Review: Salon Perfect Limited Edition Rockin' the Red, White & Blue Collection

Press Sample

This weekend is 4th of July (can you believe it's already July?) and if you're in the US and looking for a fun, easy nail look for the holiday festivities, I have some ideas for you, thanks to Salon Perfect.

The Salon Perfect limited edition Rockin' the Red, White & Blue collection is available in Walmart stores now. I have seen these polishes both in special end-cap displays and also in the regular, permanent display, depending on the Walmart location. So be sure to check both areas in the beauty department if you're looking for these.

I received the entire collection for review including six glitters, four non-glitters and one top coat. Since this is a large collection, I decided to swatch these on a nail wheel because it takes less time and I wanted to get this post up before the holiday (so you have time to grab some and do a mani before the weekend, if you are drawn to anything here!). So let's not waste any more time...

Salon Perfect Limited Edition Rockin' the Red, White & Blue Collection

(retail: $3.98 each, 0.5 oz, available exclusively at Walmart stores nationwide)

Review and swatches, after the jump...

Salsa Dance, Sugar Cube, Indigo-go, Titanium, Crystal Clear Top Coat
(permanent shades)

There are six glitters in this collection:

Speck-tacular, Let Freedom Bling, Liberty Bubbles, Pa-tri-otic

In addition to the four above, which are traditional toppers, there are two glitters that have more coverage (they didn't work as well as toppers for me; more on that in a bit):

Boom, Boom, Boom and Rockets' Red Glare

Macros and swatches:

Speck-tacular

Let Freedom Bling

Liberty Bubbles

Pa-tri-otic

One coat of each topper over a base color:
Speck-tacular (over Sugar Cube), Let Freedom Bling (over Salsa Dance), Liberty Bubbles (over Titanium), Pa-tri-otic (over Sugar Cube), Speck-tacular (over Salsa Dance)

In the swatches above, I swatches Speck-tacular over both Sugar Cube and Salsa Dance (see far left and far right) just to give you a better idea of how different these can be depending on your base color.

Speck-tacular: Easy to apply, no fishing required, easy to spread the glitter across the nail.

Let Freedom Bling: Easy to apply; lots of bar glitter with no need for fishing and easy to spread across the nail.

Liberty Bubbles: I love that this one isn't a traditional red, white and blue combo. The red is more orange, and the blue is a lighter, sky blue, making it easy to wear year-around. This topper gives my nails a very "mod" feeling when I wear it over the white base color (Sugar Cube) as opposed to the silver pictured above. I did have to fish for the larger circle glitters and dab on to the nail rather than brush. And I also experienced bubbling (which you can see in my swatch above). It has been very hot here in San Diego while I've been testing these polishes, so I'm not sure if that has contributed to the bubbling (sometimes it does). At any rate, when you wear this one over white, the bubbles are not obvious to the naked eye, however they are very visible on darker base colors.

Pa-tri-otic: In addition to Liberty Bubbles, this is one of the more unique combos in this collection (yay for triangles!). Again, I did experience some bubbling with this one (I'm not sure if that has more do to with the hot weather here in San Diego right now or the formula itself), but you can't really see the bubbles with the naked eye if you're wearing this polish over a white base color (as pictured above). I did have to fish to get the triangles out of the bottle, and I had to dab the glitter on to the nail as opposed to brushing.

Boom, Boom, Boom

Rockets' Red Glare 

Two coats of each polish:
Salsa Dance, Sugar Cube, Indigo-go, Titanium (permanent shades)
Boom, Boom, Boom and Rockets' Red Glare 

The permanent shades I was sent for review are Salsa Dance (red crelly), Sugar Cube (white creme), Indigo-go (blue crelly) and Titanium (silver metallic). I found that the red, white and blue polishes were all very easy to work with and only required two coats for perfect opacity. Titanium, on the other hand, was challenging to apply and left me with major brush stokes after two coats. 

Two coats of each polish (no base color):
Boom, Boom, Boom and Rockets' Red Glare

I wanted to talk about Boom, Boom, Boom and Rockets' Red Glare apart from the other toppers in this collection because, to me, they don't really feel like toppers. Boom, Boom, Boom reminds me of the Salon Perfect Neon Collision polishes from Summer 2013 in that the hex glitters are super tiny. You can easily build and achieve almost perfect coverage after two coats (see swatch above), and I actually found it a bit challenging to wear this as a topper because it deposits a lot of glitter after just one coat. Rockets' Red Glare is the same for me--you can build the coverage very easily with just two coats (see swatch above) so it's nice if you're going for a super blingy look.

As for dry-time, nearly all of these polishes dry at a normal rate, with the exception of Liberty Bubbles and Pa-tri-otic, which definitely benefit from the help of a quick-dry top coat. Speaking of top coats, I haven't had a chance to thoroughly test the Salon Perfect top coat I received along with these polishes, so I don't really want to comment on it just yet. I have used it a few times though, and find that it adds some nice shine to the nail, but I find the formula to be on the thinner side, which means you'll need multiple coats if you're using it to smooth out bumpy glitters.

FINAL VERDICT: I love that Salon Perfect gave us some "indie-like" matte glitter toppers in this patriotic-themed collection, and I think there's a great variety here with something for every type of glitter lover. For the most part, I find these polishes pretty easy to work with as far as glitters go, but I did have bubbling issues with the circle and triangle glitter toppers (although I don't know how much of that has to do with the hot weather here in San Diego right now, since hot weather does tend to make some of my polishes bubble that normally don't bubble). Also, you will definitely need to "fish and dab" with those two toppers, while the others don't require that method for application. Overall, I think this is a fun collection (as well as an easy way  to give yourself a quick, patriotic-themed manicure for the holiday!).

Again, this collection is available at Walmart stores nationwide now. I have seen these polishes very recently both in end-cap displays and also in the permanent Salon Perfect display, depending on the Walmart store. So be sure to check both areas if you're looking for these!

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