Review: Ruby Wings Take 2

Like I said in my first review of Ruby Wings, their customer service is unbelievable!

Within a few days of talking to them via email, I had a package containing the color changing Fate, a lavender indoors and a rich violet outdoors.

What follows is the review. Just for sanity's sake, I will state that this sample was provided to me for consideration.

This is Ruby Wing's Fate indoors. It actually looked a little lighter, but unfortunately no light seemed capture the color exactly right. It's a nice, muted lavender. A little on the dark side. Not pastel or frilly, but still feminine.

Outdoors, within seconds, it changed to a dark, rich purple. Definitely a significant difference, I'd say, and a lot better than the sample bottle that I received in my Birchbox.

Overall, this polish was much better to work with than the sample of Peony that I reviewed earlier. What you see here is three thin, manageable coats of Fate. It went on smooth, with none of the weird, stringy, pooling mess from before. There were no bald patches after two coats, but I put on a third just in case I missed something. 

You'll notice in the second photo that there are some decent chips in my polish. That picture was taken at the end of day three of wear. And I have come to assume that I will always chip my polish within three days since I work with my hands a lot. 

Even without the staying power of a standard polish, this is a fun little addition to my collection. I like that the colors are within the same family, so both indoors and out my nails looked good with my outfit. It was also a great conversation starter.

I'm very proud to say that Ruby Wings has good polish and amazing customer service. I can't wait to try out more of their products in the future. 

Thanks for reading!

April Birchbox: Ruby Wing Color Changing Nail Polish in Peony

I was so excited to get this polish in my box this month! When I heard it was an option for some of the subscribers, I cross my fingers and wished very hard.

And, voila, I got it!

Unfortunately, that was the only good thing to come out of this polish. What follows is one of the most disappointed polish reviews I've ever had to write.

This is the polish, indoors. Hm...I was told it would be bubblegum pink.

Something doesn't seem right here. In fact, this looks more like a coral. A very bright, very orangey coral with an undertone of pink. 

And...wasn't it supposed to change color? Y'know...like...a lot?

Oh look, an imperceptible sliver of color change, after spending ten minutes in the sun. And the instant the sun went behind a cloud, wham. Gone. 

My left hand had been in the sun for about ten minutes, my right hand had been in my back pocket. Also, pardon the terrible picture. My husband had to take it since my hands were busy modelling. 

Now, that was just the tail end of my woes. Let me start at the beginning. 

Out of the box, I knew something was wrong. This was coral, not pink. Maybe in some bizarre planet where the sun sets in the East, this is pink. But on this planet? In this time stream? This is an orange coral. 

Fine, whatever. It wouldn't be the first time I've been lead astray by marketing, especially nail polish marketing. And I like the color, so I decided to roll with it.

The formula, however, was an absolute nightmare. Even being very careful, using very thin coats, this polish was dreadful. It was thick and goopy, stringy like my bottle of Seche Vite towards the end of its lifetime. There was so much pooling around my cuticles that I had to pause my television show just to focus more on my manicure. 

Five coats later, and it is still patchy. There are bald spots aplenty near my nail beds and right before my nail line. 

And the color change? Non existent. I don't know if I just got a bad bottle or what, but the color change was so imperceptible I would hesitate to call this color changing polish. In the sun, it came out as a little more pink. Just so slightly deeper. But still, definitely, a coral. 

Even after ten minutes of sitting in full, bright sun, the only spot on my nail that changed color was one of the baldish patches along my cuticle. 

I'm thinking that this polish's cool effect works best with two coats or fewer, but the formula just does not allow that. 

Unfortunately, this is one product I'm iffy about buying. I've heard some of the other, full size bottles are much better. And that this shade, in particular, has issues. 

But I'm honestly kind of upset that they sent an iffy formula to Birchbox subscribers. 

Luckily, Ruby Wings has excellent customer service. After informing them of the problem, they have offered to send me a different bottle of Peony or another bottle of my choice. I'm going to try out a different polish and see what happens. Keep an eye out for that review!

Thanks for reading.