Sun-Tried-Day: Claire's Leather Look Polishes

Greetings All!

I read on a Facebook group I'm in that the polishes in Claire's are £1 each at the moment (normal price - £2.25 to £4!). I don't have a lot of experience with their polishes, but I have a few of their pretty glitters, so I leaped into action and headed down there! I can't resist a bargain.

They actually have a pretty decent range of polishes - lots of pretty pastel cremes, a decent selection of glitters, some speckled polishes (glitters in a coloured base) and some 'effects' polishes. I was fairly restrained, and only got 6 - 2 of the speckles (I can't resist glitter in a coloured base. I think because when I was young, you had to do the base and the glitter separately. Now it's all in one bottle!), a peacocky metallic that is some kind of multichrome, but weird, and three of their Leather Look polishes. I love my Nails Inc leather polishes, and the whole textured trend in general, so I was interested to see what the '£1 leather polish' would be like. They also had an interesting selection of colours, some of which I've not seen before!

So, let's start with the best one, shall we? Oh, they don't have names, btw. Apparently they do on the receipt, which of course I lost. So I'm making up names for them! This one is Burgundy Leather, which is the least textured/ most leathery of the three. This is 2 coats, although you could probably get away with one thick coat.

Yeah, so things get pretty picture heavy in this post! This one is seriously, seriously gorgeous. I'm not sure if it's a dupe for Nails Inc Shoreditch Lane (which has been hovering around the Most Wanted list for a few months), but if they aren't twins, they are definitely close cousins. The Crumpet has a pretty good post about Shoreditch Lane HERE. This is maybe a tad less matte, but it's also a tenth of the price (for just the polish. If you buy the set with the charms etc, then this is a twentieth of the price!!!). I won't be buying the Nails Inc one now - this is plenty close enough for me! Application and dry time were also pretty good - I haven't done a wear test, but I will be wearing this again (and again), so I'll let you know. I love how rich and dark it is - it's almost like a dried blood leather!

Next up is something I personally haven't seen before - a metallic leather polish. What? Yes! I'm calling this one Cherry Leather (sounds cuter than metallic red lol). Again, this is 2 coats.

Unfortunately the metallic-ness doesn't fully translate to the nail, with the texture. It still definitely had a glittery sheen to it though. This one is a lot more textured than Burgundy, more of a straight up textured polish than a leather look one, but I still like it quite a lot. What I didn't like was cleanup - it was really stainy, and really...floody? It flooded my cuticles with pink if I touched it with acetone. Removal took ages too. Next time I will polish super carefully, and double up on base coat! Apart from that, yummy! It almost reminds me of a cheery red patent leather, but it's just slightly too textured. I also experimented with a top coat.

Haha, it wouldn't be Asda matte topcoat without the obligatory white dot! It still looks and feels a bit textured, but I didn't really like the look very much - it's like orange peel! Ah well, we live and learn.

Lastly is the one I was most excited about, Nude Leather (nude leather?! *drools*). Unfortunately it's kind of the dud of the three! 2 coats.

OK so it's not really that bad. I like textured polishes, I like nude polishes, it just isn't really what I was expecting. This one is very textured, quite rough to the touch, not the smoother, matte leather I was hoping for : ( I'm sure it'll grow on me though (it kind of looks like it already is - eww!). Either way, it definitely doesn't look like leather.

So it seems most of these are just textured polishes (am I crazy, or is leather polish supposed to be slightly different to textured polish? Like, less textured, and matte? Because leather and texture aren't synonyms! If not, I apologise Claire's!), but for a brand I don't usually associate with nail polish, I'm pretty impressed (I know they do a lot of nail arty bits, but they're quite expensive, and I think they're only doing it because nail art is 'in' at the moment. It isn't somewhere I would usually go for polish or art supplies, put it that way). They're all rather nice, opaque polishes, they dried quickly, and applied easily. They're normally £4 for the effects polishes, which I don't think is too bad, but for £1? Insanely good value. Stop reading this,and run to Claire's. Do it now! OK not right now, it's 10pm on a Sunday, but asap! Apparently they are on offer 'while stocks last' but that won't be long!

I'll show you the Speckles next week - also seriously pretty, and unbelievable for £1!