Review: New NYC nail color and lip color

A while back, I purchased one of the new limited edition NYC Kiss Glosses from the Sun Soaked Collection. Hopefully this collection has become more easily available to you since I first posted pics of the display--I know it take as while for LE collections to make their way across the country.

The one shade of Kiss Gloss that really jumped out at me in this collection was Coral Reef, so I picked it up and I thought I'd share my thoughts with you in case you've been eyeing this shade:

NYC Kiss Gloss in Coral Reef (retail: $1.99)

(I tweeked the color of the actual tube a bit in post-editing to get it as close to the real-life shade as I could and I think it's pretty spot-on.)

Now, what drew me to this shade was the promise of a more opaque, milky coral gloss. If you're familiar with the Kiss Gloss line, you know that the shades are all clear, tinted glosses that produce a hint of color but lots of shine. So I was pretty excited to see opaque glosses in the Sun Soaked Collection.

But, as you can see on the right side of the collage, Coral Reef becomes more and more sheer as you spread it out and apply it to your lips. In fact, the reason I didn't post a picture of my lips wearing this shade is because, when I wear Coral Reef, it looks like I'm just wearing a clear gloss. I just can't seem to detect the beautiful coral shade in the tube when it's actually on my lips. I do want to clarify that my lips are pretty pigmented, so if you have less pigmented lips, or fairer skin in general, the color might be far more pronounced. But if your lips are pretty pigmented or you skin is light-medium, medium or deeper, you might encounter the same problem as I did.

And one more thing that kind of let me down about this gloss? The flavor. I'm not sure what it's supposed to taste like, but to me it just tastes like artificial sweetener. I can't detect any fruity or dessert-type note to it--just sweetener. Also, the fragrance is a tiny bit strange. To my nose, it smells a bit plastic-y and not like a fruit or desert or anything like that. But the fragrance is very subtle, so that's good.

But let's move on to the real winner of the day, the new NYC in a New York Color Minute polish, which is NOT limited edition, rather it's part of the core collection (click here to see the other new core collection shades):

NYC Nail Color in Pier 17 (retail: $1.99)

I've gotta say, NYC is really hitting it out of the park with these new shades. First Flat Iron Green (which may or may not be a NARS Zulu dupe), and now Pier 17. Let me just cut to the chase and tell you that, if you're a blue polish fan, you need this. In my opinion, Pier 17 is the most true electric blue polish I have ever seen at the drugstore. In fact, looking at the collage above, I hope you can see my dedication to showing you the truest representation of this color that I could possibly present to you. After a zillion attempts, I decided to show you a snippet of my post-editing journey (above).

The pictures I took with my camera were so horribly inaccurate that I had to tweek and tweek to get it to come close--even if that meant making my hands nuclear-power-explosion-red (hey, at least they're not purple).

But no matter what I did, I couldn't seem to nail the true electric-blue quality of this shade. In the pics above, there's still a slight yellowish tint that is SO not there in real life. Pier 17 is a true electric blue shimmer with just the TINIEST hint of violet. It's amazing and it absolutely glows!

So as off-putting as that pic on the far right may seem, I'm only showing it to you so that you can see how dramatically different the color is when compared to the un-retouched photo on the far left.

Oh, and when you see the bottle in the display at CVS, Rite Aid, etc., you may think "She's lost her mind. It's not even that pretty." But I swear to you, the true beauty of this color comes out when you put it on. I've been wearing it non-stop for two days now and I don't ever want to take it off. There's just something about it that's special. It's got just the slightest tinge of violet to it that really makes it pop and gives it that electric quality.

I do want to warn you, if you buy Pier 17, that the first coat is icky. It's going to be sheer, globby (is that a word?) and streaky, but don't let that stop you. The second coat evens it out dramatically and makes it completely opaque (in the pics above I'm wearing two coats).

Also, I know that some of you have a problem with the staying power of NYC polishes (hi Jamie!) and I have a suggestion for you: try wearing these without a base coat. I've found that my regular Orly Bonder doesn't quite do the trick for me with some of these NYC shades, but when I skip my base coat they tend to perform much, much better for me. So give that a try if you've had problems in the past and let me know how it goes!

So, do you already own either of these new NYC goodies? If so, how do you like them? I'd love to hear from you!