Fizzy Pop

This textured gradient mani is meant to look like those little sugar-dusted gummy cola candies my friends and I used to buy from the 7-11 for a penny a piece (heavens, that was a very “old timer” kind of statement – what are these mysterious pennies and 7-11s the daffy old lady is nattering about?) and is indeed inspired by the brown base polish I used here, Models Own cola-scented Fizzy Cola. It’s a cute look, albeit a tad washed out, but regrettably not worth the hassle of working with Fizzy Cola.

I’ve commented before that I’m not a huge fan of crapping all over a polish or a polish maker just for the sake of being disagreeable – to each polish their own and all that jazz – but when my experience with a product is overwhelmingly negative, I feel like I ought to say something, if only to give people a heads-up as to what they may be running into. Call it a PSA – a Polish Service Announcement.

And what you’re running into here is maybe the poorest polish I’ve ever worked with. I’ve been lucky in that I’ve purchased very few dud polishes – just a handful – but this one really stands out, and not in a good way. Which is a shame, as my experience with the Models Own brand has been a good one (love their fruit-scented, pastel collection.) As you can see, the colour’s quite nice, a cool, mid-toned brown shot through with gold and silver shimmer. The scent’s pretty great, too, a smell I’d describe as being caught somewhere between cola and chocolate. But the consistency and ease of application? Those things that absolutely make or break a polish, no matter its pretty colour or scent? Terrible. Thick and almost lumpy (a giant, disgusting blob oozed off the brush and back into the bottle with an audible plop, putting me off all creamy foodstuffs for the next few days), it dried in visible ridges the second it hit my nails and left thin wisps of polish along the tips of my talons where the brush left the edge of my nails. It’s also completely unsuitable for nail art detail work, as it dries far too quickly for you to do anything other than marvel at its glue-like qualities.

As always, I like to point out that batch lots can find one dud bottle amongst 1,000 winners – there’s always that chance that you got the crap bottle – but over on Nail Polish Canada’s site there’s a review of Fizzy Cola that’s pretty much in lockstep with mine. I can’t say what the issue is with this particular polish, but it certainly doesn’t seem to be racking up the fans. Save your money on this one. And here’s to the second polish in the candy-scented Models Own collection I bought being nothing like this one!