Hey there! If you're into nail art, I highly suggest getting a set of sheer polishes and I have a great set to share with you today. I'm a big fan of Hit The Bottle stamping polishes (you can find my giant swatch post of all the Hit The Bottle polishes I had to date here) so I was thrilled when I saw she was releasing a set of "Jelly Shots" - sheer polishes that are perfect for leadlighting and more. And I was lucky enough to receive a set from Beautometry, a USA-based stockist that ships internationally. There's a fair bit of time put into this review since I wanted to see how each one looked individually as a leadlighting polish but also tested them out for a couple of other nail art looks as well. I've purchased sooooo many leadlighting polish sets in the past (OPI, Essie, Nfu Oh, EdK Soap Bubbles and more - I have an entire Helmer drawer just for polishes like this) and I can honestly say these are my favourites. With jelly polishes, I've found that either they have some pigment in them that makes them still show up over black (which isn't ideal for leadlighting if you stamp in black, as I tend to do) or they're thick and goopy and prone to bubbles. The Jelly Shots set doesn't have any of those drawbacks. They're pretty amazing! Keep reading to see all the details...
I just realized that maybe not everyone knows what leadlighting is. If you google it, you'll mostly get results related to stained glass but a few years ago someone applied this to nail art referring to stamping an image over a light coloured base) and filling in the image on top of the stamping. For this, you need a sheer polish that isn't going to muddy the original stamped image but one with enough color that it shows up easily.
For my swatch photos, I painted all the nails white. On the stamped nails I stamped an image from KN2 with Mundo de Unas Black (my newest purchase of Hit The Bottle's black stamping polish hadn't arrived yet) and then painted every second area with the Jelly Shot. I deliberately painted on the black lines to see if it would be visible. On the other nails, I applied 3 coats of the polish over white. Most of them look okay at 3 coats but there's a bit of patchiness in some. But you can see that they do build up okay but it would take a lot of coats to get them opaque on their own. However these aren't designed to be worn on their own so that's to be expected.
bright pink jelly polish
This is the only polish of the collection that I found had any white pigment that made it show up over the black stamping. But still less than most other jellies I've tried to date.
orange-toned red jelly polish
I think Fireball is my favourite of them all. It applied so smoothly and is an awesome bright red. I see some leadlighted rose nails in my future!
orange jelly polish
Screwdriver photographed a little more tame than it appeared in real life. It should be a brighter - not quite neon but also not this Safety Orange that it appears to be here.
yellow jelly polish
I was really impressed at the application of Bumble Bee. With regular polish, yellows tend to be patchy but this was the smoothest of the bunch. And still didn't take extra coats for the leadlighting. It was bright and colourful with just one application over the stamping.
green jelly polish
The last four polishes in the collection are darker and more patchy when applied as regular polish than the first four. I found Shamrocked to be the least smooth in it's application over white but it worked easily for the leadlighting. The perfect green for your future floral leadlight manis!
blue jelly polish
I love the shade of blue this gives as a leadlighting polish. 3 coats on the outer nails is pretty dark but a single coat on the stamped nails is a lovely hue.
purple jelly polish
I found this to have the most sheer formula of the set. Again, I love the color it gives for leadlighting.
black jelly polish
A sheer black isn't something everyone needs but it's one of only a few I've come across ever. I did try this one as a base for some sheer lace nails but found it to be a little too pigmented for that. But if you have a lighter hand than me, this might be perfect for you.
Leadlighting
For this leadlighting mani where I used all except Black Magic, I stamped an image from Moyra Stained Glass (#44) over the Colors by Llarowe Chasing A Unicorn Duo and coloured in the stained glass butterflies with the Jelly Shots. So much quicker than reverse stamping!
Jelly Rainbow
Jelly polishes are also great when you want to just blend colors together effortlessly. Here I applied the rainbow of Jelly Shots over a base of Esmaltes da Kelly Funga Funga (swatches coming soon) and then stamped with Creative Shop 35 and Mundo de Unas White.
Water Marbling
The Jelly Shots are also known to water marble. I'm certainly not the best person to be showing that off since I'm terrible at marbling but I can say that these did spread easily. I water marbled each of the colors paired with Black Magic for this attempt. This was my second water marble with them. In the first (which was a fail) I found that you can get very different color intensities depending on how much the polish spreads on the water so keep that in mind.
Beautometry also supplied me with this water marbling tool. Unfortunately I can't find a link for it now but keep your eyes open if you're still using toothpicks for your marbling like I tend to. It's sharp enough that it marbles nicely but not so sharp that you'll stamp your hand when you don't notice it. And the mini rubber rings around it make it really nice to use.
I hope I've given you a few ideas of just how versatile these polishes are. But there are certainly other types of nail art that you can do with them. Really the possibilities are almost endless. You better believe that the next time I get the itch to do a pond mani, these will be what I reach for. I'll note too that since I received these there's also a brown jelly polish available now called Choc-Lit. I didn't receive it but you can find it here if you're interested.
$7 USD each
$63 USD/complete set of 9
Available at Beautometry
'Til next time...
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