Deborah Lippmann - Bad Romance

Deborah Lippmann - Bad Romance (1 coat) over

Sally Hansen - Black Heart (2 coats)

I wanted Bad Romance for a while. I kept seeing pictures of it on blogs and the dark magenta glitter in a black jelly base looked gorgeous. My friend ended up giving me hers because she didn't really like it. She said she found it streaky. So I decided to give it a try before spring officially comes and I feel weird wearing black. I decided to layer it over black to remedy the streakiness issue when trying to get it opaque. 

Unfortunately I'm not that happy with it either. I thought the pink glitter would be more visible than it is. It looks nice when the light hits it. I guess that's why it always looks amazing in blog pictures since those are usually taken in a lightbox with the best light possible. In real life it looks mostly black, when the light hits it you can see bits of pink but from far away it pretty much just looks black.

Here's a picture taken at arm's length under a desk lamp. You can see how the sides of my nails just look black since there is no light hitting those areas directly.

I think the problem with this polish is the base. It is too streaky (probably 3 coats on its own) while also somehow being too opaque. If you look at my middle finger in the first two pictures you can see many of the larger hexes are somewhat covered by the black base. You can see the edges of the hex glitter pieces but the middle parts of the hexes are covered by the black.

I do like the idea behind this polish but I think next time I'll try a clear base pink glitter over black instead. I'm glad I didn't buy this one... Deborah Lippmann isn't cheap!