Nubar Jellybeans Collection for Spring 2012 Swatches and Review

I love jelly beans. They're not necessarily a seasonal-only candy (they're around all year), but I tend to only think about them in spring, especially around Easter. My grandma used to make me an Easter basket every year and decorate the tufts of plastic Easter grass by sprinkling large jelly beans around it. Those were usually the very deceptive Spice jelly beans- you know the ones... They're fruit colored, but then you bite into them and they taste like burning band-aids? I don't mind them now that I'm older, but I'd still much rather have the fruit kind. I remember when the Starburst jelly beans first came out, I used to love those. But my all time favorite are Jelly Belly jelly beans. When I buy them, I always have to make a mix of Buttered Popcorn (best jelly bean flavor ever), Kiwi, Juicy Pear, Cantaloupe, Pink Grapefruit, Dr. Pepper, Watermelon, Peach, Toasted Marshmallow, Cream Soda and Root Beer.

But... what does any of that have to do with nail polish? Not much, except that Nubar has just released their spring 2012 collection called Jellybeans.


Nubar Blueberry. Gorgeous bright primary blue creme. This is a clean blue- no muddiness or dustiness, no other colors in it, just pure Crayola blue.



Nubar Blue Raspberry. This is a light turquoise creme. Actually, to my eye, it looks like a near-perfect Robin's Egg Blue. Can't think of a more spring-appropriate blue than that.



Nubar Cherry. This red it a little different than most. It's lighter and has an odd sort of faded look to it. It leans more warm than I'd think of for a cherry red, more like hot sauce than cherry candy. I can't think of another red creme that looks exactly like this (Zoya America or Tamsen are the closest to compare it to), and I know my picture doesn't really convey it, but this is a pretty unusual one in my collection.



Nubar Grape. Bright grape candy purple creme. This one has a bit of a creamy jelly look to it, but mostly because it's pretty sheer. This is three coats and I can see a little nail through it still, so it could probably use a fourth. Really pretty purple color, though.



Nubar Kiwi. A pale sea green. This has more yellow in it than a lot of the mint colors in my collection, so it's slightly less harsh looking on my hands (doesn't bring out too much red) and it's easier for me to wear.



Nubar Lemon. It's a very bright yellow creme. I think it's great! It's really bright but not neon and has a super creamy finish.



Nubar Strawberry. This is a creamy strawberry ice cream color. Or, even better, the filling inside one of these:

Nubar Toasted Marshmallow. This is the oddball of the bunch. It's a light brown caramel-suede type of color and it looks very strange next to all the brights and pastels in this collection. I can see where they were going with the jellybean/toasted marshmallow or maybe even toasted almond look, but it really stands out like a sore thumb in this collection!

The formula on these wasn't what I expected. Recent Nubar cremes have been very smooth and opaque, these weren't. They were very sheer and unexpectedly runny but thick in texture. I had difficulty with most of the shades. I did three coats of each and they needed all three. Some might even benefit from more. The dry time on them is rather long and I experienced some bubbling with them. I would recommend doing very thin coats and waiting a few minutes in between each. That's my usual method for preventing bubbles on polishes that dry slowly.

Judging from the name of the collection (Jellybeans) and the sheerness of the formula, I think these were supposed to be a set of jelly finish polishes. None of them really look like jellies to me, maybe Blueberry and Grape come close, but not exactly what I think of when I think 'jelly'. They're just sort of diluted cremes that take three coats to even out. If jelly finish was what they were going for, they missed the mark... but the colors are still really pretty.

Overall, I like the colors but not the formula. I wish that they were either more jelly-like or more dense and opaque like Nubar's other cremes. The colors are gorgeous, though. My favorites are Grape, Lemon, Blueberry, Kiwi and Blue Raspberry. I actually wore Cherry, Lemon, China Glaze Gaga For Green, Blueberry and Grape as a Skittles manicure last week and the colors looked really fun and colorful together. Just don't forget the quick-dry topcoat!

This collection will be available soon (no exact date given on the press release) on ByNubar.com.

(This was sent for review.)