Above the Curve A Munkle for Your Uncle

I was not feeling more nail art this week. I had some vague concept of a Christmas colors French but even that was more effort than I was willing to put forth. This polish is the first on my stash list and is specifically for Christmas, so I went with a Glitter Bomb Shell.

This polish is not meant to be used that way. It's not just a crap ton of glitter packed in a bottle with just enough base to make it polish-like. It's really meant to be used as a top coat over another color and when used as such, looks really gorgeous. Perfect Christmas colors, it reminds me of a multicolor string of Christmas lights. That was why I bought it. I discovered as I was putting it on that it would not work well as a GBS.

Don't get me wrong, that's nothing against the polish or the brand. It's not their fault if I don't use it the way it was intended. The base itself has a very slight red tint to it; it's got a LOT of glitter in various shapes, colors and sizes; it goes on the nail very smoothly, there were no application issues, it didn't get all dry and chunky during use the way some do. It is a terrific polish. As a top coat. But since I had to be lazy, making it be a GBS was a challenge.

Three coats. The first coat dried quickly but as coverage isn't as much as I was trying to force on it, the second coat was gobbed on and took a good bit of time to dry. Third coat to even it out and that one took an age to get to the point where I could get some seche vite on it to dry it faster. Even after that it was dry to the light touch but sort of...spongy. I could definitely have mucked it all up pretty easily, so another coat of SV and then let it dry. There were very few rough spots, it did not dry all chunky feeling.

End result:

All the SV at the cuticles looks rather gross and boy does that stuff do a shrinkage number on the tips. It's also ridiculously thick on the nails. I did have one of them pop off whole after I got out of the shower about nine hours after I painted, but some base coat glue took care of it and there were no other issues the rest of the day.

But yanno what? For forcing it to do something it wasn't meant to do, it did a pretty good job! I admit to not liking it at first but all it took was seeing it in natural light to really see the charm in it. It's very sparkly, very eye-catching, and screams Christmas. It got a lot of compliments, too.

You can purchase A Munkle for Your Uncle at Above the Curve's etsy shop or their Big Cartel shop. They have lots of other beautiful polishes as well, so go have a look (I bought Blue Eyed Girl, too!)

Jess