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.

Dazzle Dry Nail System

I've been seeing the Dazzle Dry nail system advertised in Nails Magazine for months, and it had me very curious. I finally broke down and had to have more information on this mysterious brand. Now that I've tried it, I am in love!

Dazzle Dry is a line of super fast drying nail lacquers, if you can't tell from the name... And when they say fast dry, they mean it!! They are seriously the fastest drying polishes I have ever used in my entire life. I am extremely impressed.

For best results, it is recommended to use the entire Dazzle Dry system when applying the polish on natural nails. The system consists of a nail prep/primer, a basecoat, the color and a topcoat.

The Dazzle Dry Nail Prep is sort of like pimped-out rubbing alcohol. It removes oil and sanitizes nails to provide the ideal surface for the bascoat and polish. This step really helps polish wear and prevents chipping.

After you prep your nails with a Nail Prep soaked cotton ball, you apply the special Dazzle Dry basecoat. A word of warning: if it is cold outside or wherever you are storing the basecoat, it will solidify. No joke. When I got my bottle it was a thick, cloudy gel, almost the texture of Vaseline. This is easily remedied by running some warm water over the bottle. It returns to a clear liquid state very quickly. Apply one coat of basecoat to your nails.

It is important for the basecoat to be fully dry before applying the Dazzle Dry polish. If it's not completely dry, it will make the polish streaky and stringy and you don't want that. So give the basecoat a couple seconds to dry before you try to polish.

Applying the polish is a breeze. Of the three colors I tried, one was completely opaque in one coat and the other two only needed two coats. If you are doing two coats of color, wait for the first coat to dry before applying the second to avoid streaking or clumping. The polish dries so fast, you really only need to wait a minute or two for it to be totally dry.

This polish dries to a semi-matte or satin finish. If you prefer a glassy shine, apply the Dazzle Dry topcoat. The topcoat dries in seconds and is incredibly shiny.

Pretty straightforward. The coolest part is how quickly this polish dries. If you do only one coat of polish, it dries completely in about three minutes. If you do two coats like I did, it's completely dry- not dentable, smudgeproof, absolutely bone dry- in about five minutes. Holy crap!!!

The polish dries very hard and shiny. My nails feel very strong while wearing it. And on top of all that, this stuff wears like iron!! I've been wearing it for a couple days already and there's barely a hint of tipwear, no chipping, no shrinkage even after cleaning, cooking, dozens of hand washings and a very hot bath. Friggin' amazing.

Here are the colors I've tried:





Carnival Coral. A vibrant, saturated, summery coral creme. I'm currently wearing this as a pedi and it's very flattering! I don't normally wear this type of shade, but this is bright enough to be interesting.



Lavender Parade. A soft, springy, Easter-egg type lavender creme. It's delicate and feminine but still fun because it's purple! These types of purples seem to be really popular this season, nearly every spring collection released so far has one... I like them, but I think they need a little visit from the Konad Fairy...

And I saved the best for last...




POLAR JADE!!! Wow, can you believe this color??? It's a medium slightly dusty emerald green shimmer, and it's drop-dead gorgeous. Seriously. I'm head over heels for this color. It looks darker indoors than it does in sunlight and it's proving to be a very difficult color to photograph. I'd say it's in between the indoor and outdoor colors- it's not as warm as the outside one and it's not as cool as the inside one. Right in the middle. Absolutely stunning. I'm still wearing this polish and I don't want to take it off!

Overall, these polishes rock. I am very impatient when it comes to polish drying time. I always use Seche Vite and quick dry drops and even then it can still take too long for me. That is nonexistent with this polish. You don't need Seche, you don't need drops, you don't even need to wait for it to dry because before you even realize it it's already dried! This would be the perfect "Emergency Polish" to keep in your purse- you can apply it three minutes before you need to be somewhere and not have to worry about ruining wet nails.

Removal is impossibly simple. Just use regular polish remover and it comes off in seconds. It might be due to the thin texture of this polish, but it is way easier to remove than regular polish.

The formula is great IF you let the basecoat dry. Like I mentioned above, if the basecoat is still wet, the polish will get stringy and sticky. The polish formula is thin, smooth and pigmented. No bubbling or shrinkage at all, no dents, nothing. Perfect.

The color selection is small but good. They have your traditional reds and pinks, but they also have a good selection of unique shades like Polar Jade. They have purple, blue, yellow, gold and even black. I'd love to see this line expand even more, it's become a new favorite of mine and I am so thankful that I got the opportunity to test drive it. It's awesome.

You can get the Dazzle Dry Nail System and Nail Lacquers directly from VB Cosmetics. Individual polishes are $9, the treatment system is $54 and comes with the Nail Prep, Basecoat, Topcoat, three nail colors of your choice and complete instructions on how to use the system. They even sell a special thinner designed to restore the texture of Dazzle Dry polishes and treatments.