ANNY

ANNY Nail Polish Midi [406.50 - Virtual Joke] Review

By Maychiri's Thoughts - October 14, 2025

Oh yay... another one of these metallic ANNYs. Normally, I would be excited, but after the last one? Pah. This is the ANNY Nail Polish Midi, shade 406.50/Virtual Joke!
 
 
Oh man, I was sooo excited when I found this ANNY at Müller! That was before I tried out Digital Giant and saw just how atrociously bad this range is. But when I first saw this, I had a tough decision to make: this or a golden pixel glitter Essie? My heart wanted the Essie but this looked literally like jeans! Doesn’t it look like denim in the bottle?? I thought it would be so cool to have denim nails! Denim on denim... on denim nails? Brings a new dimension to “Canadian tuxedo”, haha! Then, later, I realized that this is metallic so it won’t look like denim... but it may look super AI and digital! Which is just as exciting in this age of rapidly evolving artificial intelligence and Metaverse. Virtual Joke is a funny name... just hope it isn’t “nomen est omen”... hope the nail polish won’t end up being a joke. Though, after trying out Digital Giant, chances are very slim – just as slim as me winning 2000 € on those tear-off lotteries. But still, let’s try to be as objective as possible and try this nail polish out, shall we? I have a bad feeling, but, still... let’s go!
 
 
Packaging: like other Midi ANNYs, this is a very stout little rectangular bottle. Like a little cube! Very cute! It’s relatively heavy for its size. I like how it has a little step up next to the cap, it adds a touch of elegance. It’s completely bare in terms of details, just the ANNY logo and that’s it. Though the white colour goes very nicely with the blue! The cap is black, which also goes well with the blue. The cap is taller than the bottle! It closes extremely tightly, so no need to worry that the nail polish is going to expire too soon. One thing that bothers me is that there are no ingredients stickers or lists anywhere, and since there are new collections all the time, it can become frustratingly hard to find the ingredients list. But overall, a very cute and elegant bottle! I love how short and stout it is! 
 
 
Source: [honestly, no idea; it was extremely hard to find]
Ingredients: nothing nourishing and also 3-free (DBP, formaldehyde, toluene). Can I just say how hard it is to find the ingredients list for any ANNY that isn’t currently available? It’s so frustrating... but onto the scent. It is like any other nail polish, nothing special. Though it may have a slight note of vinegar. It’s also not as intense as most other nail polishes. The expiration 24 whole months after opening.
 
 
 
Brush: relatively short but wide flat brush. It is the perfect size and shape for my nails! Even if you have larger nails, the size should suffice since it spreads out wonderfully. The brush is pretty high quality, not a single story hair and it just feels good to use. It picks up way too much nail polish, so don’t forget to tap off the excess! It applies the polish super evenly, though you have to be somewhat careful because brushstrokes are inevitable and it would be best if you could try to minimise them. However, it is incredibly precise, so this isn’t a problem – nor is avoiding making a mess around the nails! Just such a great brush, I love it!
 
 
 
 
Colour: very intense deep blue. The base is a darker slightly less vibrant blue, with some purplish pigments in it because it has a definite almost indigo or deep periwinkle quality. It’s extremely hard to properly describe this colour, best I can say is that it looks digital. Like, absolutely like what I would imagine a true Metaverse to look like. The base colour is most similar to a shade of blue called “Liberty”, but the shine is a much brighter shade of blue, since it is metallic, after all. The shine is quite similar to periwinkle. This colours gives off cyborg so much! Even more so than Digital Giant! It’s just so cool and so very futuristic and awesome! And it looks great on pale skin, not a trace of washing out. 
 
 
 
 
Same formula as Digital Giant; it is super silky and smooth and literally feels like molten metal. It is extremely easy to use, though you do gotta watch out for brushstrokes because they can be quite visible here. That’s a problem that is common to most metallic nail polishes, so I am not surprised – doesn’t make it any less of a problem, though! Still, such a lovely formula... would be a shame of it, oh, idk, started flaking a few hours after applying... yeah, that would really be a shame, no? 
 
 
 
 

One coat is already plenty pigmented and completely opaque. You could absolutely leave it like this, or you could apply a second coat. It really looks pretty good with one coat, and I don’t feel like adding a second one is going to do much tbh. It certainly didn’t with Digital Giant. Alright, so, second coat applied and... yeah, I was totally right. There’s barely any change, the colour might be a tad more vibrant now and it might look a bit more ‘deep’, but it’s still just as even and opaque as with the first coat alone. Eh. I test all my nail polishes with two coats, so I had to, but there is no pressing need to apply two if you really don’t want to or are in a hurry. Just don’t apply more than two, there’s 0 need for that. 
 
 
 
 
The texture is, well, metallic. I wish I was more excited for this but how can I be when the mails are already in this kind of state of disrepair? Anyways, it is a very intense metallic texture, with a very high shine to it. It certainly does look cyber, I’ll give it that. There is a very fine graininess to the texture, which further emphasises this high shine. Very cool! But also, it emphasises brushstrokes. It’s not quite a mirror-like shine, but it is still very metallic. Though it doesn’t look quite as much like denim as I had hoped. Lovely texture!
 
 
 
 
Horrible longevity! Sigh... I saw this coming from 10 miles away, ever since I tested out Digital Giant. Don’t know what’s gone so wrong with this range because ANNYs typically have excellent durability, not thus rubbish, 50 cent quality. And bear in mind, this isn’t the cheapest nail polish around! This makes me even more furious at it for starting to chip within, get this... 2 hours! Yeah, not even half a day! What the evolving hell?! I was careful with my nails but nope, it just refuses to stay on the nails, for some goddamn reason. So frustrating. It’s Digital Giant all over again, but this time, I was prepared for this, so I am less angry and more just disappointed. I’ve got other reasons to be angry and sad anyways (PMDD). 
 
 
 
And yup, when I woke up, the nail polish was missing from the free edges... again! Just loooove to see this!! By noon that day, which is approximately 14 hours after applying the nail polish, my nails looked like I had applied the nail polish 10 days ago and was rummaging through stuff with my nails. But I literally did nothing. I slept. I woke up. I washed my face. And already, half of it was gone. Miserable! Huge chunks of it kept coming off over the next 2 days, literally huge pieces all at once. No need to say that a hair wash destroyed it because it absolutely did. So what was I left with by the end? Just a couple of miserable little scraps... I get much better longevity from nail polishes that cost 1/3 of this price. This is absurdly bad. What the hell... and no, I don’t care one bit about the fact that it doesn’t get scratched up – because what is there to get scratched up, anyways?!! Ugh, I am so done...
 
 
One good thing is that this nail polish is extremely easy to remove. Just a few swipes and that’s it, no issues whatsoever... unlike with pretty much everything else. It doesn’t seem to stain nails one bit, as well. At least I am ending this on a positive note?
 
 
In conclusion, oh this indeed a (virtual) joke... a joke of a nail polish, that is. It’s pathetic. And to think I was so excited to buy it... I thought that it would look like denim and I found that to be way too cool. But it doesn’t. Not one bit. That said, the texture is fairly pretty! I cannot be negative towards everything here, gotta give flowers where they are due, like the texture, formula and colour. The formula is truly silky and super smooth; it applies like a dream, with literally zero effort need to make it look great. It still shocks me that such a high quality formula preceded days of it chipping of in huge flakes. The brush is also extremely good; it is wide and flat and has rounded ends, which helps you apply it evenly across the entire nail. The texture is another thing I really like, though it is hard to appreciate it when half of the nail polish disappears within 24 hours. The very high metallic shine suits this bright, almost denim blue perfectly – even better than the silver of Digital Giant! This looks even more digital and like, cyborg-ish. Idk why, but this colour and texture just scream Metaverse! So, theme nailed, I guess. However, one caveat with the texture is that it suffers from having very visible brushstrokes. This is typical for most metallic nail polishes, but just because it is a common occurrence does not mean that it is suddenly not an issue. And that is it in terms of good. Yikes. See, this nail polish is complete trash in terms of any sort of longevity – which is the most important metric. Because, I mean, you would want to be able to have this nail polish for some time, no? It’s way too pretty to just start losing it overnight, right? Well, too bad because that is exactly what happens. It is a carbon copy of Digital Giant, especially in terms of flaws. So, this shade, too, retracts from the free edges of nails in a matter of hours. But it also starts to chip within a few hours – isn’t that great? So, when I woke up, my nails were already chipped off. It took another 3 hours for the nail polish to start to chip off in huge flakes. So, by that afternoon, it was already destroyed. This was not even 24 hours after applying the damn polish. So how could I enjoy that lovely metallic shine or that gorgeous blue colour if 50% of it is simply gone? I am still baffled, like, what the hell happened with this entire collection that the polishes are literally garbage quality??? I know metallic nail polishes tend to have more problems but this is just absurd. I don’t think that even a base or top coat would save this, it’s just too horrible to be saved. And this pisses me off because I picked this over an Essie! I legitimately thought this would be at least just as good as that Essie. How foolish of me... this’ll teach me to buy variants before even trying out the first shade. Bah, what a waste of time. And yes, one of my nails broke off before bed, so that’s just adding salt onto the wound. Even my nails don’t want this nail polish... I am so pissed. No recommendation EVER. Not for Digital Giant, not for Virtual Joke. I just wish this was a joke and not the reality...
 
 
 
Rating: 3/10 
 
 
Would buy again? Hell NO
 



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