At last, Mode Cosmetics Nail Enamel - review with pics!

I finally have a day off (never mind that I should actually be writing an essay...) and found my camera. I'm a bit excited, this is my first time doing pictures for this blog, and a proper sort of review! A much more extensive and thorough exploration of Mode's polishes can be found at Vibrant Point of View's blog. I have a few polishes she hasn't reviwed yet, though.

So the 9 polishes I have are : Diamante (pastel yellow/orange/pink/green glitter), So Parisian (white), VIP (gray), Party Crasher (bright purple), Totally Hot (light red), Party Girl (shimmery jungle-green), Ooh Baby (pastel pink), High Fashion (navy) and Blackjack (black). I have seen a few floating around eBay, but I got all of mine from Price Attack in Perth City. They cost $2.45 a bottle (!) and come in a massive variety of shades. I haven't been able to find any official website or retailer for them. If you Google it, whether to buy or to find out information, check the pictures carefully. There's a few other brands called Mode, but their bottles are very different. Look for the flat-bottomed teardrop shape with the lip-print 'O' in Mode. You can see it in my pictures.

Now most dedicated polish bloggers have long, shapely nails, are well-versed and experienced in application and types of polish, and do a huge variety of swatches. I'm a uni student whose nails break often, doesn't have a lot of time or money, and before buying these 9 polishes owned 6 bottles, including cheap $2-shop polish, and Avon. So I look for polishes that dry fast, wear for ages, aren't expensive, and don't require a top-coat or a base coat, because I have enough trouble waiting for 2 coats of a colour to dry, let alone doing fancy stuff like that! So don't be expecting too much. Again, if you want more in-depth, pro stuff, go to Vibrant POV. Also, me not using a base/topcoat means that when I say this stuff lasts 3-5 days on me without chipping, that's pretty freaking impressive. I'm pretty careless and clumsy, and I do a lot of typing. Mode polishes come with a long, thin brush, which suprised me at first, but it makes application a lot easier than the short-and-wide brushes I'd previously seen and used.

Ok, I've done one finger in each color because I'm way too lazy to do a whole hand 9 times over.
Left hand, from pinky to thumb: Diamante (2 coats), So Parisian (4 coats), Totally Hot (2 coats), High Fashion (2 coats, but could easily have gotten away with 1) and VIP (2 coats).

Outside in sunlight:

Indoors, artificial light:

The bottles:

Diamante is gorgeous, it looks fantastic over other colors or just on its own. It's one of the easier glitter polishes to remove, too.
It's hard to see in the photos, but So Parisian still wasn't entirely opaque, even after 4 coats. It's my first white polish, so I don't know if it's just the color, or because I applied it kind of fast. It's a little streaky in the centre.

Totally Hot is a bit on the thin side, fomula-wise. It's a very light, clear red. Mode does a few other darker, sparklier reds which I plan to get my hands on soon.
Totally Hot looks shimmery in the bottle, but once it's on the nails it's pretty much a flat satin. It's a very dark navy,  but it's definitely a navy. It goes a little bit shimmery in direct sunlight, but nowhere near what the bottle promises.
VIP is also my first gray polish, and I LOVE it. Totally opaque and smooth after 2 coats. I smudged the tip of my thumb a little :(

Right hand! Please keep in mind I am extremely right-handed. Therefore these swatches are going to be a lot messier! From thumb to ring finger: Party Girl (2 coats), Ooh Baby (3 coats), Party Crasher (1 coat!), Blackjack (3 coats).

Outdoors:

Indoors:

Bottles:

Ok, so indoor lighting on Party Girl and Party Crasher made my camera make them wonky and BLUE, so I fiddled around outisde for a bit and got these, which are way more accurate:

Also here's my nail with Party Crasher, and the bottle, to show you how much darker it dries:

And Party Girl on and in the bottle, for comparision:

Party Girl dries to an almost-matte shimmer. It's awesome. Reminds me strongly of Aromaleigh Rocks! eyeshadow in 'jigsawfeeling', which is one of my favourite green shadow shades. My pictures have washed it out a LOT, so for much more accurate colour, I reccommend you go visit Vibrant POV's review.
Ooh Baby looks pastel pink in daylight. Having worn it previously, I know that it looks much more peachy in artificial light/at night. It's a lovely girly neutral color and under Diamante it's simply amazing. You can layer it up for complete opacity, or you can wear it sheer for a hint of color and shine. It's a very versatile, wearable colour. In my pictures it kept showing up with beige tones, which it doesn't have at all in person.
Party Crasher was my first Mode polish. It dries a bit darker than the bottle, but for a cheap one-coat polish it's absolutely fantastic. Lasted a full 5 days on me.
Blackjack, I knew from Vibrant POV's review of it, is a slow-drying shade that needs to be built up. After the opacity of the other dark polishes I'd already used, the first application was disappointingly sheer and streaky. I would say it's got almost the same formula as So Parisian. It does take noticeably longer to dry than all the other polishes. It needs 3 coats to be completely opaque, even after 2 it was still not properly 'black'.

Phew! That took me a lot longer than I thought! Hope you enjoyed, it was definitely a fun little learning experience. Now that I have my camera, I can finally do the Concrete Minerals Electric Eye Primer review. I'll use it tomorrow and do my utmost to take morning and evening photos for you. Now I have to go write my essay and decide what eyeshadow to wear tomorrow. Also I need to do something about my messy, mutli-coloured nails, haha.

Until next we meet,
Jade.