Tuesday, June 25, 2013

Island Girl Hawaii Polish Haul Part 2: Surfer Babe and Honolulu Orchid (plus an update!)

*UPDATE: Apparently, Surfer Babe is more neon than this. My new friend Mayli of Mommy Needs A Manicure Stat said it looks more like Big Island Volcano. (She said she'll check it out in the store; she lives in Hawaii! How cool is that?!) ALSO, Honolulu Orchid seems to be a hot pink polish rather than the blue I got! This is so confusing!!!*

Hello everybody! As promised, here is part two of my recent Island Girl polish haul. (See part 1 here.)


I have two cream polishes for this installment of my Island Girl haul. Lately, I only have the energy to swatch a couple or so polishes at a time, so please bear with me.


Without further ado, let's get right to the polishes!


Here is Surfer Babe.




Surfer Babe is a pale seafoam green creme. It's less blue-toned in person. More on the yellowish side of seafoam than aqua; that's the best way I can describe it. It's a very pretty seafoam green and I wish the true color would show on camera! I used three coats plus top coat.


Next up: Honolulu Orchid.



Without top coat
With top coat


Honolulu Orchid is a light blue polish with pink/orchid shimmer running through it. The color is similar to Sinful Colors Cinderella in person, but the shimmer is more fine in this one. (I should totally do a comparison one of these days!) I tried so hard to capture the true color; I played with lighting and camera settings but it still won't give me the result I want! Also, I feel bad that the shimmer doesn't really show up on camera and barely translates on the nail. You can see it on the bottle though, right by my fingertips. This one also dries to a matte finish. For comparison I posted one without a top coat and one with top coat. I used three coats but if you're patient enough you can get away with two.




Thoughts? I like the colors. I don't think I have a dupe for Surfer Babe, so I'm glad I got it. The application puts me off a bit though, but maybe it's expected because I always tend to use three coats for light creme polishes. Maybe a more adept person can get away with two coats. As for Honolulu Orchid, it looked pretty in the bottle but I wasn't expecting it to be a matte, and I wish the shimmer was more visible when you put the polish on. The matte finish isn't really a big issue because you can use top coat to remedy that. The brushes feel a little less fluffier than the first two IGs I posted. But like the first two, the brushes were pretty soft.


Would I recommend these polishes? If you don't have a similar-colored polish yet then yes, I would. But if you don't have access to these polishes then I suggest just trying to find a dupe for them. But if you're a serious polish hoarder collector then by all means, get them! ;)


That's it for part two of my Island Girl polish haul! Stay tuned for the final installment. :)


*I bought these polishes with my own money at the ABC Stores in Las Vegas on Tropicana Ave. Each bottle is $2.99 plus tax. Here is a list of their locations, but the only stores in the continental US are located in Las Vegas (they have eight stores there.) You can also order some sets here, but they don't have a lot of choices and shipping is $9. Island Girl is sold exclusively in ABC Stores.*


*Disclaimer: Due to variations in screen displays and resolutions, polishes may appear different to each reader. I try my best to capture colors as accurately as I can, and if I can't, then I try to describe the color/s to the best of my ability.*

2 comments:

  1. The formulas are hit and misses with Island girl. I have one that almost seems like water!

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    1. Yeah that seems to be the case. Plus I just learned that my bottles might have been mislabeled! How annoying. And I can't exactly return them all the way back to Vegas...

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