Nabi Dark Gold Magnetic Polish

I first got bitten by the magnetic polish bug after reading Jen's post on The PolishAholic on January 21, 2012 about Icing by Claire's Magnetix polish.  I had not even heard of that store before.  And, from reading The PolishAholic's post, I learned that you could not get Icing polishes online, just in the store.  So, after reading that post on a Saturday morning, I *had* to go to the mall to get those magnetic polishes.  I *never* go to the mall.  My husband was surprised that I was *asking* to go to the mall instead of him having to beg me to go.  Because  the post on The Polishaholic came up just as the polishes were starting to be sold, I had all four colors to choose from when I finally found the Icing by Claire's store in the mall.  There were two magnets, one with wavy lines and one with diagonal lines, so I got two polishes with different magnets so that I could have both types of magnets. They were also buy one get one half off, so they were something like $8 each (magnet included) after the BOGO 1/2 off deal. Those were my first magnetic polishes.

A few weeks later I saw a swatch of the Nabi polishes on Scrangie's blog on her March 5, 2012 post here, and I *had* to have them. They are low-cost magnetic polish. Scrangie paid $4.99 each, magnet included, at her local Walgreens.  Even more amazing than the low cost is that they come in a very large variety of colors including gorgeous dark reds and blues. Only some Walgreens have the Nabi magnetic polish, though, and it was not on the Walgreens website, at least not back then.  My local area Walgreens here in South Florida didn't even know what magnetic polish was.  So, I went online and paid an e-tailer $21.50 for 6 colors, with the 6 magnets and the shipping included in that $21.50.

In the manicure in the pictures below, I was wearing Nabi in Dark Gold, a color that Scrangie swatched here.  I wore this for a week, just barely. Magnetic polish doesn't last as long as other manicures. This was two to three coats of polish (depending on whether the design came out right on the first try). Magnetic polish reminds me of old Etch-A-Sketch games although instead of shaking to erase and start over, you just add another layer of magnetic polish and try again. But, with magnetic polish, fewer and thinner coats are best.  I used Seche Vite on top of the magnetic polish.

The magnet was not as strong as my Icing magnets, but the pattern had more and thinner stripes, and that looked nicer to me with this polish.  There are three different Nabi magnets (wavy, straight and diagonal lines), so with my 6 polishes, I made sure that my color selection would include at least one of each of the magnets.  I used the diagonal stripe magnet.  The magnet does not come off from the polish bottle's brush handle, but because I had duplicate magnets, I just used a magnet from another bottle that I kept closed.  The Nabi magnet was not as easy to use as the Icing magnet because it didn't have the little lip to rest your finger on.  I tried all kinds of different ways to use the magnet and settled on what is probably not comfortable for anyone else.  I kept the bottle upright with the magnet on the top, and I put my fingernail over the magnet with my finger upside down so that my nail was very close to the magnet, and I held my freshly painted finger steady by clasping it with two fingers from my other hand that were also making contact with the bottle and holding onto it, so everything was connected and held steady.

Scrangie had to remove the polish soon after swatching it because she couldn't stand the smell.  I wasn't bothered, though.  Heck, Seche Vite smells stronger and some other polishes and supplies do, too.  But, if you are sensitive to strong nail polish smells, you might have the same experience as Scrangie.

The polish was very easy to remove. It just took a minor amount of scrubbing like I have to do with micro-glitter polishes, but one mini cotton round per nail was all it took. You could see a bit more of a mustard-colored to greenish tint in the removed polish.

I wore this to court and got complimented on it by a MALE attorney who not only said it was cool, but that it matched my suit . . . which it did in a way. The head secretary at work also thought it was nice.

Here are some pictures taken in my car, some in direct sunlight, and some in indirect sunlight:

You can see some of the sparkly glitter that shows up when you use the magnet.

 

Here are some pictures taken in my office, the dark ones are underneath my desk, with flash.

Blurry it looks like old-fashioned butter rum-flavored candy sticks.

Thank you for reading my blog!