Sea Siren Cosmetics - Call of the Ocean

Once again, it's time to introduce your eager eyes and wallets to another new Australian indie polish company! The lovely Sea Wenches at Sea Siren Cosmetics sent me a package recently absolutely BURSTING with goodies, and I'm pretty excited to share the excitement with you guys. This is going to be a REALLY picture heavy post, so settle in and get comfy.

This is the enormous bundle of gifts I received from Sea Siren after answering a call for reviewers over on their Facebook page. I don't think I've ever received so much from a single brand, even when I was paying for it myself - to be honest, it was a little overwhelming! But never fear, I managed to put aside my feelings of being buried under a pile of beautiful bottles and got to work.



First up we have Mystical Atlantis, an absolutely stunning teal with amazing turquoise shimmer. Usually this kind of pearlescent, shimmery polish tends towards the thin side, but this covered beautifully in just two coats. I don't often wear "plain" polish now that I've fallen so hard for glitterbombs, but this colour is not only gorgeous, it's surprisingly fascinating.

Deep Blue Sea is another colour from this collection I would happily wear on it's own. In the shade, the navy base is delightfully lush and deep, and in the sun it sparkles like CRAZY.

You might remember this next polish from my review of Shades of Phoenix's Thread of Life trio, hiding under Atropos. It's far too pretty to relegate to undie status though, so here's Stunning Sunset in all it's shiny, shiny glory.

 The formula on this was a little trickier than Mystical Atlantis or Deep Blue Sea, because a lot of what makes it so darn shiny is a heavy serving of gold flakies. They're teeeeny tiny, but they can create little lumps if you're not careful.

The next polish is called Reflections, and in the bottle I'll admit it looks a little plain, especially next to some of the glitterbombs that cluster on my shelves. But on the nail it's surprisingly pretty! This swatch is two coats alone, except for the ring finger where I did two coats over Midnight Moves.

This would be really great for a situation where you wanted a little bling, but couldn't be really overt about it. The sparkle is quite delicate and lovely, and because of the clear base I would imagine it's very versatile. 

Since the box of polishes from Sea Siren was apparently bottomless, and I can only swatch so many polishes before my fingers threaten to drop off, I combined four of the plain cremes into this pretty skittle manicure so I could show you as many as possible at once.

From left to right, we have Code Purple, Cabin Fever, Gossip, and Sea Dayze. The formula on all of them except for Cabin Fever was absolutely PERFECT. Sea Dayze was actually more or less a single coater, which is a big plus for any creme. Cabin Fever is an amazing fire engine red, but the formula was oddly thin. It didn't show up in the photos, but in person I could still see visible nail line after three coats, which is a real bummer.

Along with all these pretties (and more), Sea Siren were kind enough to send me their Sea Gloss Quick Dry top coat to try. While I'm pretty committed to my Glisten and Glow HK Girl topcoat, Sea Gloss does give my favourite a run for it's money. It doesn't touch dry as quickly - HK Girl is touch dry in aprox 20 seconds, and Sea Gloss took a full minute. But the downside of super fast drying topcoats is the wear time, and Sea Gloss definitely takes the lead in that department. I usually have to top up HK Girl in two days, whereas Sea Gloss lasted without chipping or significant wear for three.

Image courtesy of Sea Siren Cosmetics

Of course, the delightful thing about Sea Siren Cosmetics is that they've got "travel" sizes of everything available, including the top coats, so you can give it a go and see if it works for you. Top coat performance is such a complex combination of chemical and environmental factors that it's really convenient to have a trial size available for testing before you commit to a full bottle. And the believe me, the full bottles from Sea Siren Cosmetics are FULL. These things are HUGE. I'm used to indie bottles, which are technically 12ml, but practically around 10ml. The bubble bottles from Sea Siren are labelled 15ml, and I fully believe I got ever last drop of that 15ml.

Aside from polish, the lovely Sea Wenches were kind enough to send me a hard case glass file to try. Unlike some other glass files on the Australian market, the ones Sea Siren have sourced are made from proper Czech glass, which is a big plus in my books. Cheaper glass files that aren't made to the traditional Czech tempering method will go blunt just as fast as emery boards, which makes them a total waste of time. These, however, will keep their grit just about forever.

Using a glass file rather than an emery board can be a big help if (like me) you tend to get peeling corners and edges, because they have a very fine grit and can help the nail bond into a single layer. What I found really neat about the Sea Siren hard case file in particular was that the case is actually part of the file. I am CONSTANTLY leaving my glass files out of their cases, and have broken more than one that way. But now, it's right there! GENIUS.

All these lovelies and more are available from the Sea Siren Cosmetics site, and for information on sales and new releases be sure to like their Facebook page and perform the required arcane rituals to ensure their posts are visible on your feed.