When bad nail polish goes, well, bad.

Even stronger than my love for green nail polish is my inability to resist a gimmick. When MAC put pictures of Disney characters on the packaging of a lipbalm of theirs I really didn't like, I bought it. When Too Faced released a line of Smurf-themed products, I was first in line to get that blue glitter eyeliner that now languishes in my collection. You get the idea. So, when I was at God's gift to hip, financially strapped young adults, Five Below (a place where you can buy one of the coolest nail polish collections ever, LA Girls Rockstar, incidentally, and everything is under $5) and saw the cheap boxes of candy-themed nail polishes that smelled of said candy, I couldn't resist. My friend Amanda was there. She will tell you I was like a moth to a flame. I mean, look at it! Fun Dip nail polish! What could be more cool?

This is where we have to be honest with each other, though. Usually I always find something positive about a nail polish. It was a nice color. It dried well. The application was smooth. It had staying power. Well, I want to have a post where I tell you: the only thing that was fun about this polish was buying it. I picked a pretty good picture to show you the polish, but in reality, it was a horrific experience. I know what you're going to say. Come on, girl, it's Fun Dip nail polish. What do you expect? And I know you're right. But just for fun, let's pretend I expected this to be not awful, okay?

I chose the Mean Apple Green polish to take the set for a test drive because I love green. In the bottle, it actually looks like it might be a bright green creme with silver shimmer, but on the nail it was pretty much a grass green frost. It looks okay here, but those streaks you see? Brush strokes. And this puppy was chock full of them. The application was streaky, and even after four coats, there is still visible nail line. But then I thought, hey, that happens, usually all you need is a little top coat, and all will be well. Wrong. That was when the real fun began. Seche Vite can dry just about anything, but two hours after I did this, the very edges of my nails were sticky. When I woke up this morning, the shrinkage (which is when fast dry top coats dry well in advance of the polish underneath them and pull back from the nail tip, leaving what looks like tip wear) was horrendous. And guess what? It wasn't dry! I can still dent it with my nail! It's been 24 hours, and to amuse myself right now I am denting it with my thumb nail! It does smell like synthetic sour apple, though, which is fun.

And don't tell me it's because it's cheap (this is sold at Five Below for $5 for the box of six polishes). Wet 'n' Wild Wild Shines are $.99, and they are freaking fantastic. And don't tell me it's because it's for kids. Kids deserve fun nail polish too! This is a disgrace to nail polish gimmick fans everywhere. It's like they literally dumped actual Fun Dip into clear polish and boxed it up for sale.

So before the awfulness of this drives me crazy, I am taking this off immediately and putting something on less terrible, because I am here to bring Polish to the People!