Kiko 448 Cobalt Blue

I love blue nail polish, next to red, it's my favorite color to wear. So it may come as no surprise that my favorite out of the Kiko sets that my friend brought me from Italy is the bright blue satin polish.

Kiko 448 Cobalt Blue is a blue cream with a subtle shimmer in it. It's incredibly bright and vibrant, not a color if you don't like your polish to be noticed.

The formula was really nice, it flows on the nail easily and is opaque in 2 coats. It dries fast and incredibly shiny, my swatches are without topcoat. This does tend to stain your nails though, so a base coat is an absolute must!

When I first got this, it reminded me a lot of my favorite blue polish, Essie Butler Please. They are very similar in color, with only the slightest difference, But this one has a shimmer, where as Butler is a straight up cream.

I'm very happy to have both, but they are close enough that you don't need to buy one if you own the other.
What's your favorite blue polish?

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Kiko 450

I have been wearing a lot of gorgeous dark, red and sparkly polishes this past few months and after reading my friend Lu's post, I just felt I needed a bright polish on my nails. So I wandered over to my Helmer and looked at all my polish, but couldn't decide which polish I wanted to wear. I think I just don't have enough to choose from. A polish buy is totally necessary!

 

Then I remembered I received a gorgeous bright Kiko polish, took it out of it's snug place between the other polishes and painted my nails. It was just what the doctor ordered!

 

Kiko 450 is a gorgeous bright blue polish, I call this a neon mint blue if that makes sense. It's a a satin polish and came in a set with 7 other polishes. Normally I would show a bottle shot here, but I totally spaced and forgot to take one, so the swatch pictures will have to do.

The formula was nice, opaque in 2 coats and it was reasonably easy to apply. I did notice some dragging after going over the same spot too much, so make sure to use as few strokes as possible to cover your nail for the best result. This polish dried really fast and extremely shiny, these pictures are without topcoat.

Look at that color! Don't get me wrong, I love my dark and twisty polishes, but this is such a nice change. I can't get enough of it and I know this will be a much loved polish in spring and summer.

What's your favorite bright polish?

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Kiko Sugar Mat 451 Apricot

Do you all know those t-shirts that say "My best friend went to *fill in appropriate destination here* and all she brought me is this stupid t-shir"? Well, I wanted to name this blogpost "My best friend went to Italy and all she brought me were these 21 Kiko polishes!" Yes, that's right, 21 polishes! I have the best friends :D

Today I have the first of those polishes for you. I decided to start with the one I actually like the least, to safe the best for last... kind of...
Kiko Sugar Mat 451 Apricot is a textured polish that has, like the name says the color of apricots. I'm not quite sure if Apricot is the name of this polish, because on the bottle they just have numbers, but this was part of a Sugar mat set and this name is on the box.

Sugar mat is the Kiko textures line and they have several colors. This is a peachy pinky salmon color (I know, bad description, but it's the best I can do for this color), with a hot pink shimmer.

It looks really nice in the bottle, but I was afraid it would make me look dead and unfortunately, I was right. The shimmer does translate on to the nail, but not as strong as in the bottle. I'm not the biggest texture fan, but this seems to be a bit finer than the OPI Liquid Sands and I think I just might like these better.

The formula was nice, this is 2 coats on my nails, but I should have done a 3rd. Last night it looked opaque, but in daylight, I can still see some bald spots, althoug it is less noticable in person than in my pictures. It dried really fast, like most textures and because of the shimmer, it sparkles on the nail. This is a nice neutral color, appropriate for every occasion, even job interviews. I like that they include a neutral sugar mat in the set and I do like the color, it just doesn't like me back.

Have you tried Kiko polishes and what do you think?

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