CND Peacock Plume, 2 coats plus top coat
Hola amigos, I have a short and sweet post for you today! CND has made a long-awaited arrival in my first impressions series. This polish has been sitting in my stash for MONTHS. When I saw swatches of CND’s fall release last year, I was drooling over Peacock Plume. But, for the full price of $10.5o I said no thanks. However, when I found it this year in Ulta’s discount bin for the price of $3.87 I said HELL YES. How did I get on with this beauty? Read on to see!
My swatches today are over Nailtiques Formula 2. Usually I use Zoya Get Even for swatches to give each polish its best chance of looking good on my ridge-tastic nails, but I was not thinking the day I painted with this. Like usual, I used Seche Vite as my top coat.
CND Peacock Plume, 1 coat
The first thing you need to know about this polish is that it has a very beautiful light blue shimmer running throughout a teal blue metallic-y base. Said shimmer has an unfortunate habit of sinking to the bottom REALLY quickly. Seriously, I shook it up thoroughly about an hour before doing my nails and I might as well have spared myself the effort. I had to shake it again because all that lovely shimmer was at the bottom. The actual formula of this polish is a bit thin, but that seems normal for metallic and shimmery type polishes. Peacock Plume covered supremely well in one coat, there are a couple patches here and there, but it looks pretty good! The one thing I disliked about the application was the brush. It is of a medium width, but the bristles do not spread out very well which made the application awkward. The bristles did not have any slight curve at the end either, so getting a blog of polish to shape with my cuticle area was quite difficult. Had the bristles fanned out better, it would have been no problemo.
CND Peacock Plume, 2 coats
Since this lovely polish was pretty much opaque on the first coat, not much changed between coats one and two. The color might be a tad deeper and it did cover up those lighter patches completely. Despite the metallic quality this polish has I had no issues with visible brushstrokes. It does dry a tad dull on its own, but nothing top coat cannot handle (and you really should be using top coat anyway).
I feel pretty ho-hum about this polish. It is a pretty color, but the brush really could be better. For a polish that’s normally over $10, I expect a little more ease. The formula was fantastic though, except the shimmer settling but I can forgive that. I will not be racing out to collect CND polishes, I think I would only purchase one again if it is a supremely beautiful, absolutely irresistible color and if it is in the discount bin. I have just not been wowed.
Do any of you like CND? Have any favorite shades that I should try? I would love to hear your thoughts. Opinions contrary to my own are always welcome!
xx, Ashley
You can visit CND on their website here. I purchased my bottle at Ulta.
short nail swatcher 