Fluke? A Pure Ice Test Sample
Earlier this week, I gushed and fawned over a $1.97 polish (Draped) by Pure Ice. Pure Ice just released 55 new shades in 5 new collections…all with high-end finishes. I wanted to see if Draped was a fluke or if, in fact, I’ve hit paydirt. So today I’m going to show you one polish from each of the five collections:
Velour Finish
Just like the name implies, these polishes have a matte, velvety finish. Ruffled Sheets is a metallic silver…which is pretty cool with a matte treatment. The formula was good. Easy control with a smaller brush (my small nailbeds are biased toward small brushes). I had some drag at the cuticle on the second coat, but I think I was just being impatient. All was well with the third coat. No topcoat. I’m really just as impressed with this one as I was with Draped.
Metro Chic
In this collection, I chose a sparkly fuschia called Lost in Vegas. Wow. This polish is gorgeous. It has dark fuschia and gold shimmer. Very complex and very pretty! My swatch is two coats of Lost in Vegas and a coat of Seche Vite. My photo does not do this shimmer bomb justice!
French Trends
These all appear to be cremes. There are some interesting colors here (e.g., a mustardy yellow)…but nothing we haven’t seen before. I opted for French Love Affair. It’s your basic medium purple. The formula was a little more runny on this one, but not too bad. My swatch is two coats plus Seche Vite.
Diamond Couture
This is one of two chunky glitter lines. All contain a combination of a fine microglitter and larger shaped glitters (hexes, diamonds, etc.) I chose Pardon My French because I’m on a lifelong quest for a good brown glitter polish. Pardon My French is a dark brown, slightly purple-toned jelly base with brown…almost pink glitter. I had to use a light hand with this one and sort of hover the brush over my nail or else the glitter pulled away with the brush. But surprisingly, it was completely opaque in two coats. I sound like a broken record…but this does NOT look like a $2 bottle of polish. It looks expensive.
Party Glam
Velour Finish was my favorite collection until I got to these glitter bombs. As the name implies…polishes in this collection all have a sparkly, glamorous party look to them. I’m wearing Booty Call (I didn’t realize that was the name until I got it home!). It’s a clear base with bright purple/berry microglitter and large silver hex glitters. I skipped the underwear with this one, so it required three coats. Once again, I was really pleasantly surprised. I don’t know how they manage to pack all that awesomeness in a polish for only $2.
There were three different Pure Ice displays at the Super Walmart where I purchased these polishes. The five new collections were on an end cap by the shampoo…so don’t despair if you don’t see them where you expect them to be. For $1.97 I am super impressed. Remember, I change my polish often, so I don’t test for wear time. Maybe that’s where the cost savings are really noticeable. My only complaint is totally petty and doesn’t have anything to do with the polish at all…it’s the ridiculously photoshopped photos in the display. It looks like the hand model is wearing computer generated press-on nails. Why polish companies won’t just take good pics of people ACTUALLY wearing the polish is beyond me! Sometimes it’s just plain comical!
Leave me a comment if you have some experience wearing any of these for more than a day. I’d love to hear how these fared over time.
Disclosure: I have no material connection to the products used in this post.
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Sites That Link to this Post
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My only complaint is that the velour shades don’t say VELOUR anywhere on them and the display at my Walmart was a scrabmled up mess that even had old PI shades in it!
Yes, I had the same problem! I had to do a little test nail to be sure. So I totally agree with you there!
PI does have very nice shades, thanks for reminding me I have some… Great pics
You can’t beat them for the price! I don’t have any experience wearing them for more than a day. Are they long wearing?
Maybe it goes to show that it is possible to make decent polish at low cost and the other companies are just ripping us off!! But I still love my zoya, opi, Essie lol
Oh, I still love me some Zoya, OPI, Essie, etc., too! I have a 15 year old Zoya that still polishes perfectly and it’s never been thinned! So there’s definitely something to be said for pro brands and quality.
Nice blog! And by the way thanks for the follow!
Thank you! And thanks for reading! :)
No Problem dear! :) God Bless
I hope I can find these! Thanks for the great pics-those glitters are so yummy.
Yummy is the perfect word choice! I hope you can find them too! Let me know if you post any pics!
Cool! A funny question lately I have been experience horrendously smelly nail polishes! Do these ones smell any worse than an OPI or other good brands?
I do find that inexpensive polishes sometimes bowl you over with the smell (Kleancolor and Models Own glitters come to mind)…but I haven’t experienced it with any of the Pure Ice polishes so far.
Wow, these are great! I need to go find these ASAP!
You could buy out the display for only $100 (I’m ashamed to admit that I actually considered it…LOL)
i loved booty call, but it looks like it gives you a headache to remove.
Whenever I swatch a bunch of polish at once…I always line them up in order from easiest to hardest to remove. So Booty Call was definitely swatched last! I patiently used the foil technique and it came off like a champ!
the foil technique is the best, but i am a very impatient person, and i hate to have my fingers wrapped in foil for 10 minutes.
plus, the last time i used it, the glitter didn’t come out…!
I have to have Pardon My French!!! *Runs to Walmart*
Take the car…it’s faster! :)
LOL, what amazing shades! Your swatches are outstanding, I love them :) They really are a great find at 1.97 if you’re going to be changing your color a lot anyway.
A note on my personal experience with this brand; I’ve found with the Pure Ice colors that I have, I tend to get tipwear really soon after putting them on. With the exception of glitterbombs (which seem to be generally wear resistance across most brands for me) I can’t expect more than like 48-36 hours of wear before the big chips and peeled spots lead to a full removal.
But I’ve also noticed that when my sister-in-law wears Pure Ice, she says she gets plenty of wear time. Dunno how to explain that one. She might not be watching her nails as closely as the Polish Maniac of the family (aka me) or she might just have a different nail to polish chemistry that allows for more wear.
Either way, GORGEOUS swatches! Thanks for sharing them with us.
Thank you, Erin! That is great feedback! I really appreciate you writing that up. And you’re right…us polish addicts tend to be maniacal about tip wear and chips and such. But like you said, if you only plan to wear it for a day or so anyway…then no harm done. :)
I have a lot of pure ice polishes and wear them often. Pure ice usually last me about a week or so before it starts to wear at the tip or chip… Just used glass of Bordeaux and the French tips lasted about 8 days before showing wear, the accent nail on which I used the Palmer glue method came off cleanly after the second day, but since it was so easy to apply all over I did that about 4 times because I was in,love with the many and color! LOL
When I first saw them I managed to walk away with only 2. I bought Temptress (deep purple) from the Velour and Getting Gorgeous from the Metro Chic. I did a tape mani using both (I love combining matte and shine) and it lasted for about 4 day with minimal touch-up (and I’m pretty sure the reason I took it off was only because I got some Lush Lacquer in the mail).
This is great feedback too. Thanks, Hanna. I know wear time has a lot to do with body chemistry too. I admire your self control at only buying two!! Did you take a pic of your tape mani?
I wish they sold this brand in NZ then maybe I might have money left over after payday…
LOL. I hear ya (says the girl who ordered the entire China Glaze Cirque du Soleil and Butter London Holiday Collections in the same day!)
Ooo…great, now I want to try these. Too bad I’m on Operation Untried Polish :( They all look so gorgeous!
Well…you know…technically these are untrieds too, right?!?
ENABLER!!! :)
LOL.
Haa!! Haa!!!! Yes she is. Had me up in Walmart acting like a nail polish addict.
What I noticed in my local store was that there were 2 displays. 1 was with all of the other brands where people picked over and had it looking a mess. The other spot was in a stand up cardboard display away from the other brands, so it was almost untouched. Make sure you double-check so you don’t miss the goldmine :)
LOL, oh how I wish that was true! Please tell me these aren’t limited edition…
They are…you really have no choice now, right?
Ooo…now I definitely have to see if my Walmart has them… Darn you for being an enabler lol.
i want that brown glitter so bad now! thanks for feeding my addiction
You’re welcome! LOL I’ve been looking for a brown glitter for a very long time. It’s funny that I ended up finding it at Walmart!
I’m actually wearing Draped as we speak! I have nothing against Pure Ice, but every time I go to walmart and see the, I always walk by….something about all the colors mixed in with each other, and not arranged by color drives me batty! So stupid and petty I know, but I can’t help it. I feel the same about Sinful Colors. I did end up getting 6 polishes though (5 of which are the suede type finish!!).
I’m a super Type-A personality so I must admit that the Pure Ice displays are always a big hot mess. You’re lucking to get 5 velours! All 55 colors are limited edition and I hear the velours are the first to vanish.
I used the black velour as undies for a flakie polish I tried. The wear was awesome actually. I think almost a week… But that is with coats on top. Haha! But I love them!! I got the dark green to try out. I’m so excited to use that one this holiday!!
Thanks! That’s good feedback. Did you matte the flakie after you put it over the velour polish or leave it shiny?
Need to hit up Wal-Mart! These look gorgeous!
They are…but hurry…I heard they are all limited edition.
I had no idea they had that many polishes. I have four of them myself, and I’m very happy with them. I don’t love the color of two of them, but the quality is good.
I think I have about 12 of them now (it’s growing by the day!) and really have been happy with every single one.
Pardon My French is gorgeous! Curse living in the UK xx
These polishes are getting hard to come by even in the US now!
I have purchased an appalling amount of polishes from this LE collection. After I saw the velour finishes and read some good reviews, there was no stopping me. I love my OPI, Zoya, Essie, and China Glaze… but these are such a steal I feel like I can own them all! I am also a 1-2 day polish wearer :-)
The velour finishes are AWESOME! Just this morning I slapped on two coats of “Stunning”, did a cuticle sweep with acetone, and ran out the door in 15 minutes total! No dents, is wearing perfectly. I am planning on wearing the green matte Femme Fatale tomorrow…
Also check out their core collection, I found some pretty awesome polishes that were similar to the CND Effects called Minty Dream (green pearl) and Oh Baby! (blue/green sparkle) that I was VERY impressed with.
So glad I stumbled on your blog, will be following you!
Shelby, I’m glad you found me too! :). Pure Ice is definitely hard to resist at $2!!! Have you seen the press for their holiday collection? It looks pretty awesome too!
I get almost 7 days wear with pure ice……..but always with seche vite used as a top coat
Thanks! That’s good feedback. I always use Seche Vite too.
I LOVE their Polish but I always have such a hard time making them all look so clean. I always get Polish on my fingers and it looks so sloppy when I try so damn hard!! Any suggestions???
Get a cheap makeup brush and some acetone. I put a little acetone in a bowl, dip the brush in it, then run it along my cuticle line. You’d be amazed at how easily this can save a wrecked mani!
I have a ton of Pure Ice! Their metallic polishes stamp really well also! I just picked up 8 of the new ones!!
Good to know! I’m always on the lookout for good stamping polishes!
I have Pure Ice Electric!, Scandal, and Siren in my collection. Siren was my go to creme red for the longest time, and Electric! is a very pretty shimmery black with silver microglitter in it. Scandal is a deep aubergine which I recall having opacity problems with and was not my favorite of the 3. For the price though I’ve been very impressed with the brand on the whole!
I’m going back through my posts and finding these hidden gems of comments. Thanks for reading! I totally agree, for the price, Pure Ice has some good stuff.
Soooo.. I just bought 14 Pure Ice polishes. Haha. Have you tried Femme Fatale btw? It’s in the velour collection and I absolutely love it!
I have always like Pure Ice, even though you have to go to Walmart to get them. I am pretty sure one of the reasons Pure Ice can be sold for less than $2 is that they don’t spend much on advertising. They have no website and their Facebook page relies on people like you to show off their polishes! Thanks for that by the way! So the horribly photoshopped pictures they have on display, probably are.