First Review Ever! F4 Polish Pink Penquin

After lemming every polish from every indie seller on the market, I finally broke down and made my first ever indie purchase. I went with F4 Polish, an Etsy shop run by 3 sisters. Full size bottles are $8, but I caught a listing for 3 minis for $9, so I got Pink Penquin, Flubber and Chunky Cow minis. They arrived in less than a week, not too shabby for having ordered over a holiday weekend. I spent about an hour an a half swatching on a nail wheel before I could decide which color to start with, but the winner was Pink Penquin, a clear base filled with small black and white matte glitters, plus a medium pink matte hex glitter.

First of all: these bottles are adorable! Hot pink glittery label and a little rhinestone in place of the 'O'. 

And you can already see how this one won. I love the pops of pink that make it just a bit different than all the black and white topcoats that are out there right now (not that I don't love and want every single one of them!)

Here it is on a nail wheel (to the far right). I covered the whole nail with one coat, then started a second coat about a third of the way down, and a third coat two thirds of the way down. The middle nail is the same technique applied to Chunky Cow (which I'll review later), and to the left is one coat of Pink Penquin over Sinful Colors Out of This World. 

I really thought I wanted a pink base coat on this one. Something different enough to make the pink glitter pop, but still close enough to compliment it. Shown on nail wheel is one coat over 2 coats each of creme white, creme black, Wet N Wild Tickled Pink, Wet N Wild Dreamy Poppy and Sinful Colors Cream Pink (I know, I wear cheap underwear :) ). 

As you can see, pink just doesn't quite pop enough for this. So, on a whim and completely without swatching it first, I wore it over 2 coats of NYC High Line Gree. And it was AMAZING. Looks like a watermelon mani, without all the extra work! This has 2 coats of Seche Vite on top. 

This went on very smoothly, without the scary quick dry effect that a lot of mattes tend to have. The glitter applied pretty evenly, though a few nails are a bit thinner on coverage than most. I blame my impatience for that. The bottles sound like they have little mixing balls in them to keep things blended, but this didn't need any shaking at all. Just out of the package and get painting. I did use 2 coats of topcoat, but I don't think it was necessary. I do it out of habit. It didn't dry perfectly glassy smooth, but it wasn't rough and gritty either. 

After 2 days of watermelony goodness, I decided to add a matte topcoat. Since it was a matte glitter and all.   I liked it, but I much preferred the juicy, shiny finish. 

I'm pretty pleased with my first indie polish created by someone else! I can't wait to try out my other two colors, as well as every other indie polish in the world!