Zoya Liberty

When the textured polish trend started, I kinda hated it and I originally refused to even try it.  Somewhere along the line I weakened and now I have five.  Liberty is my only Pixie Dust shade.  (Nichole has Destiny.)  I bought it during last month's promo.  It's by far the smoothest of any of the textures I own.  I own glitters that are much rougher.  If you're hesitant about textures, Pixie Dusts would be a good test case.  I wore Liberty during the busy part of my break from work and it held up really well during extensive gallivanting.  Did I like it though?  Read on!


Liberty is a textured polish with small blue glitter in a bright blue jelly base.

over a nude base

This is two coats over a nude base, for stain prevention.  It's earned a bad reputation for staining and my nails are a weird enough color already!  Application is pretty easy as textures go, but cleanup is TOUGH.  I wore Liberty for three days and I was still scraping little blue bits out of my cuticles on day three!  I think some of it was actually stained cuticle tissue.

over a nude base

See the blue cuticle fringe bits?  This was maybe 18 hours after application (and two days before the first photo).  I showered before this photo and it was still up there!

I have very mixed feelings about this shade.  I wanted to love it.  It was the first textured polish that turned my head when I saw swatches, but then I decided I didn't want it....and then the promo happened and I hoped I'd love it.  I really wanted to.  The problem I have with it is the finish, not the texture but the base itself.  It builds well, but it's translucent.  The cool part of that is that it plays with the light like jellies always do.  Trouble (for me) is that when the jelly base is combined with the texture and the glitter it leads to weird dark patches in random spots on the nail.  It's hard to explain and doesn't exactly translate in photos, but it bothered me.  The blue is also a little lighter on me than I'd expected based on other swatches and on the swatch card in Ulta.  If it was a hint and a half darker and a bit more opaque, I'd probably like it more.  I can't write it completely off, but I'm not thrilled with it either.

I decided I had to top coat it before taking it off.  It took three coats of Gelous and two of Out The Door to get really smooth and shiny, but it made a TON of difference in my opinion of it.

over a nude base, with top coat

I feel a bit weird top coating a textured polish, but this makes it for me.  The dark spots blend in better this way and the glitter takes over.

over a nude base, with top coat

Bottom line: On its own, I was kinda feeling meh about it.  My fault, not the polish's.  The jelly base gives it character, but it looks uneven to me.  The texture isn't too intense for me though, which was nice.  I wore it "as-is" for two days and didn't freak out like I did with Sally Hansen Razzleberry.  Top coating makes it all glowy and I vastly prefer it that way.  Watch out for skin and nail staining!


How do you feel about textured polish?  Opinions seem to vary so widely!