Looking for the Perfect Green? Pretty and Polished Old Green River Review & Swatches

I’m not Irish, but I had to have one of the Pretty and Polished Irish collection polishes, Irish Brawn. It just called “buy me, I’m wonderful!” from the site and I couldn’t resist it. I love jellies, I love glitter, I love that the black/green mix made me think of Slytherin – perfect! Let me be honest about something though – I’m not much of a green polish person. For years I would only wear pinks or reds; I slowly fell for more colorful polishes and began to experiment with color (yay!), but green is one I usually still pass on. For some reason I can’t explain though, I kept going back to Old Green River after I added Irish Brawn to my cart. I’d be about to check out and then would pause…go back to Old Green River…go back to checkout without it…stop…go back to Old Green River…  You get the idea. I finally just resigned myself to the fact that something about that polish was speaking to me and I should just get it if I didn’t want to keep finding myself on the site for days after my order was placed.

Here is what Pretty and Polished creater Chels has to say about Old Green River – “This St. Patrick’s Day polish is very unique! It is a green polish with a slight golden sparkle and a blue undertone! “Old Green River” was inspired by the dyeing of the Chicago River which started in 1962!”  When I saw the bottle shot, my reaction was a simple “Oh…that’s pretty. Hm. Very green.” Maybe it was the historical inspiration that called to me? I really couldn’t tell ya. Regardless, it ended up in my cart.

I spun the bottle around under a light and by the window after I opened my package and thought the polish was prettier in person than on the site. My shots of the bottle certainly don’t do it justice – the camera just can’t quite capture the sparkle coming off it. I stalled putting the polish on for swatching because…well, quite frankly, I had other polishes I was more excited about. Turns out I didn’t know what I was missing! I will warn you now – I took a bajillion photos of this polish because I was just like HOLY MOTHER OF POLISH I LOVE THIS. I still feel like it’s better in person, but man did I try. Nails have a base and top coat (of course); most nails have on only one coat of polish – 1 coat people! Some have two because I didn’t get enough on my brush and got some little nekkid patches that needed covered. Click to enlarge (do it!); captions tell lighting and sorry that my middle finger’s nail just won’t grow out quickly to match the rest (I broke it last week, hmph):

Natural light

Natural light

Natural light

Natural light

Indoors, flash

Indoors, flash

Indoors, no flash

Indoors, flash

Indoors, flash

Indoors, no flash – no flash, people! Look at that sparkle!

Are you swooning yet? Man, I am! So I was freaking out over this polish (my poor hubs – I was like “Look at this polish! Do you see it?! Gahh!” I don’t think he cared but he was like “Mmhmm, that’s nice hun”) when I spotted my bottle of OPI The Man with the Golden Gun. I knew instantly that these two polishes were meant to be together, so I slapped some on my ring finger for an accent nail. Ready?

Natural light

Indoors, no flash

Indoors, flash

The pros:

1. The green is gorgeous and not an obnoxious green. It’s bright but the blue base and gold glitter turn it into the perfect, shimmering green.
2. That shimmer! Holy cannoli! It disappears some in low lighting, but in the light or the sun it’s like my nails are glowing. Glowing, I tell you!
3. It’s a one-coater or pretty darn close depending on how much you pick up on your brush.
4. The formula was fantastic – smooth and easy to control.
5. For some reason it makes me think of a dragon; Irish Brawn makes me think of Slytherin. I know this is supposed to be a St. Patrick’s collection but it just yells H.P to me instead.
6. It looks beautiful with gold glitter layered onto it – the polish is wonderful on it’s own but the glitter adds a lil something extra.

The cons:

1. I am drawn to the light like a moth so that I can turn my nails and watch the shimmer/glow. It just so happens that this makes me rather unproductive.
2. I’m trying to be on a no-buy and yet I want to go buy 5 back-up bottles of this. Sigh.

My verdict? This is the first green polish I thought I’d like and I was wrong – I love it! It was like the sleeper hit of my recent polish orders. I guess my inner me just knew I’d love this polish and that’s why I ended up with it in my shopping cart, despite not loving the bottle shots on the site. Go buy this polish, but only one – I need some still in the inventory for when I go buy all my back-up bottles. You can snag this Irish beauty for $9 on the Pretty & Polished site or the company’s Etsy shop.

What do you think of this polish? Do you like green polish or do you usually avoid it like I do? Am I the only one who thinks of Harry Potter when they see this or Irish Brawn? (probably…)

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Show Your Irish Pride! Pretty and Polished Irish Brawn Review & Swatches

I’m not Irish but I love Irish history and culture. I also love the color green and, lets face it, St. Patrick’s Day can be a blast. Roll all that together and it just makes sense that I had to have one of the new holiday polishes by Pretty and Polished, Irish Brawn.

Irish Brawn is a black jelly loaded with 3 types of green glitter – small hex, larger hex, and round glitter (eee!). This polish was designed by Pretty and Polished owner Chels to celebrate Irish immigrants and all that they had to overcome as newcomers to America. I saw the bottle shot online and this polish became an instant lemming, even without swatches. I eagerly counted down the days til release so that I could snap one up. Here are my own bottle shots –

Irish Brawn is a jelly and jellies tend to need several coats to eliminate a nail line. I decided to save myself a coat and put black undies on my nails first. I set my bottle upside down while I did my base and undies coats so that the glitter could get all up on the brush. One coat of Irish Brawn was opaque with undies but I put another coat on for depth. This is picture heavy because every photo I took just didn’t do this spectacular polish justice. I chipped my middle nail this week so I’m not pleased with my nails – they’re down to nubs and still not even. I am, however, in love with this polish. Here we go, click to enlarge:

Natural light

Indoor, no flash

Indoor with flash

Indoor with flash

Indoor with flash

Indoor with flash

Indoor with flash

The pros:

1. This polish is a stunner. There is so much depth to it with two coats – you can see layers of glitter peeking through the jelly. It looks mostly black from some angles and then flashes bright green when it catches the light. Oh man.
2. I did one layer on half of my hand with one brush dip.
3. This is an absolute glitter bomb. So much glitter with every brush stroke! I didn’t have to place glitter because there was so much on every brush stroke, plus the glitter distributed evenly without bunching up at the nail tip.
4. It needed topcoat but wasn’t super gritty like some glitter bombs are.
5. It’s gorgeous. Did I say that already? Sorry. Not really though.

The cons:

1. I might crash my car staring at my nails when I drive to work tomorrow.
2. I’ll have to foil remove it. That’s not really a con for me, but some people despise glitter removal so I’m putting it here even though it doesn’t bother me.

My verdict? I think you can tell. This is my favorite Pretty and Polished polish to date. Not that I have a massive amount of them, but this is at the top of my polish in general. It just has so much depth and sparkle to it, the pictures I took do it no justice. I also bought Old Green River but you’re going to have to wait to see swatches of that for now because I’m so mesmerized by Irish Brawn. So keep your eyes peeled!

You can purchase Irish Brawn for $9/15mL bottle on the Pretty and Polished website.