Catrice

Catrice The Great Christmas Advent Calendar Nail Lacquer [C01] Review

By Maychiri's Thoughts - December 09, 2024

Oh dear... it’s a dark red nail polish. I was seriously hoping the first one would have been the shimmery champagne one... ugh. I have beef with all red nail polishes; they always make my nails very yellow after wearing, even if I use a protective base coat. This means that I almost never wear red nail polishes... though this dark, blood red is quite mesmerising! It’s much darker than what it looks like on the calendar, which is a welcome change in my opinion! If I have to get a red nail polish, let it be a dark, vampy one! Mmm, this will look very nice with the liquid lipstick... I see their vision, mhm. Sexy red lips, sexy red nails... how magnificent! But I will have to use this colour the last, to hopefully avoid yellowing my nails too soon. Still, I am really looking forward to it! This is the kind of red I typically vibe with (though in lip products)! So, let’s see what it’s like!

 
 
Packaging: what a beautiful bottle! Though you know what this reminds me of? The Catrice Magic Christmas Story LE nail polishes, for some reason. Though those nail polishes have a much different cap. Anyways, this is a little cube! Nothing too special, but I like this shape and design, it looks more expensive than it really is. I love the little step up near the cap, it’s a neat touch! And again, the colour combo is to die for! Blood red and gold? Mmmm, I like that! The only detail is the Catrice logo, though there is some info about the nail polish in the back. White text, though, not gold... shame. If you are looking for the ingredients list, go back to the calendar, as it is not here, but that’s normal for Catrice nail polishes.
 
 
The cap closes extremely tightly, an, since it is not ribbed or anything, can be annoyingly hard to open if your hands are moist. But at least it keeps the nail polish from drying out!
 
 

Ingredients: açaí (Euterpe oleracea) fruit oil for nourishment. 3-free (DBP, formaldehyde, toluene). The scent is like most nail polishes; it is very harsh, though! The expiration date is 36 months after opening.
 

No swatches for this as I don’t have those clear acrylic nails to showcase it. And I’ll need to postpone this colour as I have BIG issues with red nail polishes, so it will have to wait a while. 
 
 
 
Seriously, why do all three of the nail polishes in this calendar have this weird brush, when Catrice already had the perfect nail polish brush?? This brush is like something between a round and a flat brush, and it isn’t as wide as I would like it to be, though it does fan out nicely. But it doesn’t feel very high quality and it applies the nail polish so messily that it’s impossible to avoid having red polish on your skin as well as the nails. Although, it does pick up a large amount of polish, so at least I didn’t have to go back for more. But it’s just so weird, and not the easiest to use. I am just wondering: why the change?
 
 
 
 
Colour: deep dark red that looks very close to blood red – you know, the colour of blood when it is freshly drawn and it’s super dark and intense red. It is also pretty similar to dark wine red, as it has that rich, deep redness that red wine has. It’s undeniably a very sophisticated colour, but also quite a seductive, sexy one. It looks especially vampy on my pale skin, adding to that seductiveness. It’s a wonderful colour for winter, to contrast with the white snow – that stark contrast is always gorgeous! And it’s a perfectly festive colour as well, well-suited for both Christmas (as red is one Christmassy colour) and New Year’s Eve (the superstition that red is a lucky colour, ergo welcoming the new year with good fortune). And you know what it goes so well with? The liquid lipstick from this calendar! 
 
 
Mmm, it’s a match made in heaven! It’s just a shame that I don’t, personally, like to wear red nail polishes. I find them to often be too garish and they almost always stain my nails permanently. So I always try to avoid them... but there is something irresistible about this vampy, sexy dark red, isn’t there?
 

The formula is oddly watery. It’s almost as watery as what C03 has, but it doesn’t seem to be as goopy. While it does apply pretty much perfectly evenly, it is runny; I wasn’t able to prevent it from running down the sides of my nails, so I had a bit of a mess on my hands – literally. Good thing it is easy to wash off the skin with soap... red nail polish can, after all, stain the skin semi-permanently.
 
 
 
 
 

One coat is already very opaque and the colour is pretty vibrant, but it is more like a cherry red than a dark red like it should be. Still, it’s almost perfectly even and if you wanted to, you could definitely wear it like this, it looks pretty good! Of course, adding a second coat improves things massively. Now, the colour is darker and more vibrant, and it is completely opaque and even. This is how it is supposed to look, intensely dark red, so I definitely suggest using two coats – no more, as it will likely become too difficult to use. The texture is simply glossy; no shimmer or anything else to detract from this gorgeous colour (unlike the other two nail polishes in the calendar).
 
 
 
Longevity is not awful, but it is definitely the worst of the three nail polishes in the calendar. It is vulnerable to becoming scratched up and, since there is no shimmer or glitter to help conceal the damage, it is plainly visible. I didn’t find a lot of scratches, but I think this was more good fortune than anything else. The scratches diminish the glossy shine the polish has – and which it needs to look as good as it does. I noticed a few chips along the sides of my nails as early as day 2; I was trying on some extremely tight clothing so this is what caused it to chip, but it shouldn’t have. The other 2 nail polishes didn’t, after all. 
 
 
 
 
Besides that, it stays in pretty great condition until a hair wash, which caused it to chip significantly on one nail and caused some level of chipping on most nails. Yeah, this is not very good. But, to be fair, I expected it, since it isn’t a shimmery/glittery nail polish.
 
 

Look, while it isn’t difficult to remove this nail polish, it does what 99% of red nail polishes do: it leaves my nails discoloured. It’s not a yellow discolouring, though, as it makes my nails subtly red. This is basically impossible to remove fully without massacring the nails. So I now have to go on with reddish discoloured nails... how great. Well, at least it needed just a few seconds on each nail to remove, so that’s gentle on the nails. 
 
 
 
 
 
 
All in all, eh, this is a gorgeous colour, and I do adore how seductive and sophisticated it is, I just don’t like what red nail polishes do to my nails. Just like every other red nail polish, this one, too, makes my nails reddish. This is the biggest issue, but not the only one; it also is prone to getting scratched up and isn’t too resistant to chipping. So, you may think: “well, this is the worst nail polish then”. And yeah, in a way, it is, but I still like the colour more than the purple one. Other things I don’t particularly like are the formula (which is way too watery and thin), and, of course, the brush. Because why have that awesome brush that ICONAILS have when you can have this subpar brush that makes a huge mess? But the polish applies evenly and look remarkably good with two coats; the glossy finish makes it look even more seductive! I ended up actually liking how it looks on my nails, probably because this isn’t a light red or a bright red but a dark, blood red. This is one colour that I truly adore, and there is no denying that it looks amazing on pale skin! So vampy! And a fitting colour to wear for New Year’s eve, with all those sayings that you should wear red then to bring good fortune into the next year, it just made sense. So, like... do I like this polish? Kinda, but it has so many issues. Still, it’s far from being a horrible nail polish!



Rating: 5.5/10




 

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