Fickle, Fickle Avon

It's weird. I've been disappointed with Avon before, but their other products aren't that bad and they have fantastic sales. Maybe it's just me.

Anyway, as I posted yesterday, I decided to finally try these dry polish strips. Avon first came out with them about two years ago I believe, and it's been popularized by Incoco (you can find them at Walgreens) and Sephora.

So, I've been carrying around these strips for a good half a year because I was a little hesitant to try them. Even though they were on sale ($3.99!), the Asian in me hates one-time use products. I want to get the most of my money! But I was optimistic about these.

(Sidebar: I'll keep these picture small. Firstly, my camera kind of sucks as you guys are well aware. Secondly, my nails are stained and horrendous up close)

It started out with so much promise......
Yes, that's Novak Djokovic as my laptop background. My favorite tennis player, as he's practically the same age as me but far more accomplished. Also, ignore my missing bracket key.

Here it is out of the package against the instructions (which btw were so confusing!)

Basically for the french ones, you peel off the polish sticker to the perforated edge and apply the white tip first. I did not understand that until my second nail. But, applying it carefully can be a pain so you get a LOT of bumps. Also, it's hard applying the french tip close to the edge so I ended up with the super-tacky THICK WHITE TIP

My patience was running out by this point, and I also discovered that the "topcoat" was really hard to apply quickly and there were lots of bumps. Color me unpleased. Can you see the bad application on my middle finger? It didn't even adhere to my nail!

My ring and pinky finger ended up looking ok, but I gave up on the "topcoat" at this point and just stuck to sticking the white tips on. I was determined to see this project through

Sooooo unattractive. Can you imagine if I had gone to the interview like this? Eek!

I love taking pictures at this angle. It's deceiving, because it's universally flattering. Kind of like the "myspace angle" of nail pictures

But close-up reality is ugly:

The only good finger to come out of this hot mess is my pinky, which ironically I screwed up wrong because I didn't know how to apply it because the directions were CONFUSING

Maybe, if you squint really hard....nope still looks pretty bad. Even the miracles of Orly tinted polish couldn't save this

And this is everything I threw away....so wasteful

Ok, well I did kind of like the tip part of the stick-on polish. I think it's incredibly handy for someone like me who seriously can't freehand french tips if their life depended on it. Not to mention super handy for those that want to do a dark base/white tips funky french. But, I don't think I would ever pay full-price (they retail for like $7-8!) for ANY stick-on polish. I have a feeling the full-color ones are a lot easier to apply so I might try these again when they're on sale and I have more patience. There were times where I ripped the excess stick-on part off too agressively and it would tear a part of the tip off and it would just agitate me more. I now know that it's not like regular polish and I can be done and out the door in 20 minutes....lesson learned.

Impressions: Avon Midnight

This could hardly be considered as early morning hotness, more like early morning ????????????

I've never bought anything from Avon before, but about three months ago I ordered some stuff online because there was a free shipping over $15 code. I mainly wanted to try their gel eyeliner because it was on sale, and I also really wanted their Women's Empowerment Bracelet. So while struggling to fill up my cart, I naturally turned to nail polish. None of the colors really impressed me and the colors swatches they give you on the website are terribly small. I ordered Avon Midnight because it looked like an ok red and the name evoked something exciting.

Well, it definitely didn't live up to it's name. It's a medium-red with strong brown tones and bronze shimmer (Wikipedia identifies this type of color as "russet".) It looked ok in the bottle, and when I got it I immediately opened it to swatch onto tape. I normally do this with all my polishes, and it looked ok. Nothing too exciting but nothing revolutionary either. However, a couple of days passed and I noticed that my polish was diminishing! Sometimes evaporation happens (I think my Essie Strawberry Shortcake has evaporated a bit, and I know many people who have ChG Moonpool have had this happen too), but I've never seen it happen so fast. I only opened it once and tightly closed it and eventually the evaporation stabilized to this:
Kind of noticeable, eh? I'm sure I could have returned it but online returns are such a hassle. Even returning stuff from Amazon.com, who makes returns very simple (I love them and their preprinted and prepaid shipping labels), can be exhausting and annoying, especially if you're waiting for a replacement. I also don't know any of my local Avon ladies. So, because I'm a firm believer in not judging a book by it's cover, I decided to try it out.

After trying out this color, I decided that it was ok that there was so much evaporation because it just means that there was less of it to go around. Let's just say that my tan Asian skin does NOT go with russet.
Do you see how horrible the polish looks against my skin? It looks, for the lack of a dignified word, like poo on my nails, which isn't helped by the fact that this color is so dull. Since I put this on at night, I allowed myself the 12-hour rule and waited to see how it looked in sunlight. But as soon as I took this picture, I busted out my nail polish remover. While the application was pretty fantastic, it's going to take a while for me to order polish off the Avon website again. It would be helpful if they provided a description of a color instead of a dinky little color swatch. Luckily there was a sale on nail polish and I didn't pay too much for it.

I did however just visit the Avon website and they are no longer selling this color and, I'm happy to say, upgraded their swatches to be a bit more clearer. Still no description of color to accompany the swatches but they are larger and clearer now so it's not entirely necessary, even though I believe in the more detail the better!

Maybe down the road sometime I'll buy some more Avon polish to try, but since I'm not in dire need of any Avon or mark products right now, it will have to wait.