Gelish, the DIY gel nail polish system that I use, has a fabulous array of colours. Some 233 of them, to be precise. All listed with colour swatches on one page.
You’d think that that would make it easy to pick colours, but whilst it’s easy to see colours that you like the look of, how they look on screen and how they look in reality are not necessarily the same. That’s just how it is with digital representations of real objects – colour fidelity is basically impossible because of variations in the colour profile of computer screens.
That has meant that it’s quite hard to mix and match colours. The trend at the moment is to wear a variety of complementary colours on different nails, as you’ll see from this Pinterest page. It might be one highlight colour, or a mixture of three or even four different colours, but without having all the options there in front of you, it’s impossible to know how well colours will go together.
This is where Gelish is missing a trick. Instead of a page of colours in a random order, they should provide palette suggestions, grouping colours that work harmoniously together. It would also be useful for them to pair their glitters with matching solids. I have a lovely green glitter, Are You Feeling It?, for example, but it really needs a green solid to go underneath it. But which one? The green I have is too olive, so which of the other greens should I choose?
I wish I had a full swatch of colours to check which ones work together, but instead it’s a process of trial and error. What I can say is that Plum And Done works well with a top layer of pink sparkle June Bride (right), but that it doesn’t work as well with the golden Oh, What A Knight! as I had hoped. However, June Bride over Oh, What A Knight! produces a fabulous sparkly rose gold colour. Rule the Runway wasn’t as tan I was expecting – it’s more of a flat grey – and whilst it isn’t a bad match for Johnny Green (which they seem to have discontinued anyway), it isn’t great. Wiggle Fingers Wiggle Thumbs – That’s The Way The Magic Comes is a glorious metallic blue that I could see myself wearing a lot, maybe even with a coat of green Are You Feeling It? sparkle over the time.
Part of the problem here is that I’m only doing my nails every 2 to 3 weeks which means that it takes a long time to figure out what works and what doesn’t.
Gelish does have some collections, like the One Upon A Time collection, though you’d never know it from their website. They really could do a lot better at producing complementary palettes, especially as if people know what colours will work together, they’ll be more likely to expand their collections.
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