Layla Hologram Effect Ocean Rush

today has been ridiculous! i went with my mom to visit my grandmother in the town where i grew up... nothing exciting happened there. but... we got to a stop light and i made a joke about accidentally rear ending our friend that was in front of us... worse timing EVER because the fuel pump then decided to give out. in the middle of the intersection. EMBARRASSING! so my mom and i hopped out to push, and a couple nice guys came and helped us push it to the side of the road. our friend came back after realizing we weren't following her anymore, and a really nice guy stopped and looked at the engine. he thought it was the fuel pump, and he was right! so my mom's car is in the shop there and we borrowed one of our friend's cars to get home to Virginia Beach... it's been crazy!

in other *good* news, today starts off reviews of the 2012 Layla Hologram Effect collection! i bought mine from Ulta for $15.50, they are available on their website here. you can find a coupon/coupon code on Ulta's homepage here.

we're kicking off with Ocean Rush, a gorgeous bright blue. after reading other ladies' reviews, i went ahead and buffed my nails really well and then used Seche Vite as a base coat. i was concerned with every little bump/flaw showing, so i went ahead with two coats of SV... that didn't work very well. i experienced patching and balding, i think the SV dried with a bit of texture, maybe almost mimicking a sticky finish. this polish dries FAST, you definitely don't want to keep going over the same area of nail. i was a repeat offender on that count, so i ended up with balding and lumps on some nails. the good thing is that since the polish is so fast drying AND dries very smooth, it's easy to add another coat to fix any issues. i used two coats for full opacity, but i didn't use my usual method of scraping one side of the brush inside the bottle to remove polish from half the brush. i tried that on the first couple nails and quickly realized i was barely getting any polish on the brush that way... from then on i just dipped the brush in and used everything on the brush on my nail. these brushes don't pick up a lot of product, that's for sure!

these are SO cool! unfortunately, the wear time with this choice of base is atrocious. it chipped almost immediately and then has been peeling off in chunks all day. i will be trying different methods throughout the week, hopefully one will improve the wear! if not, i still think these polishes are worth purchasing... but i'd use them as event polish (like date night, formal/ball, party...). the price tag is certainly hefty for polish that i won't be using everyday! how about you guys, will you be picking up any of this collection? Ria :)