Polish Review - China Glaze "Drastic"

I had been wanting to play with a jelly polish for awhile, and China Glaze is my usual standby for buying a good polish that will not break the bank, especially if I am giving a finish or color family a test run. So I started out what might turn out to be a new favorite finish with "Drastic", a beautiful red that's somewhere between vampy blood-red and cherry.

In the bottle, it is extremely difficult to photograph and it's so dark that you can hardly read the label:

 

That's actually a pretty good sign most of the time, but I was afraid it would verge too much on the opaque side if it was so dark in the bottle. However, once it was off the brush and on the nail, it worked just like I was hoping a jelly would -- by looking like jelly.

I started with three coats to get the depth and richness of color I wanted, then gave it a good hour and a half to dry; it definitely took awhile, and even after that, it dented a little where I bumped it on the desk. It was worth the wait. It came out looking like a perfectly smooth little pad of cherry jelly on every nail. Gorgeous! The application is smooth and easy to manage; you may want a little more polish on your nail than you are used to so that the second and third coats stay smooth.

It has worn very well. I went three days without touching it or putting on a top-coat, and the only part that suffered was the edge of the nail, which barely wore down even after a monster round of dish-washing, typing, making mint-fudge, and page-turning. I broke down and added another coat late last night that cured the nail-edge chips, but it also lost a little bit of the jelly-ness. I'd recommend sticking to three coats max.

As I mentioned in my last post, my nails are shorter than short right now (no-visible line whatsoever short), so for on-the-nail photographs, I would recommend that readers go to one of the blogs with lovely swatches of this polish -- Getcha Nails Did and Pretty Random both have some nice pictures; the first photo captures more of the "cherry" look I mentioned, and Pretty Random's shows off more of the vampy vibe.

I am definitely holding onto this polish. It is a lovely and inexpensive choice, and definitely worth picking up for your stash.

Next up will either be OPI's "Bling Dynasty" (which I picked up in the same order as "Drastic") or one of the new Essie Resort collection, depending on when it arrives.