Review: Picture Polish Revolution (with a simple Before & After thrown in for good measure)

Hello!

If you're reading this blog, you probably love pretty nail polish, and if you love pretty nail polish, you probably love at least a few polishes that contain glitter. And whether you're a glitter bomb/soup lover or the type that prefers a more subtle type of glitter, they're all a PITA to get off. And we all try pretty much any idea anyone has for ways to get it off more quickly.

Therefore, it was my moral responsibility to snap up a bottle of piCture pOlish's new glitter base, Revolution, when I had the chance during a Llarowe restock. And I am definitely not one to shirk my duty! So, I shelled out my $12.50 and said a little prayer it would work.

At first glance, this looks like it might be another glue-base that you peel off, but it's not. Supposedly, Revolution works just like any other basecoat; you put it on, put your glitter polish on top, and when the time comes to remove, you use your regular nail polish remover. The only real difference is that they advise you to use two coats of the base coat, and let it dry in between.

I wanted to give the Revolution a vigorous test, so I applied my two coats (luckily, it dries very quickly, so two coats didn't take a lot of time like the glue-base coat method does), and then used the most glitter-bombiest polish I own, my recently acquired and much adored Nail'd It Purp...Excuse Me!:

Nail'd It Purp...Excuse Me!, indirect sunlight

Nail'd It Purp...Excuse Me! direct sunlight

First, let me take a moment to sing the praises of this polish. It's a mash of purple jelly base, purple, teal, pink glitters of all sizes, and lots of magic. It looks like a psychedelic universe exploded on your fingers, to rest there in an eternal dance of light and joy...and I say it contains magic not just because the color of the glitters shift as the light hits them differently in the jelly, but also because there is no way this  much glitter should apply as nicely as this does. It's not perfect--it is almost completely glitter after all--but I've had polishes with half as much glitter cause me tons of headache, while this one caused me almost none. Even the big glitters were not hard to get out; I did have the bottle stored upside-down and I did placed the big glitters on the nail where I wanted them, but I didn't have to fish for them. In fact, I had to put two back into the bottle.

But enough of that--the point is, if any glitter should be hard to remove, this one should. I kept this on for a full 24 hours to make sure it was fully cured--that's about as long as I normally wear a polish, so I was able to do a fair comparison with other methods. I also not only put topcoat on it, but did nail art, the way I'd normally do, and put topcoat over that, the way I'd normally do. My Llama Nails group had an 'inspired by space' theme, and how could I not use this polish for it? It clearly doesn't need much added to it, so I did a quick stamp job with Barry M Silver Foil and Cheeky 45:

Look at how the light and jelly change the color depending on angle--just sublime...:)

So, how about that base coat?

1) Did it work? 
Yes, absolutely. While it doesn't make the glitter polish as easy to remove as a non-glitter polish, it made it about the same as a textured polish to remove. It took me about 2 minutes to remove it all, with a normal nail polish remover (no pure acetone needed).

2) Is it better than the foil method and the glue method?
In my opinion, yes. This saved time over both of those methods; with the foil method I have to sit for about 5 minutes per hand (10 minutes total), and use pure acetone. With Revolution I was done in about the time it would take me to apply the foils to my fingers alone. With the glue method, it takes ages longer for the two base coats of glue to dry before I can apply polish; and when the time comes to remove it, there always seem to be pieces left behind that I have to scrape off, and I have to do additional clean-up. I've also heard from some people that with the glue-base you get nail polish popping off after a day (although that has never happened to me). So without a doubt, this is now my preferred method for glitter removal.

3) Is it worth the money?
This is where things get a bit tricky. Revolution costs $12.50 currently at Llarowe, and $10 AUD on the Picture Polish site; the bottle is the standard size of all their polishes. But it's very thin, and after using it twice, I still couldn't tell that any was missing from the bottle; it seems it will last for quite a few manicures. So this really depends on your budget and how often you wear glitter...If you can afford to invest in a bottle of this and you only wear glitter once in a while, your bottle will probably last a long, long time, and will be well worth it. If you wear glitter every day and change your polish every day and are on a tight budget, it might be worth it for you to use a different method. But this is a personal choice, not one dictated by my review--all I can tell you is that it works and is a time-saver. So at the very least, you don't have to worry about risking $12.50 on something that's going to be a complete FAIL. :)

There you have it! I love it and recommend it. I hope the review was useful for you, and please check out the other 'inspired by space' manicures linked below. :)

Hugs and happy glitter removal!
M.

(The polish and glitter base in this review were purchased with my own money.)