Color Club Blue-Ming Ding
I’m currently on a stringent No-Buy. For my non-polish addict readers, this means I’m on a self-imposed, zero-tolerance, polish purchase restriction. As a side note, I am WAY better at being on a No-Buy than my sister. She’s purchased like 42* polishes since her No-Buy began a week ago…she meant, Thursday…er…yesterday…um…starting NOW. So anyway, imagine my excitement when my July Birchbox included a mini Color Club Blue-Ming. I’ve never tried Color Club. I’m so OCD that I hate to buy new brands because then I have to have MANY of that new brand so my polish racks are tidy. I know. Craziness.
I’ll start with the good news first. I don’t have anything exactly like this. Blue-Ming is more green than blue. Darker than China Glaze Re-Fresh Mint and brighter than China Glaze For Audrey. After two coats, I stamped all ten nails with a fishnet pattern in Konad White.
Now for the bad news. Unfortunately the Blue-Ming formula was the absolute worst thing I’ve ever tried. Ever. It was a splotchy, draggy, catastrophe. I was so shocked, in fact, that I was sure Birchbox had unloaded a crateload of rejected Color Club stock in their boxes. But a quick google search revealed I’m not the only one who’s experienced this phenomenon with Blue-Ming. Here’s a quick phone pic after the first coat. I wish I’d grabbed my good camera instead because this pic doesn’t do the hot mess justice. Has anyone else had this problem? I did all of the customary preparatory steps and I didn’t use a base coat (shame on me) so I can’t blame that.
The second coat helped but I had to make it thick and it was a ton of work. Many people online went for a third coat to get the color smooth. But I refuse to do that for a creme polish. It’s too much trouble. So instead I resorted to stamping. The stamping redeemed the mani and I ended up a happy camper.
*actual number of polishes has been exaggerated for effect Disclosure: I have no material connection to the products used in this post.
It was an Internet no buy! It didn’t apply to actual stores. I wasn’t going to order anymore polish but I could still go to a store and buy it. Besides until I see Jeff VanVonderen from Intervention in a room with you guys telling me I have a bunch of people that love me like crazy, I don’t think I have a problem!
Wow! I don’t think I’ve ever seen streaking like that before. What a shame, cause the colour is lovely.
Huh, weird! I just wore this a couple weeks ago and didn’t have any problems! It was actually one of my favorite mani’s in a long time!
What a pain that application must have been. I hope it doesn’t completely put you off Color Club, they have some great colors to offer.
Oof too bad the formula sucked so bad. Usually color club is pretty good! Oh well- good thing it was just a sample.
Do you use a regular base coat or do you use any nail treatments? Your nails looks so lovely and are a great length.
Thanks! I try to use a base coat, but I’m really bad about it. When I do, it’s Seche Clear. Treatments never make a difference for me. I could use Wet N’ Wild every day…just as long as I keep them polished, they stay healthy. But if I go without polish, they break.
Thanks for the comments, ladies. I’m glad to hear this was a Color Club anamoly because I do like their colors. I’m wondering if maybe it got too hot during shipping or something??
ZOMG, I just read what everyone was saying and I have to add that it’s not an anomaly. I also ordered Factory Girl and Blue Ming and they both had a horrid formula. I recently also tried Edie in store and it was just as bad and that wasn’t in the heat. I find it hard to believe that 3 different colors from Color Club from different places all had a bad formula and that is just a “fluke”, there is just no way. I think Color Club just has a bad formula now as people have said their old formula wasn’t like this. Many other blogs have also said Blue Ming and other colors had a terrible formula so we are not alone.
OMG I have had this problem too!! I ordered my Blue Ming bottle after seeing that everyone got the color in their Birchbox. I saw ChelseaWears from YouTube wearing it and had to have it. I ordered mine from Amazon along with another color called Factory Girl, also by Color Club. Factory Girl arrived first and when I put it on my nail it was so streaky (worse than Essie polishes) and pulled and separated so bad that I had to immediately take it off my nail. It was so bad that I, too, thought I had a bad polish and was about to e-mail the seller to freak at him for selling me a bad polish until I received Blue Ming and had the same experience. The minute I put it on my nail it began to separate and bubble. It wasn’t just that it was streaky, as I can at least work with streaky, it’s the fact that it LITERALLY bubbled and pulled on the nail!! It was so bad that the nail polish physically raised up and gave my nail a horrid texture. The worst part was that no matter how many coats I applied (I stopped at 4 because it was getting ridiculous) it still looked streaky and I could see the ridges of my nail underneath. Sorry this post is so long, but when I saw your pictures of the streaky mess, it just brought back all the anger from my experience lol :-). People have said that the older Color Club polishes aren’t like this and I can’t comment on that because these were my first two from this company. However, I had such a bad experience that I won’t be buying anymore to find out. Love your blog by the way and I am def bookmarking :-).