Reviews and Swatches: Sinful Colors - Bali Mist

Maybe you have plans for the weekend. Maybe it's the end of the month and rent is due. Maybe your electric bill was way higher than you expected. The truth is that sometimes, we just need a budget-friendly polish in our lives. Every Friday, I plan on reviewing polishes that you can buy in any pharmacy or big box store for only a few dollar.

The first polish that I'm going to look at is Bali Mist from Sinful Colors. Sadly, this isn't the best polish that I could have chosen for the first week of this series. I could have very well titled this post "Disappointment in a Bottle" or "Oh What a difference a Base Makes"

Brand: Sinful Colors
Name: Bali Mist (387)
Product Description:
Vintage: 2007

Collection:  permanent

Limited Edition: no

Sizes: .5 fl oz / 15 ml 

Dupes: ?
Price: $1.99





It's happened to all of us. You see this lovely color sitting on the shelf in the store. You just can't resist it. You take it home and try it  out....only to be sorely disappointed with the results.

In the bottle, Bali Mist has a subtle duochrome effect, shifting from purple and lavendar, through magenta and on to gold with hints of green.

On the nail, however, it looks like a flat, bland, lavender-leaning pink shimmer. My middle and ring fingers show the polish with no undies. These photos actually show more duochrome (gold-> pink) than I could see in real life, and this is only after a million layers. 

At 3 coats, I still had visible nail line. The photos here all show 4 coats of polish and somewhere between coats 3 and 4, the polish developed air bubbles. I usually don't have this problem when applying polish, so maybe it was a combination of the formula and the fact that it needed so many coats to achieve full opacity? Or perhaps it didn't get along well with my base coat? The polish also had a  tendency to show brush strokes.

Seeing how sheer the polish was as I applied it, I took a chance and layered the polish over a black base (Salon Perfect - Oil Slick) on my pinky and pointer fingers. The photos here show two  coats of Bali Mist over two coats of black. 

 The difference is startling. All of a sudden, the duochrome came to life! If anything, the duochrome is MORE apparent than in the bottle, with the green and purples showing up more boldly on the nail.

 I also didn't have the same problem with air bubbles that I had when painting without a base color. 

As I wrote this review, I did a search for others' opinions on this polish. The reviews on MakeupAlley in particular seem to match up with my observations pretty closely. This blogger even had the same problems with bubbles that I had.

 So how does this polish fare when you're on a budget? At $1.99 US, Sinful Colors polishes usually offer a fairly decent product for the price. You can even find these on sale at pharmacies like Walgreens for $.99. Even if you wind up with a bit of a dud, you're not out a huge investment. All in all, this polish on its own is a bit of a disappointment, but works well as a topper.

Manicures/nail art that use this nail polish:

• coming soon! 

Disclaimer: I will give my honest opinion on any reviews and swatches that appear on this site, regardless of origin. All products mentioned in this review were purchased by myself <3