Candy Coat Nail Polish | Brand Overview + Swatches!

Hey everyone! Today I want to share with you some info about an indie nail polish brand that is new to me!

Candy Coat is an online-only nail brand based in England that offers a wide range of nail products including gel polishes, builder gels, dip powders, acrylics, and basically any other nail system you can think of. Recently they released a full line of regular lacquers, and they sent over three shades for me to swatch for you! And amazingly, they ship internationally! If only all nail brands did business so easily… Seriously, the bane of my existence is international nail polish shipping issues. 

“Born out of an organic passion, Candy Coat was created and founded by beauty entrepreneur Lynette in Summer 2015. The brand made it’s debut on Instagram with just 14 gel polish colours and no website. The direct to consumer approach worked which saw the company co-creating colours and products customers wanted.

Candy Coat has since gone on to develop and produce hundreds of hues across 21 finishes with 700 shades online. Adventurous, chic, natural or classic, you are bound to find a colour you love. In addition to a mix of nail enhancement products, Candy Coat has developed a lip and SPA range adding more candy fun and choice.”

Besides offering such a wide variety of professional and consumer-accessible nail products, Candy Coat is unique because it offers a variety of kits and subscription services. While their Candy Kits include everything you need to create a full manicure with a selection of shades, their subscription services allow you to get three curated shades of either gel (currently available) or nail lacquer (starting March 2019) every month in a themed box. And of course you have a library of over 700 shades in gel and nail polish to pick from if you just want to select your own!

Candy Coat Nail Polish

A couple of months ago Candy Coat added 80 shades of regular nail lacquer to their line, with shades spanning the rainbow in a variety of finishes. Each costs $10.99 CAD or £6, and there seems to be a flat rate of £10 for international shipping (I couldn’t find what domestic shipping costs).

The shades that I chose to swatch for you today are:

• Nº 648: a medium pink shimmer
• Nº 185: a hot fuchsia pink creme
• Nº 264: a neon coral-orange creme

One thing that I absolutely love about these polishes is that the caps are colour-coded! This is especially important for gel polishes, where you often can’t tell what shade the product is because it isn’t in a clear bottle, in order to protect the product from light. As for the regular polishes, it’s a cute aesthetic touch!

Where application is concerned, the brush is a good medium width that makes it easy to apply the colour quickly and with minimal strokes. This is a pretty important aspect to me. Nothing annoys me more than a thin brush that leaves a streaky finish. The nail polish itself seemed to have a good viscosity; they weren’t gloopy and were easy to work with. However, I did find that drying time was a bit longer than I am used to.

As for wear time, I actually contracted out to my cousin to do some testing for me. I currently have gel nails on, and nail polish just wears differently on natural nails. I essentially get no chipping when wearing regular lacquer on my gel nails because they don’t bend and flex like regular nails do (it’s kind of awesome). So, my cousin did a wear test wearing only the nail polishes, no top coat, and reported back that she didn’t experience any chipping until day 5! If you are a nail polish regular, you will know that that is an incredible wear time, ESPECIALLY without top coat! Wow! This has me seriously impressed. And for those of you who are nail minimalists and just want to put on the colour and go, top coat seems to be almost optional (blasphemy in my opinion but you do you :P).

So, let’s get into some swatches!

Nº 648

This shade is a medium pink shimmer that has a really sparkly reflect to it. The shimmer particles seem to be different shapes and sizes, which really adds to the shine. I found that this shade never became fully opaque (even though it does look opaque in these photos), but it looked pretty darn good with three coats. If you don’t like adding so many coats, you can always do a base coat with some colour, and then add this shade on as a topper!

Nº 185

This shade is a hot fuchsia pink with a creme finish. What a delicious shade for V-Day! This shade was opaque with two coats.

Nº 264

This shade is a neon coral-orange with a creme finish. Online, this shade looked a bit more coral, while in person it is pretty orange! One thing that poses a bit of a problem is that they don’t actually have shade descriptions on their website, so you are only going off of the swatch picture. This shade was opaque with two coats.

I specifically chose two neon/ hot creme shades because sometimes they can be hard to formulate. In the past I have had issues with neons being of a weird consistency, or peeling off in sheets. Neither Nº185 or Nº 264 did this.

Final Thoughts

Overall, this seems to be a very solid nail polish formula offered by a very cool brand! I’m amazed by the variety and sheer amount of products they offer, all starting from a few gel polishes being sold over their Instagram (@candy.coat)! But what I think has me the most intrigued is the nail polish subscription service starting in March (the gel polish subscription is already available)! How fun to get a curated box with three shades every month!

Given the price and the experience, I definitely think I would consider purchasing more of these polishes. They are on the pricier end, but considering the wear time, that makes them well worth it in my opinion.

Have you heard of Candy Coat before? Which shade is your favourite?

Disclaimer: These products were sent to me for review. As always, all of my opinions expressed here are never solicited and are entirely my own.