Hello my beautiful readers! Sorry I've been mia for a few days. I had some family in town for two weeks straight and we were running nonstop the entire time they were here. I haven't had time to do near the amount of swatching and blogging that I wanted to this week because of that, and I am completely exhausted from their visit. I'm hoping to be able to put a huge dent in my massive pile of things to do this week though. Fingers crossed!
With that being said, today's post features a wonderful brand, Serum no 5, by an equally, if not more wonderful maker, Victoria. I'm so happy she was part of Cocktails & Colors this year at cosmoprof because I always enjoy and look forward to seeing her every year. She's such a very sweet person, and her heart and beautiful soul show up in all of her amazing creations. If you'd like to learn a little more about Victoria and Serum no 5 as well as see some beautiful polishes, continue reading!
(Victoria and I at Cocktails & Colors 2015)
How did you decide on the name Serum no 5?
When I started this business, I knew I wanted to have some charitable aspect to it (I still make monthly donations), so my bf and I grabbed a thesaurus and we came upon "serum" which can be seen as a potion or elixir to cure an ailment. The No. 5 came from my name and my bf's. V in Roman numerals means 5 and there just happens to be 5 letters in the bf's name. He's the one that actually encouraged me to start this business.
How long have you been in business?
Serum has been around for 3 years this month.
What can we expect from Serum no 5 in the future?
You can expect much more glow! Actually, in the fall I'll be releasing some vampy holo glow in the darks. It's about time, right?!
I also plan to expand the bath and body care items too with more scents for the serum scrubs (sugar scrub cubes), cuticle serum (cuticle oil) and skin serum (lotion bar)
Besides your own brand, what is your favorite indie (polish, body care, or other)?
There are so many great indies out there. I'd have to say some of my favorites are Cirque Colors, Girly Bits, ILNP, KB Shimmer, Lacquer Lust and Polished by KPT
(Serum no 5's display at Cocktails & Colors 2015)
First up is, "Yule Light Up My Life", which is an awesome rainbow glitter topper that glows in the dark! I love the crazy mix of glitters in the polish. It makes it fun to pair with many different base colors. I'm usually really good at capturing the glow of Victoria's polishes in my pictures, but for some reason my camera did not want to cooperate like it usually does, so my glow pictures did not come out like they usually do. I assure you though that the glow of all of these polishes is much brighter in person. My camera just hated me this day. I used one coat of "Yule Light Up My Life" over Zoya "Rooney" for my pictures. Formula was smooth with no issues to report. Can't wait to pair this with other colors as well.
(Indoor Light Box)
(Glow shot, which is brighter in person)
Next up is "Kiwi Glow Now?", which is a bright green glow in the dark polish that has a little bit of shimmer and what looks like holo flakies in it. I'm really bad at descriptions, but regardless... its beautiful. The glow on this is perfection as well. Its the only one out of the three glow in the darks in this post that cooperated with my camera. Formula on this was good. I used three coats with top coat for my pictures.
(Indoor Light Box)
(Glow shot)
Next up is "Infrared", which is a bright pink/orange/red glow in the dark polish. This polish is very pretty, and I don't have another color like it in my collection. Victoria states on the listing for this polish that it may require longer exposure to a charging source due to the pigment used for this polish. This may be the reason I was having such a terrible time trying to get a good glow shot. When you do get this baby glowing though, I'm in love because it glows pink! The pigment is also so intense with this one that I did have a tiny bit of staining, but nothing really bad, just make sure you use a good base coat with it and you should have no problems :-) Other than that the formula was great! I almost only needed one coat, but I ended up using two coats with top coat for my pictures.
(Indoor Light Box)
(Glow shot, kinda lol)
The last polish I have to share with you today is "On Sight", which is a reflective topper that has the same effect as her "Flashing Lights" polish, which you can see my review of by clicking here. This beauty has multichrome flakies though too and I love the way this polish looks over black. These toppers are meant to be used without top coat to be able to see the reflective effect. I read after I swatched this that you can still apply it over base colors, but to be sure to use a matte top coat in between your base and this topper. So unfortunately, my swatch over black is just that. Nothing special, and I didn't think to see if it was still reflective. I also added top coat to try and capture the shift in the flakies. Formula was good on this one as well. No issues to report. I used three coats alone with no top coat, as well as one coat over black with top coat for my pictures.
(three coats no top coat indoor light box)
(three coats no top coat with flash)
(Indoor Light Box over black)
So what are your thoughts on these polishes? They are all currently still available in the Serum no 5 shop here if you want to purchase any of them. I think "Kiwi Glow Now" and "Yule Light Up My Life" are my two favorites. Let me know in the comments below some of your all time favorite Serums. Be sure to follow @serumno5 on Instagram and to like their Facebook page here to keep up to date on all things Serum. I hope you enjoyed today's post! Until next time, happy polishing!
Instagram: @polishednshined
Twitter: @polishednshined
Facebook: Polished And Shined
