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Well, despite the earthquakes, floods and impending storms plaguing my fair country at the moment, summer is apparently on the way and with that comes a longing for brighter hues to match the heat.
Cue Faby's new 'Joy' nail polish collection, a set of twelve brights 'all about making a statement in the happiest season of the year. The colours in the range portray friendship, happiness, love and serenity'. Full-size bottles (15ml) are $20NZD a pop or you can pick up this sweet set of four minis (5ml each) for $30NZD.
Now, I can count the number of times I've finished a full-size bottle of nail polish on one finger, so I have a fondness for minis, particularly because mini bottles are flipping adorable and I get to pretend that my nail polish is procreating by itself and that I definitely haven't been purchasing more. Who can say what unattended nail polish bottles get up to in darkened helmer drawers, right?! One downside to minis, though, is that they often have dinky little brushes that make it more difficult to apply the polish evenly and you wind up using more coats than you might for the same colour in a full-size bottle. Not so with the Faby minis, which sport a regular-sized brush that make it easy to get good coverage.
This is a very cute set but I've got to point out that the packaging has not been well thought out at all. The nail polishes are nestled in very shallow outlines in the cardboard tray which simply aren't deep enough to hold them in place - when this set arrived, the nail polishes were all rolling freely in the box and I was very surprised that they'd made it to me intact. The box they're in offers no additional protection as it is made of thin cardboard and the transparent window is made of even thinner plastic. Even if you have no interest in keeping the lacquers in their boxes for storage or display, the flimsiness of the packaging seems like a massive oversight for simply shipping these sets to stockists and consumers, given that we're dealing with glass bottles of highly flammable solvents. There's a reason so many countries have strict restrictions on the shipping of nail polish!
A note on formula - I did find that while their consistency is great during application, these cremes dried fairly thin on the nail and thus my nail ridges were more visible with some colours. If you have pronounced nail ridges too, I'd suggest applying a good ridge-filling base coat before applying. I like Essie Fill the Gap! and Faby also make one called Smoothing Base Coat, which I haven't tried. All of these swatches are without base or top coats and are photographed under daylight bulbs.
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Tapis de Fleur
Faby - Tapis de Fleur, 3 coats
Tapis de Fleur is a warm red creme with a hint of coral. I really love warm reds like this, they're a little more youthful and cheerful than your classic blue-red. I think I'll be rocking this on my toes a lot in the summer! Tapis de Fleur (which translates to 'carpet of flowers', if you're curious) was mostly opaque in three coats with a few stubborn ridges showing through and dried to a glossy finish.
La Vita é Bella
La Vita é Bella is a seafoam green creme. There's a lovely dusty quality to this colour that makes it a great option if you're not keen on going full-on with the brights on your nails. It built up nicely in three coats. La Vita é Bella means 'life is beautiful'.
Let's Dance
Faby - Let's Dance, 3 coats
Let's Dance is a cornflower blue creme. I wish I could get my mum to wear blue on her nails because this is SO her colour and she'd rock it - if it came in the form of a scarf or a pair of earrings. Alas, I'll have to take one for the team in this case, which isn't too hard when a blue is this pretty. I don't even usually like blue - what spell has Let's Dance cast over me?! (Probably this one, actually.) I used three coats.
#Irony
#Irony is a bubblegum pink creme which dries a shade or two darker than the bottle colour. I'm not sure where the concept of irony fits in with the theme of 'friendship, happiness, love and serenity' but there are odder names for nail polish, I suppose. I love this colour but #Irony did give me trouble with streaking, requiring four coats to be mostly opaque. Again, I think with a ridge-filling basecoat it'd fare better but it'd be cheating to show it to you that way.
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