The Tale of A Winter Affair: A Tragedy

I finally got a Sally's Card. I needed to get some more polish remover, and I figured for $5 it was a good investment. While I was there, I picked up Color Club's Winter Affair mini set for $9.99. I was looking for the perfect green to wear for the release of Halo 4. (yes, I am that kind of nerd.) I saw the green and knew it could be "the One". It came with three other awesome colors, so I thought it was definitely worth it. (I didn't bother taking pictures of the flaky. It was a thinner dupe for Essie's Shine of the Times. I've also read that it is unscented.) I saw that the package read "scented", but my experience with scented nail polishes is that they tend to fade once they are fully dry. I decided that I could live with the stink for a few hours in exchange for the awesome shine and shimmer. 

I was wrong.

First, the good stuff!

The red color (sorry, I didn't get the names of these. I was distracted.) was unbelievable. This polish is nearly a one-coat-wonder. The formula made me feel like Goldilocks: everything was just right about how it applied.  I almost didn't want to take it off to try the other colors. When wet, it stunk. Oh god, IT STUNK. But I've used other stinky polishes before (I'm looking at you, ELF) so I wasn't too bothered. 

I felt like Christmas ribbon. 

 The green was my favorite, by far. It's a very festive feeling green, but I think it'd still be wearable all year round. The formula was just as awesome as the other, smooth and perfect, though I think it really needs 3 coats to get to it's full potential. It's got a really neat blue background that I loved. And the shimmer! I loved them so much, I really should have known what was coming.

It breaks my heart to look at these.

 I was actually surprised by the blue. I generally do not like blue polish on me. There is something about my skin color against it that makes me angry. But this stuff, it had such a lovely silvery shine to it that I found it completely wearable.

All the colors looked like holiday ribbon. So Color Club gets points for that, at least.

Now for the bad.

The stink. Oh god. THE STINK. It smelled like some Urban Decay lipsticks taste, at least I think so. Which makes me think that perhaps they were supposed to smell like caramel? My lovely husband said they smelled like "caramels being made in a meth lab". The chemical stench was pretty overpowering. So much so, that I only bothered to paint one hand the first night. I was hoping/praying/begging the gods that the smell would dissipate. I even put two layers of Poshe over the top, hoping to hold in the smell. IT DID NOT WORK. The smell was so awful that it woke me up, repeatedly. Never in my life have I considered getting out of bed at 3 am to re-do my nails. By 9 am the next morning, I had taken it off...and my hands still stunk. I was beside myself with grief. The green was the perfect color for Master Chief inspired nails, but I don't think the Chief smelled like meth and candy. And I really couldn't imagine living with the smell long enough to make keeping the set worth it. I had a decision to make: return or not to return.

I have never returned a bottle of nail polish in my entire life. Even the bottles that were so bitterly disappointing, I just kept on the off chance I could make them work somehow. But these...I just couldn't see keeping them, the smell was that offensive to me. So back they went. Sad faces all around.

My overall opinion of this set :

source

I wanted to love it. I really did. The price was great. The formulas were wonderful. The colors were beyond fabulous. But the smell ruined it all for me. If you don't mind scented polish, or you lose your sense of smell in an industrial accident, buy these now. They are beautiful gems that will make you happy just to look at them.