Dazzle Dry Heat Wave Collection Fall 2010

I have a couple of the latest Dazzle Dry collections to review so I'll go in seasonal order. Here's the Fall collection. It's called Heat Wave and consists of only four colors:


Emerald. This is more of a topcoat than a wear-alone glitter because it's so sheer. It's a fine opalescent emerald colored glitter in a clear base. I have on about five coats and you can see it's still quite sheer. With Dazzle Dry you can actually do five or more coats if you wanted and it will still dry faster than normal polish and it won't bubble. It's a gorgeous color but an odd choice for a layering polish in this collection- it doesn't seem to go with any of the other colors!



Red Hot Chili. Holy moly, that's bright. Awesome. As you can see it's a painfully bright light red with orange tones- this actually looks pretty coral-colored on my skin tone but more red in the bottle.


Savory Cranberry. A rusty type of soft red shimmer. It's not orange enough for me to truly call it rust and it certainly doesn't look cranberry colored to me, so I'm not sure how to classify this shade. All I know is that I want Thanksgiving dinner right now.


Serious Cinnamon. Easily the most interesting shade in the collection. Also my favorite of the bunch. It's a really rich brass shade made up of tiny little sparkly particles. You would think it would be a foil based on how it looks in the bottle but it's not! It's more comparable to those Milani metal shades (like Melt In The Sun) but I find the finer-textured particles in this to give a prettier finish. Absolutely perfect for fall.

Before I go on to talk about the texture/formula, I must address one thing. These are not 'normal' polishes- they are a special quick-dry formula and must be used with the Dazzle Dry system for them to work as intended. I'm sure you could use your regular basecoat and topcoat with these and the color will look just fine, but you won't get the lightning-fast dry time and steel-like chip resistance.

The formula on these is quite unusual, but I suppose it's normal for Dazzle Dry. In a cold room they're almost jelly-like but still apply pretty smoothly. Once they warm up they're the texture of regular polish. They seem like they'll be too thin but they're very pigmented so you don't need many coats. I did three of all except Emerald which is five. They only needed two but I wanted to see how they would look with three. Dry time is unbelievably fast, even with the five coats of Emerald.

If you've never used Dazzle Dry before, here's the quick summary of what it is:

There's a set of treatments that you use in conjunction with the Dazzle Dry polishes. There's a nail prep, a basecoat and a topcoat. You apply the nail prep to cleanse the nail, apply the basecoat and let it dry completely (about a minute), apply as many coats of your Dazzle Dry polish as you want and then apply the Dazzle Dry topcoat. It will dry completely within five minutes, give or take. And I do mean completely- not just set or dry on the top- completely dry from top to bottom. See my previous post for more information.

Overall, tiny collection but still not bad. I like the gold. I like the Emerald glitter but it doesn't seem to belong in the collection. It doesn't look right layered over the rest of the colors, but it does look fine alone if you don't mind a sheer glitter. What I like most about these is their drying ability. You can rush and be sloppy and glob it on super thick and it will still dry flat and smooth in no time at all.

(These were sent to me for review.)

Dazzle Dry Spring/Summer 2009 Morocco Collection (Partial)

Dazzle Dry, the creators of the fastest-drying nail polish in the known universe, just released their summer collection for this year. Much to my delight, it contained what appeared to be two greens and a yellow alongside some rather uninteresting reds and corals. When I received them, I was actually a little surprised by how they turned out. Take a look!


Casablanca. This picture is slightly misleading, as it's not such a bright blue in person, it's more toned down and greenish. It's closer to the color in the bottle. It's very similar to the dusty turquoise/teal colors we've been seeing lately, such as Essie Greenport. I love this shade. I wouldn't call it completely green as I was expecting from the promo pics, but it's not entirely blue either. I'm going with dusty turquoise.

Oasis. Another surprise! This one is a very light, metallic green, not quite chrome but still somewhat reflective. This is pastel green, a little on the yellow side. Surprisingly enough, this one doesn't make my hands look too red. That's the main thing that bothers me about super light greens- they're hard to wear, even for me.


Sahara. This is honestly one of the best yellows out there. The shade itself isn't horribly unique- it's a nice, bright, creamy lemon yellow. It's the formula. Yellows are normally a nightmare and a half to apply, streaky, thick, goopy, stringy, you know the drill. This one is really thin and smooth, not nearly as streaky as other yellows, and is even in two coats. Not to mention the fact that it dries completely in about a minute.


The formula on these is great. They're thin and opaque. They dry faster than any polish I've ever used.

Since this is a special nail system, please refer to my original post for application instructions. You must use their base coat with these polishes in order to prevent chipping and peeling. I've provided a full review of the process, formula and wear in my original post as well.

One special thing about Dazzle Dry polishes that I found extremely interesting is that they are said to contain no nitrocellulose, therefore preventing your nails from becoming stained yellow.

I've always noticed that no matter what color I wear, my nails get stained yellow after a while. I had heard from various sources that it was a component of the polish itself rather than the shade that caused the staining. This is the first time I've heard nitrocellulose named as the culprit and it makes a lot of sense to me now.

All this time it's been nitrocellulose causing the yellowing? I guess it doesn't really bother me since I'm wearing polish 24/7/365, but for some people who like to have naked nails or wear sheers, that might be a helpful tip. Dazzle Dry claims to be the only polish without nitrocellulose, though. I'm not sure if this is 100% true, but from a quick scan of the ingredients labels from all the major brands, it appears to be the case.

Anyway, I really love Dazzle Dry's formula and the drying time, and I also experience exceptional resistance to chipping and tipwear when I wear these. I attribute that to the nail prep (basically fancy alcohol) and the thin coats of polish. Even if they did chip, I'd still love these because of how ridiculously fast they dry.

Dazzle Dry polishes can be purchased directly from the manufacturer, VB Cosmetics.