A Diamond In The Rough!
L'Oreal Hidden Gems
L'Oreal Hidden Gems looked like a dark teal to purple duo chrome textured goodness in the bottle. Very promising and since I have been looking to play with the darker colors for a bit now I thought it would be fun. I applied two coats on my bare nails and took a picture for you guys. This stuff dried fast! I was very pleasantly surprised by that. I did wait approximately five minutes between the first and second coat. I was loving the texture and decided right away that I would not be applying top coat. Unfortunately the hints of duo chrome in the bottle are just a trick the glitter plays on the eyes. I tried every light source I could get my hands on, squinted and twisted and turned my hands in every which way but it still just looked like a faded black with glitter. One of my co workers even commented what a cool polish this will be for Halloween. I told her every day is Halloween in my world and we had a good laugh. I happen to be wearing an orange shirt today so I was halfway there. It was still a pretty polish because it's so full of glitter that it kept me entertained. The texture on this one was a bit too much for me though. I did not have one single incident of it snagging on anything. I could even run my fingers through my hair without a single strand getting caught in the glitter. Maybe it was me, or maybe this is just a touch outside of my tactile comfort zone but it was a bit too coarse for me.
When I got home from work I decided to add top coat. Before I go any further I would like you to note I have spent all day typing and came home and washed dishes and my polish was still flawless. Hidden Gems turned out to be very durable. I loved the way this polish looked glossy but because of the coarseness it took me three layers of top coat to get it smooth. If you do not mind it retaining some of the texture you could do less layers but I wanted it smooth as glass. Glossing it up darkened the polish considerably making it look black but the glitter popped and floated like a dream. I was thinking removal would be a pain but was pleasantly surprised to find that this one was one of the easier to remove glitter polishes. This polish was definitely fun to wear but next time I am going to wear it glossy!
