Zoya Blogger Collaboration: Birch Box Limited Edition Trio Spring Summer 2012

If you like jellies and toppers, this collection was a good one.

I have to admit, I follow precious few fashion bloggers. I am a devotee of the Fashion Channel on Youtube as I was a fan of Elsa Klensch when she was on CNN (she is a goddess, let's be honest). I've followed Style Bubble from the start, and that's about it. 

So when Birch Box announce the collaboration with some style bloggers, I was like "who?" Meanwhile, what is birch box?

It's a subscription service to try out samples of various cosmetics, skin, hair, etc brands. This may or may not be your thing.

Not my thing, but polish certainly is, so I grabbed that set when it came out.

I've blogged Coraline here, but wanted to get the whole set done.

Kate by Small Things Blog

Very beautiful red coral that my camera just wouldn't really deal with. Bummer.

This is four coats, sheer, and over Color Club Coastal Creme. No top coat, these are very glossy.

Over a glitter, glass fleck or a similar color creme, it would definitely pop a lot more. Any blogger who makes this look like a creme has an amazing bottle. This is sheer, no doubt about it.

Here is Color Club Coastal Creme, needed a better outing.

Can we give it up for Coastal Creme?

Such a gorgeous creme. 

Coraline by Eleventh Gorgeous

Rich orange, or if you like coral. 

Again for coats and no top coat and over Coastal Creme.

I am keeping sheer jellies like this separate, then if I want to goof around with them, I can either tint with them or find a similar shade to make it a bit easier to wear. This ends up being 9 coats with a base coat (three of Coastal Creme and four of Coraline). 

Here is a demo of the layering of the jellies.

Left to right:

• 4 coats
• 3 coats
• 2 coats
• 1 coat

This is one coat of Essie Summit of Style and two coats of Coastal Creme.

You can see that this can get super thick by the time you get to three coats of these jellies.

The fourth coat takes away the texture, and none of these have a top coat.

Eep.

I would say, again, these are akin to water polishes on the first coat: slight tint. You need many coats to achieve anything akin to serious coverage.

Over a similar shade, you will get a deeper color.

Belle by Capital Hill Style

Two coats of Belle over Color Club Coastal Creme.

Lovely topper. My favorite of the three next to Kate.

Here is two coats of Belle over Color Club Naughtical Navy. 

Just a quick shot of Naughtical Navy, because who doesn't love to spell Naughtical about 100 times?

Just about my favorite navy. Three coats. Heavenly!

To summarize: I am not sure this collection lived up to the hype.

I had a long paragraph about sheerness, tweaking with base colors, that I already have toppers similar to this, but in general, it's been just a let down for me.

Thank you for reading my little nail polish journal!