Today I have some polishes to show you that were sent to me for review from indie polish maker Pretty & Polished. They are unique in that they are color changing lacquers, meaning they change colors according to temperature. A mani using these ends up producing a french tip gradient-like effect because the bed of your nail is warm and the free edge is cooler, depending of course on how long your nails are. Water temperature affects them too, you can actually see the color change when your hands are in water of varying temps which is pretty cool.
Sometimes these types of polishes are marketed as "mood changing" or "thermal" but as far as I know they all use the same type of method to get the color change. There are also color changing polishes that change when exposed to UV light like the sun, but those are different. These are my favorite type of color changing polishes because my nails usually have a pretty nice free edge, meaning the two-tone effect is usually always evident. If your nails are too short they can just stay the "warm" color, which I think kind of negates the purpose.
This first one is called
Pretty Chameleon, named for the color changing lizard of course. The cool color is a medium bright magenta pink with bits of sandy type glitter and the cool color is a light strawberry milk with the glitter being more apparent as purple bits. I was thinking that a top coat might mess up the effect (which it does not) so these photos are taken without it, which is why they look bumpy. This is two thick coats with my hand at normal temperature. This is how the polish would look most of the time.
This is the same polish with the picture taken right after I dipped my hand in hot water. It was a cold day so it wanted to change back very fast which is why it's a bit blurry.
And here is the polish after dipping my fingers in cold water. See the water droplet on my pinky?
This next polish is called
Cuttlefish, which is a color changing marine fish. This how it looks with my hand at regular body temperature. The warm color is a pale blue almost white cream with blue and green glitters and the cool color is a bright teal aqua with the same glitters. This is three coats. The glitters were a bit tough to place but not terrible.
This is the warm color, the photo is taken after I dipped my nails in hot water. Again it wanted to change color really fast so this is a bit blurred. Who knew it wasn't easy to take photos of waterlogged nails?
And this is the cool color shown after I dunked my nails in cold water, a pretty bright teal ocean blue with peeks of the glitter. I love how this looks!
After I took the photos above, I decided to experiment with a top coat and it really improves the overall look of these, evidenced below. I think the polishes tend to run a bit thick and the glitters were bumpy in them both, so of course top coat would help the look, but I was worried it would affect the color change. It did not. And creator Chels even says so on her website, but of course I didn't do my research before I swatched them haha.
You can buy these and P&P's other color changing polishes on their
website for $9.50 for a full size bottle. They also sell them on their
Etsy store. What do you think of these two? Have you tried any color change type nail polishes before?
Products provided for review.
