in more abundance lately. This one says that it has a 3 day minimum wear with no chips and up to 10 days. If you are like me then you are a bit skeptical from claims like this but this one seems to live up to the reputation and therefore has found it's way into the favourite box.

I love the colour as it's a dark pink that often tends to look more red and it is streak free and is a lovely bright colour. I've only used 2 coats and it dried reasonably quickly without resorting to using QuickDry.

The brush is different as it's thick and angled and was surprising easily to use. It's supposed to make "touch ups" easy - I didn't get to test that out this time around but I can see that it would be handy with it's angled brush to get into corners and just where you want the polish to be. Unlike some of the other bigger brushes I found this one really easy to use and I could pretty much cover my nails in 2 strokes of the brush.

It's a little thing but I love that the lid on this polish clicks when it's fully shut. I've had way too many polishes dry up or leak that I thought were closed only to find out they weren't fully.

This is one of the few polishes to survive my weekly trip to the local public swimming pool. Most polishes just can't handle an hour swimming in their overdosed chlorine pool but this looked as perfect coming out as it did going in.

On day 3 I chipped it for the first time but to be fair that wasn't the polishes fault. I caught my nail on a shampoo bottle when I was opening it and tore it :( Until that point it was still looking bright and pristine.

** Final Verdict **

I really like this polish. I like the colour, I like the easy application and I really love the fact that I can wear this swimming and not come out the pool with half my polish missing and my hands looking a wreck.  I'm planning on buying more colours in this range - it's well worth it! [and I'm considering breaking my "no buy" while it's all on sale - might think about this some more]

... Inglot O2M Breathable 627 ...

Inglot O2M Breathable 627

Brought from Inglot Cosmetics - $21.00 AUD

The correct title for this post should be "the most expensive polish I've ever brought so far". I'm quickly learning that depending on where you live in the world there is a different opinion on what expensive polish is. While there cheaper polishes in Australia majority of the bigger brands are expensive - OPI is around $20 here, Revlon is around $15. I definitely didn't walk into that store expecting to buy this at all - I just got sucked in to the hype.

This polish is from their O2M Breathable range ... which supposedly according to the sales chick is supposed to make it last longer and chip free and be better for my nails? I'll believe it when I see it!

Now on the whole - it's a pretty brown colour with shimmer through it but ... it's rather sheer. I needed 3 coats to totally cover my nails but on the plus side it's not streaky and dries quickly.

I decided to put this to what I consider the Ultimate Test ... I go swimming at the local public pool once a week and it's hell on my nails! I'm yet to have any polish survive an hour in the toxic chlorine wastepool since I started this blog. It's hard not to put your hands in the water while swimming laps and generally I end up leaving nail polish behind when I go [which I'm sure is disgusting for the next person]

Here is a pretty swatch taken 24 hours before I went to the swimming pool [Note the only top coat I've used is Sally Hansen Insta-Dry]

[excuse the unsightly skin around my middle finger - I've caught it at some stage *sad]

And here is the after picture. To be honest I'm quite impressed - only one finger suffered a slight chip which was the middle on my right hand on the tip. Generally every finger ends up with some damage and half my manicure left behind.

I'm going to come back and review this one on longevity at some stage as I know some people like their polish to last the entire working week - I just need to wait for some pool free time to be able to test this properly.

** Final Verdict **
This polish is easy to wear, easy to apply and easy on the eyes ... too bad it's not easy on the bank balance. I'm not sure if I'm entirely sold on the "breathable" part but I will come back to this polish as I really want to see how many days I can make it last before making a final call on it.