orly - royal velvet - swatch and review

This polish has proved to be very frustrating for me.
I bought it because it just looked cool in the bottle, but really I don't wear dark shades like this very often. (Which reminds me, why did I buy a dark blue China Glaze today?)

Anyway. I tried to swatch this a month ago when I got it but just had such issues with it that I took it off and swore never to use it again.
But after loving Oh Cabana Boy I decided to give Royal Velvet another try, and it went much better.

The first time, it just would not dry right. It was latex-y and gross, and I kept denting it, and it was so uneven and gross. And so hard to clean up. Just a bad experience.
This time I was able to get much more even coverage and it did dry fine. I don't know what happened last time!

Royal Velvet is sort of the definition of "blurple." It's a purple jelly-like base that sometimes looks blue, with bright blue shimmer. Sort of duochrome.

Hard to capture in pictures.

It's a bit sheer - 4 coats for perfect coverage.

Even though I had an easier time with application this time, I'm still not in love with this. I just don't think dark is my thing anymore.

The last picture is my favorite because it shows the purple!

I'll be posting my April haul tonight - I almost made it to my goal of less polishes than there are days in the month. Almost.

P.S. I got 2 blog awards yesterday from lovely ladies - I'll do my post on that tomorrow!