Avon Nailwear Kaleidoscope Shades

I’ve never tried Avon polish before. I never had a reason to. Well, when I heard they had new colors called Kaleidoscope Shades, my interest was instantly piqued.

They are described by Avon as “Strong wear with real diamond dust…now in NEW Kaleidoscope shades – with an iridescent pearl lustre! 10-day performance with normal touch-ups.”

On sale for $2.95, I figured they were worth a shot. I ordered 5 of the 6 colors and eagerly opened the box when it arrived today. Upon first glance, they reminded me of the Sally Hansen Prisms, minus the holographic effect. I’m sure the bottle shape somewhat influenced that.

I wish the polish would have lived up to my initial excitement. I’ve never been so disappointed with a brand or individual polish. I don’t feel bad at all by saying that this product is crap.

First of all, the brushes in every bottle were flawed in some way. The worst was shaped like a crescent moon and made application near impossible. They were all bent or splayed to some extent. You can’t do a proper manicure with a bad brush. Period.

Due to the poor brushes, the application was terrible. I had to redo the initial swatch manicure pictured below twice. No matter how much polish I wiped off the brush before stroking it on, I still had pools of lacquer on the sides of my nails. To top it all off, I ended up with air bubbles. I know there are plenty of causes for bubbling but I used the same products and techniques that I always do. The only difference was the polish brand.

Considering how sheer the shades are, I decided to give them a 2nd chance by layering them over my favorite black creme polish, Sinful Colors Black on Black. I really hoped the experiment would work out but none of the combinations impressed me and I was plagued by polish bubbles again.

In summary, save your money people!! Don’t let the pics of the pretty colors fool you. Go check out your local drugstore and pick up some of the great polishes being clearanced instead. Just the other day I snagged a couple of great Orlys from CVS on sale for 75% off. I’ve also seen sales on Sally Hansen Prisms at Walgreens. They are a thousand times better than anything Avon’s got.