SWATCHSCAPE: BLISS GENIUS COLOR

We tried out the new Genius polish line from Bliss Spa. This highly-pigmented line of 5-free polishes come from the makers of some of our favorite spa treatments. We gave our amazing swatcher, Emily, free reign to swatch and review a few of the polishes and a treatment. Here are her complete thoughts on the brand! (We received a PR sample of the line to play with in exchange for our honest review.) Take it away, Emily!

The bottles for Bliss genius nail polish are tall and rectangular, the cap is taller than the body of the bottle and its mirrored. Being such a long cap, it makes it easy to hold and easy to work with while using. The brush is wider than average which is nice during application. It has more plastic-y bristles and that does make it harder to get even coats, but its not a bad brush.

Strength in Digits Nail Strengthener

The use says: Bonds and seals weak nail to prevent breakage.

This came at a great time for me as I could not get my left hand nails to stop peeling and/or breaking. I don’t know what I did to them but I can’t keep any length on them. I wore this nail strengthener for just under two weeks on my left hand. I wore it with two coats each time I reapplied – which was once every two days. I took it completely off and reapplied on clean nails.

The wear time was relatively short which is why I had to reapply so often. During household chores I got chips in the polish at the tips of my nails. It did do it job though, in the almost two weeks I only had one nail break and no peeling. In the two weeks previous to that I had three and a half breaks (one being fixable) and all of my nails were peeling. It’s a great product and my only complaint is the wear time.

Since this is a newer brand I went to their site and found a little bit of information that makes a huge difference to me.

First off, Bliss Genius polish is 5 free. Meaning that it doesn’t contain 5 of some of the most harmful chemicals in nail polish: dibutyl phthalate, camphor, toluene, formaldehyde resin and formaldehyde. It also contains ‘spa powered’ ingredients like milk thistle extract which soothes and comforts, wheat extract which restores resilience and moisture, soy germ which also provides moisture and hydration, and vitamins A, C, and E.

All three polishes that I have to show today are cremes and with the 45 nail colors on offer it looks like the brand specializes in cremes as they don’t seem to have any polishes with any other finish (frosted, glitters, matte). The three polishes that I have today all have really great formulas, they all applied like butter.

Violet Femmes is a deep, dark purple color, almost the color of eggplant. It is mostly opaque in one coat but in certain light you can see where it is thinner in some areas than in others. Two coats was perfect for me and made it look very evenly applied all over the nail. I used my favorite top coat and made sure to cap the free edge. I did the dishes with it on and went through an entire workday without a chip. Removing can be tricky since this color is so pigmented. I use a cotton ball to remove my nail polish, any area where the cotton ball had nail polish on it and then touched my skin it automatically stained my finger purple. I went through five cotton balls removing one hand of nail polish when normally it takes two. However the polish itself is beautiful and has great wear time. Application was super easy with the formula. The closest dupe that I have in my collection is OPI A Grape Affair, but violet femmes is still darker.

Meringue-ing Around is the color of a yellow rose – not bright, just really soft. The formula is almost the same as the others but I had to use three thin coats of this one to get even coverage instead of using only two. After I put top coat on it wore well and I didn’t have any chips or dings in it by the time I took it off.

Jade to Order is a soft green color. The only problem that I found with this one was that it bleeds into the top coat. It is a soft green and then once you put the top coat on it turns into a brighter green. I thought when I applied it first that I just didn’t wait long enough to put the top coat on. I tried again and waited over 20 minutes to apply topcoat (because I forgot about it) and it did the same thing. I tried two different topcoats and they both did the same thing, so I just took pictures without top coat. I used two coats for evenness but it was almost opaque in one coat. The picture for the topcoat comparison shows the thumb nail with topcoat and the two others without.

With both Meringue-ing Around and Jade to Order, I left them sitting on my desk and in only two days you can start to see separation around the neck of the bottle. I suggest giving them a good roll before applying them. These polishes do stamp beautifully, as long as you use one of the more pigmented polishes.

swatchscape

Ashley Gregory
Ashley Gregory is an award winning, in-demand session manicurist whose work is inspired by fashion and art. Ashley's work has been featured in international publications and local media. She has worked backstage as a lead manicurist at Mercedes-Benz Fashion Week, with celebrity clientele, and on various film and television projects.