Manicure Monday: Hard Candy "Crystal Confetti"

I was so excited when Hard Candy sent over these nail polishes for me to try out, because there is so much glitter!!  Ok, here's the thing about glitter polish: 

A) It's hard to put on

B) It's hard to take off

I previously wrote a post on simplifying the glitter nail polish removal process, but I just recently learned how to better apply the stuff.  It's hard to get the chunky glitter in the right places...if you apply it like normal polish it always seems to leave big pieces of glitter at the end of the nail and none at the top!  I have discovered that (for the first coat) IT'S OK to use the brush to place the larger glitter pieces where they need to go.  Moving the glitter around while the polish is wet won't screw up your manicure and it will create a nicer finished look.  If you don't want to use the nail polish brush, you could use a toothpick to move the glitter where you want it!

Here are 4 colors from the Hard Candy "Crystal Confetti" collection.  I have quite a few more Hard Candy colors to show you next week...these are all I had time to swatch today!  Here they are:

"Fireworks" (top: 1 coat, bottom: 2 coats)

"Fun n' Festive" (2 coats)

"Jubilee" (1 coat)

"Hip Hip Hooray" (top: 1 coat, bottom: 2 coats)

My favorite was "Hip Hip Hooray".  The big glitters and the pretty mix of colors are just lovely.  I really loved "Fireworks", but I did come across one problem: some of the long bar glitters were too curved, so they were protruding out of the dry polish.  You can see what I'm talking about if you look closely in the first couple photos.  This was somewhat bothersome...a thick topcoat might fix it, but I'm not sure.  I also like "Jubilee" (it was actually my St. Patrick's Day nail polish and was the perfect blend of colors).  "Fun n' Festive" is alright, but it screams Christmas to me, so I probably wouldn't wear it too often...it's a good Christmas polish though!  I didn't use any topcoat on these, however, if I wasn't just trying them out I would definitely use topcoat to smooth them out.

The Hard Candy polishes are available only at Walmart and Walmart.com and they retail for $3.97.  I think for that price they are a fantastic deal!  You don't usually find this great of coverage in the less expensive polishes.

Also, please forgive my sad nails in these pictures.  They decided to break off really badly, so I had to file them all down super short.  And my poor cuticles are so dry and I haven't had time to take care of them properly.  Hopefully next week they will look a little better!

(Product sent for review. All opinions 100% my own.)