I’ve been blogging for nearly three years now. You’ve probably seen about half of my nail polish collection, but I am having a real urge to start again and show you my stash by brand (with other posts still focussing on particular polishes, like normal). This is a massive undertaking (I don’t even want to think about the OPI boxes!) but I think it’ll be fun, and not only be a good reference point for some of you, but also help me weed out forgotten favourites or polishes I’m never going to wear.
I decided to start with Nubar as I get a lot of questions about this brand both by email and on Twitter. It’s not as well known in the UK as it is in the US, although it is widely available online. It’s a great brand which is vegan, cruelty and Big 3 free, and the colours have excellent staying power. So, whether you’re an existing fan, or fancying a bit of shopping, here’s some Nubar spam for you….
The Chocolate Truffle Collection:
Milk Chocolate Creme*. Two coats – rich and smooth.
Swiss Chocolate*. Dark and almost burgundy toned. Perfect molten chocolate.
Chocolate Coffee Bean*. Deep brown jelly with pink fleck.
Chocolate Caramel*. Bronzed brown with tons of golden caramel shimmer.
Raspberry Truffle.* The pink is more pronounced here than in Chocolate Coffee Bean. A great substitute for OPI’s Tease-y Does It from the now discontinued Burlesque collection.
Cherry Cordial* is the duochrome of the collection. Flashes brown and pink with the occasional hint of green.
from the Prism Collection
Gem.* The undisputed star of this collection. Grey toned taupe with round holographic glitter.
Jewel*. Similar to Gem but with a brown base. The glitter is flashier against this jelly for some reason, but I think it is the same stuff used in the other polishes.
Spark.* The same glitter again but in a very light base. Looks smoother though. Reminds me strongly of Butter London’s All Hail McQueen.
from the Royal Gems collection
Tiger’s Eye. Smooth and shiny – very rich looking.
from the Modern Matte collection
Prevail. Reminds me of that stuff you used to put on ice cream that would harden like a shell. Matte magenta, the only matte I ever want to wear.
From the Liquid Metals collection
Unpredictable Taupe. Love this. Pink toned chrome taupe. Totally unusual.
Unfaithful Red. Opaque in one coat, a beautiful shiny metallic red.
Erratic Purple. Impossible to apply and only looks good from a distance – hard work.
From the Going Green collection
Wildlife. Beautiful gold-green and pink duochrome.
Reclaim. Nubar’s famous green holo. It’s perfect.
From the Sparkle collection
Sky Sparkle*. Sparse bright light blue in clear jelly. Only works for layering really.
Fire Sparkle. Hot red glitter. I love it, and only bought this recently, with Christmas polishes on my mind. This is a really good red glitter, shot through with hints of orange and yellow.
Night Sparkle. Dries semi-matte which is strange but topcoat brings it alive. Somewhere between navy and royal blue.
Violet Sparkle. Sadly, as sparse as Sky Sparkle so one for layering only. Beautiful though, contains pink particles that you can’t see in the bottle.
Petunia Sparkle*. My favourite glitter polish ever. It is breathtakingly bright and flamboyant. I have backup bottles of this, and I wore it for most of my honeymoon. I cannot praise this enough.
Others… (not sure which collections they hail from)
Magic Sunset. Not much magic about this – plain yellow gold with pink shimmer.
Gilded Gold. Seen here over Magic Sunset. Very sheer gold flakies, to be used for layering only.
Sangria. Beautiful and rich red toned jelly with pink shimmer. I often reach for this when I don’t know what to wear.
Paradise. Hmmm. Sheer duochrome that refuses to build. Golden and pink. Looks ok layered but not one I reach for often.
Purple Rain Glitter. A blurple jelly with tons of glitter and shimmer. Sparkles like fireworks in a night sky.
Blissful. A very work appropriate shade of pinkish brown. Frosty but with some shimmer.
Lime Green Glitter. Love this! I’ve never worn it out of the house though. More antique gold than lime green, perhaps.
Indigo Illusion. Fantastic. A beautiful duochrome which leans mauve and blue. Rather sheer but worth persevering with. One of the kings of duochrome.
Sandstone. One of the most perfect taupes in my collection. I need to buy a backup of this. Opaque and creamy with miniscule pink shimmer. I love this and want to wear it every time I see it.
Candy Apple. Soft mint toned glitter, heavy on the silver. I haven’t worn this before – no idea why not.
Purple Beach. Another classic Nubar duochrome. So pretty and unique, this time green and purple. If you like your duochromes, you need this one in your collection.
Phew. There we have it. What do you think? Do you have (m)any of these? Are you tempted to explore Nubar further? Anything here to take your fancy?
I’m now off to buy a back-up of Sandstone and to replace my bottle of the Nubar cult classic Peacock Feathers as I gave my original one away. I’m not sure which brand I am going to swatch next but I’m open to requests – let me know!
Helen
* denotes PR sample
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