The Cuccio Cinema Noir collection was received here at The Nailscape with much anticipation. We couldn’t wait to get our hands on these film noir-inspired hues, nor wait to get them on our nails! Our swatcher Emily has her review of each shade:
CUCCIO CINEMA NOIR COLLECTION SWATCHES
This collection is a collection that I would not hesitate to buy for myself if I had seen it in a store; the colors are all so deep and intense. The collection consists of four metallics, three creams, and one shimmer. The Cuccio Colour brushes always have plastic bristles but they are really dense and the brush has a good width so it doesn’t affect the application in a negative way at all. Some plastic brushes I’ve worked with have been a nightmare, but these are really nice.
The last Cuccio Colour collection I reviewed was the Cocktails collection and I mentioned how many of the polishes were what I called “sticky.” If the coats weren’t completely dry between coats, the first coat would drag down with the next coat and it would leave really thin spots around the cuticles. I didn’t have that problem with any of these polishes. This collection is about half opaque on the first coat and half pretty transparent, but I’ll go into more detail about that below. I’ll start with the four metallics.
All of the metallics were a bit matte before the topcoat, but as soon as the topcoat was applied they became so shiny and pretty. They were mostly opaque on the first coat. One thing you will want to be careful about is the application and clean up of the metallics. If you get quite a bit on the cuticles and then try to clean it up with a brush or q-tip or some other tool, as the metallic shimmers will get EVERYWHERE. CUCCIO CINEMA NOIR COLLECTION SWATCHES
Femme Fatale
This is probably the brightest color in the collection and it’s also my least favorite of them all. This is one of the polishes that was very thin and transparent upon application so it did take two full coats and then a third coat on some spots to get the opacity in the pictures. Being one of the brighter colors it kind of threw me for a loop since the rest of the collection has a lot of depth. This isn’t a color that I would ever call deep. It isn’t the worst polish ever, but I would consider it the disappointment of this collection. One of the good things about this polish is the wear time, it was about three days before I noticed the tips were rubbing off and then another two days before I noticed the first chip. Once it started chipping though, it chipped a lot.
Touch of Evil
A really nice lavender purple, darker than the lavender you think of in your grandma’s garden. This polish applies really smoothly and spreads evenly. It could have been a one coater! I used two coats because I can’t wear just one coat, but its definitely thick enough to have been one and done. The only downfall with this color is that it separates really easily. Just leaving it to sit on my desk for two days, I noticed blue pigment separating from the polish. It mixes back in fairly easily also though, so it’s not a huge downfall. Just give it a good roll or shake or however you mix your polishes before use and it looks beautiful. This polish had about the same wear time as Femme Fatale, it lasted about three days before I noticed the tips were rubbing off, even with capping the nail. I’ve mentioned before that I work in a warehouse though, so I am constantly using my hands and not always gently. If you work in a less demanding environment then they will probably last longer than that. I didn’t see any chips by the time I went to remove this polish.
Private Eye
This is a deep blue color, all around really dark and gorgeous. It was a one coater, even though I used two coats. It was almost the exact same consistency as Touch of Evil; it spread really nicely and evenly and is smooth. The biggest downfall of this polish is the fact that there is so much pigment and it is dark so during cleanup, that it is hard to get off of your skin, so try to avoid any skin contact. This is also the only polish that I noticed could get a little streaky if you aren’t careful. The metallic glitters would be thicker on some strokes and thinner on other so it would give it an uneven effect even though it is applied evenly. The second coat covered any unevenness and made the polish really clean. I also noticed at the edges, the polish was rubbing off on the first day, which is pretty common for me with darker polishes.
Notorious
This was my favorite of the metallics. It is so vibrant and such an unusual color of green, it kind of pops from every skin color I’ve seen it worn on and I like that. This one was not as thick as Private Eye but it was pretty close. I think it was just thin enough to not cause any of the streaking that I saw happening with Private Eye, but also thick enough that one coat does the job well. It is full coverage in one coat. Its not dark enough to stain my skin which is nice, it means that if you plan on doing cleanup after application, then its not as important for the application to be perfect. This lasted me almost an entire week before I noticed the edges rubbing off and I never did get any chips with it.
Onto the cremes, they were all thinner than the metallics and the thinnest polish in the collection is a creme. It takes two and three coats in some cases, but that doesn’t take away from how gorgeous they turn out to be in the end. They were also all three really shiny without the topcoat. I only painted two fingers with top coat for all three of these polishes to show a comparison.
Who Dunn It?
This is the teal creme polish in the collection. It is fairly thin, but not so thin that it never reaches opacity. It builds really nicely, so I used three thin coats. Since it was thin I knew I would need three coats as soon as I applied the first one. If I had done two thicker layers it would probably have spots that were thinner than the rest of the nail. Since it is not as thick as the others I’ve gone over thus far, it is a bit runnier coming out of the bottle and it is easier to flood your cuticles if you don’t pay attention. Like I mentioned above, this is really shiny once dry, so I put topcoat on my ring finger and pinky so the first two fingers don’t have any on them and I can’t tell a difference. When it comes to wear time I did notice a difference. The polishes at the free edge of my nail didn’t rub off from the nails with topcoat until two days after my ring and pinky had that problem. So I would still wear a topcoat in all cases.
Lauren Blucal
This is another deep blue, not quite as dark as Private Eye. This one is brighter, but still really pretty. It is thicker than Who Dunn It? but still pretty thin compared to the metallics. This applied really smoothly, I used two coats for even coverage but if you did a thicker first coat you could probably get away with just the one. Since it is so dark and so pigmented, clean up is a nightmare. This was the worst in the entire collection for cleanup, getting this color off of my cuticles took so long and I’m not sure I succeeded 100%. The wear time was excellent though, I wore it for four days and didn’t notice rubbing on the free edge or any chipping, and I did dishes wearing this color. I apparently forgot a base coat on one nail and it did stain my nail bed pretty well so I would be careful with that too. Again my ring and pinky have topcoat and the other two don’t.
Smoking Gun
This is my favorite of the cremes. Its not too dark, but once I applied three thin coats, it had gotten pretty dark. I really like the smokiness of it, the name is really perfect for the polish because it looks like the exact color of smoke and when I think about applying it, it kind of applies in a smoky manner too. This is the thinnest of the cremes, but also the easiest to apply and I’m not really sure why. It just went on really smoothly, the first layer was really uneven but by the second one that was fixed. I added a third coat for full opacity. The only thing that kind of tripped me up about this polish was the brush on my bottle was pretty frayed at the tip. I highly doubt that’s how all of the bottles are, it just so happened to be that way on the bottle that I received which isn’t a horrible deal, I clean up around my cuticles with every polish anyways, it was just a little harder to get close to my cuticles around the nail bed without getting it all over my skin. I used topcoat on my ring finger and pinky again and this was the only polish where you could actually tell. The polish looks darker on the nails that don’t have topcoat on, and the color looks lighter on the two nails that have topcoat.
Now onto my favorite color of the entire collection.
Pulp Fiction Pink
This pink is so classy and elegant, so beautiful. It reminds me of the Botanical Gardens collection by Morgan Taylor. It is really thick, as thick as Private Eye, so it applies nicely. This is the one shimmer of the collection and it is a subtle shimmer so I didn’t have any problems at all with streakiness. Its just a really nice color. It didn’t pop a whole lot next to my skin which I like sometimes because it means I can wear it to work.This did dry a little dull like the metallics did, but adding a topcoat makes that shimmer come to life and so I definitely wouldn’t wear it without a topcoat! The wear time was really good too, it lasted almost five days before I saw any rubbing off of the free edge, and there was never any chipping. I did laundry and dishes wearing this polish. It could have been me being more careful though since I just love this color so much!
These colors are available now from Cuccio worldwide, and are all available in Veneer as well as the traditional Cuccio Colour polish reviewed above. CUCCIO CINEMA NOIR COLLECTION SWATCHES
Which color is your favorite? Do you see your clients enjoying these screen siren colors? We obviously have our favorites, but the collection as a whole is a great addition to a Cuccio Collection, especially in Veneer. CUCCIO CINEMA NOIR COLLECTION SWATCHES