FingerPaints Holiday Love Affair Collection

If you've been reading here for a while, you've heard me talk about the backlog of polishes in my "to be swatched" boxes. This weekend, I took some of that backlog to Illinois, hoping to catch up a bit (there's only so much eating and socializing and sorting stuff I can do before I need a break). I did manage to get through some of what I took with me, and you'll see those polishes here soon, but today I've got something to share that wasn't even on my radar when I left home on Wednesday night: the FingerPaints Holiday Love Affair collection, which I spotted for the first time Friday morning at a Sally Beauty near my mom's house. I didn't know then that it was called the Holiday Love Affair collection, as the display was missing its backing board, but I did know they were colors I hadn't seen before, so I bought them (I had a coupon, so I really had to get them, you see). Later that day, when my mom and I went out to see what deals might be left after the hordes of Black Friday shoppers had passed, I went to a different Sally's and saw a proper display of these colors.



Both of the displays I came across had enough empty slots that I wasn't sure if there was already a color sold out, but poking around a bit on the web, I now believe there are just five colors in this collection. Left to right below: Holiday Love Affair, Kiss By the Tree, Frolic in the Snow, Sugar Cookie for Two, and Golden Kisses.



Holiday Love Affair is a red shimmer with subtle gold highlights. I used two coats over base for my swatch; no topcoat.





It has a nice glow in direct low light:



I used Holiday Love Affair as a base for two of the glitters in the collection, Kiss By the Tree and Frolic in the Snow. Kiss by the Tree has red hex glitter in a mix of sizes from very small to large, white hex glitter ranging from very small to very large, and white bar glitter, all in a clear base.



Frolic in the Snow is white bar glitter in what I at first thought was a clear base but when I looked more closely, I saw some shimmer in there, too.



I put two coats of the glitter toppers over Holiday Love Affair, using Kiss By the Tree on most of my digits and Frolic in the Snow as an accent nail. I didn't manage to get any of the really big white hexes in Kiss By the Tree out of the bottle, and could have done a better job of evenly distributing the bars in Frolic in the Snow. The shimmer in Frolic in the Snow adds a pink tone, so these glitters didn't coordinate as well as I'd hoped over the red base. The red glitters in Kiss By the Tree were rather close in color to Holiday Love Affair, which meant the randomly scattered white bars stood out more, and that didn't please me.





I tried Golden Kisses next. I think this is a textured glitter. I mean, it definitely has texture when worn without topcoat, though whether that's intentional on FingerPaints' part, I do not know, because there's nothing to distinguish it from a regular color (no handle wrap like OPI's Liquid Sand colors, for instance). Here's Golden Kisses at two coats, no topcoat. I'd describe it as a greenish gold glittery flakie shimmer. Think Chanel Carbonite/Revlon Graphite but chunkier. At some angles, the gold dominated; at others the greenish brownish shimmer base showed more.





Adding topcoat to Golden Kisses seemed to bring out the flakie gold pieces more. I liked it better without topcoat.



The last polish in the group is Sugar Cookie for Two, which has black and gold bar glitter in a clear base. At some angles, I thought I saw silver bars in there, too, but I think that was just how the light was hitting it.



Since I had Golden Kisses on my nails already, I put two coats of Sugar Cookie for two on top of that, then added topcoat. The bars blended into the base color, which was fine by mean since bar glitter is not my favorite thing.





To show Sugar Cookie for Two in a non-blending situation, I also tried it over Holiday Love Affair. This made me feel much more twitchy than the lower contrast combination, but you bar glitter lovers out there might like it just fine.





I like that this collection is focused; it doesn't have a eight or nine or a dozen or eighteen shades from all over the color wheel. I also like that there's only one "normal" shade here; that feels like FingerPaints is paying attention to all of us nail nerds who crave variety. Sure, I wish there were less bar glitter in this group, but that's my personal taste; I still applaud the brand for doing something different (I can't think of another holiday collection with this much bar glitter). Golden Kisses is my favorite of the group; I don't even particularly like gold, but this is a weird-good gold. If I were going to change anything, I'd make the red shimmer a touch darker so it'd be a better base for Kiss By the Tree. To see that glitter a dark base, check out Teen Polish Junkie's post. I was going to say I'd add a sixth color, maybe a deep green flecked shimmer, but after pondering that idea some more, I don't think that would be a good move. The red/gold/white/black color scheme here works, and there's no need to add another hue.