Five Below Surprises

When I was in Illinois, as I mentioned in my last display post of 2018, I found three polishes at Five Below that I'd never seen before, despite the stores having almost no polishes in them compared to what they once did. Of course I grabbed them, and now I've had time to swatch them: Cosmic Ray, Dark Matter, and Aurora.



Fresh Paint Cosmic Ray is an orangey pink shimmer that's opaque in three coats. It shows a hint of a duochrome shift some angles.





To see if I could coax out more of that shift, I put two coats of Cosmic Ray over a black base.







I also tried Cosmic Ray over other bases. Top to bottom, two coats of Cosmic Ray over: Sally Hansen Metallic Sunburst (gold metallic), Essie At the Helm (orange creme), Film Noir (dark berry creme), black creme.



Angled to show the shift:



Funky Fingers Dark Matter is a deep green shimmer. My swatch is three coats.





Two coats of Dark Matter over a black creme base brings out a blue shift (and highlights the shimmer as well).







Of course I tried over other bases, too. Top to bottom, Dark Matter over: Sally Hansen Metallic Sunburst, SinfulColors Endless Blue (blue creme), SinfulColors Exotic Green (green creme), black creme.





Fresh Paint Aurora is a magenta pink shimmer. This was the most opaque of the trio; I almost stopped at two coats but went ahead and did three.





Over black, Aurora shows a very pronounced purple to pink shift.







Aurora was not to be left out of the base variety step. Top to bottom over Sally Hansen Metallic Sunburst, SinfulColors Endless Blue, Sally Hansen Cherry Cherry Bang Bang (bright berry creme), black creme. I was really surprised by this over the blue; it became a really rich looking purple.







These are nice polishes. Too bad we can't expect more from these brands based on what we're seeing in the Five Below stores.