Beauty Review | Sephora’s Formula X

left: Thrilling | right: Power Source
on my recent trips to Sephora, i’ve casually browsed the Formula X display and picked out a few of my favorite colors. each time, i talked myself out of buying any polishes because the last thing that i need is another bottle of nail polish. however, after watching Esteé’s May Favourites Video a few weeks ago,  she basically forced me to run to my nearest Sephora to pick out a color and give it a go. my mom was with me and decided to purchase the whole system, which includes the cleanser, base coat, top coat, and one color of your choice. since she was buying the system, i decided just to buy a color i liked and to borrow her cleanser, base, and top coats for my trial run.
although i don’t know if the cleanser is actually doing anything, i really like the idea of putting a cleanser on my nail before polishing them again. more often than not, i change my nail color immediately after removing the previous nail color. i typically wash my hands in soap and water, but this cleanser takes the place of that step. it dries ultra fast and just requires a quick swipe over all your nails. i feel like the base coat and top coat are pretty standard, not amazing. what is amazing is the color. i started with the color Thrilling and was immediately in love with it. it’s the prettiest soft grey, with almost a slight purple or blue hue to it. it’s even more gorgeous on than in the bottle. 
what i like about this polish is that it feels sturdier than other polishes i’ve used. i would compare it to CND’s Vinylux over a polish like OPI or Essie. i think the whole combination of base coat, two coats of color, and top coat are what make it the best and most long-lasting. my nails grew like weeds when i had the polish on because they couldn’t get bent or split while i was doing things. 
i didn’t find this polish to be especially long-lasting. i’ve heard that some people can go without major chips for 7+ days, but that just wasn’t the case for me. because my work revolves around typing and making jewelry, i found that i had little chips at the ends of my nails within a couple days. however, these chips didn’t peel away and lead to bigger chips right away. ya know how some nail polishes will just start peeling right off if you have one little chip? that didn’t happen to me with Formula X. so, even though there were some minor spots without polish, i could go a few more days without any issues. 
when it comes to removing the polish, i highly recommend using a nail polish remover and not picking it off yourself. it peeled away at my nails when i picked it off, but left them as-good-as-new if i used the remover and didn’t mess with them. 
overall, i like this polish if for no other reason than the colors. they’re highly pigmented, so you get a lot of color with 1 or 2 coats (in my experience). because it lasted about as long as the other polishes i typically use, i wasn’t really disappointed that it chipped after a couple days. i’m still working on mastering the whole method for polishing that ‘seals off’ the tips of your nails to avoid this problem, so i bet that will help in the chipping department. i highly recommend looking at the colors in the store (if you can), since the photos on Sephora’s website just don’t do them justice! 
have you tried Formula X yet? what are your thoughts?

Hi there!

Lauren Bown Lifestyle Blog is an online destination where I share my personal style, beauty finds, and bits of life in hopes to inspire other women to feel good in their skin and find the beauty in the ordinary.

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4 Comments

  1. 6.19.14
    Lauren T. said:

    I have power source also and my bottle is so thick. Did you find the colors to be really thick as well?

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