Natural Nail Polish Remover Challenge: Priti NYC vs Suncoat

                 

In this corner, weighing in at 2 oz., it's Priti NYC's Soy Polish Remover!

From the Label

Description: This earth friendly product is naturally derived from crops and does not contain any petroleum ingredients. Readily biodegradability - it is non-toxic, contains no carcinogens and can be used with all brands of nail polish. Our soy nail polish remover will not dry out nails or nail bed due to the organic lemongrass oil it contains.

Suggested Use: Saturate cotton with remover, place on nail for a minute and gently rub - using a sweeping motion - polish off. 

Ingredients: Natural soybean esters, biodegradable dibasic esters, organic lemongrass essential oil

My Experience

Scent: a light, unoffensive citrus scent.

Ease of Use: I find it can be a bit time consuming to have to wait a minute for each nail and usually end up only leaving the cotton on for half the recommended time. Though in all honesty, with a little extra scrubbing, this works just fine. Other than my impatience, the remover was straight forward enough.

Availability: Priti NYC is available in select stores, though I've yet to come across them locally and have had to order online as a result.

Price: This product normally sells for $11.25, though it's currently on sale for $9.99. Sale or no sale, I'd say this is pretty reasonably priced for a natural, non-toxic polish remover that works.

Effectiveness: Even with my little time cheat, this remover was able to take off the vast majority of the polish I'd been wearing with little hassle. 

My right hand after one round with Priti NYC's Soy Polish Remover

In this corner, weighing in at 1 oz., it's Suncoat's All Natural Nail Polish Remover Gel!

From the Label

Description: This gentle gel is earth-friendly, nontoxic, nondrying to the nails. Free of alcohol, acetone, acetates. Removes all types of polish. Easy squeeze tube is ideal for home use, great for travel.

Suggested Use: Squeeze a dab of gel onto each nail. Spread around nail surface with a tissue or cotton ball. Leave on for two minutes. Rub off. Wash hands with soap and water. Repeat as necessary.

Ingredients: Ethyl lactate, methyl soyate, glycerin, silica, vitamin A, Biotin

My Experience

Scent: Though this remover claims to be unscented, there is a very strong plastic-y smell that actually gave me a headache after working on one hand, and I'm not typically scent-sensitive. 

Ease of Use: The gel is fun to use, though I find that, when spreading it across my nails with a tissue as directed, I end up inadvertently removing most of it. I also find you need a lot of gel per nail to have it do anything, which means you go through the bottle very quickly.

Availability: I found this remover at Whole Foods, and have seen the Suncoat brand at a number of health food stores.

Price: I picked this up for a little over $8.00, which I'd say is in the reasonable range.

Effectiveness: Oh goodness, I'm afraid I'm going to have to turn the remainder of this portion over to be written by Negative Nellie. I wanted this to work, truly I did. But alas, it was not to be. The first round of gel-applying, waiting, and removing left me with all but a bit of the top coat of my nail polish still in tact. And I waited the full duration for this one! The second round left my nails splotchy. Finally, the third try left me with nearly naked nails, though there was still enough polish around the edges to leave me sighing.

My left hand after three rounds with Suncoat's All Natural Nail Polish Remover Gel

And the winner is...

This challenge has a clear-cut winner for me. Priti NYC's remover is effective and, unlike its competitor, is not offensive smelling. While it may be a touch more expensive than Suncoat's version, I'd say it's definitely worth the extra few dollars for a nail polish remover that will leave your nails, health, and nose happy.

Review: 100% Pure Lip Glazes

                           

In my seemingly eternal quest for natural, cruelty-free makeup, I came across the brand 100% Pure and was instantly intrigued by their unique approach to cosmetics. 100% Pure is not only natural, vegan, and cruelty-free, but their pigments are derived from fruit rather than chemicals or crushed insects (don't even get me started!). Naturally (darlings), I had to give their products a try, and being the unabashed lipstick junkie that I am, it was only a matter of time before I settled on two of their lip glazes. This review will be about the shades Seduce and Lychee in particular, though the brand boasts a fairly wide variety of lip glaze colours. Now on to the fun part!

The Good

Texture: 100% Pure's answer to lipstick is something called a lip glaze, though part of me wishes they'd taken a page out of Revlon's book and called them lip butters instead. These glazes are very buttery and apply smoothly, leaving your lips creamy and moisturized. Depending on the season, I sometimes find myself using them in place of a lip balm. 

Smell: For those who prefer scentless makeup, these lip glazes may be a miss, but I find the light fruit scent to be a plus, especially considering the fact that it's merely from the product's fruit content rather than being added artificially.

Pigmentation: I find these glazes to be pretty build-able, which makes them versatile; always a good thing in my book. One swipe will give you a sheer wash of colour, though a few more coats will result in a glossy, opaque finish.

The Bad

Availability: I've only come across the 100% Pure line on the internet, and from what I understand there is only a small collection of actual stores that carry it. This makes choosing colours a pain in the tush, as you cannot swatch items for yourself.

Price: While not as outlandish as some natural lip products, 100% Pure is on the higher end of the scale. Lip glazes run for $19 CAD on the official site, and this doesn't include shipping. I managed to nab both of my shades from eBay, though even there I found myself debating which kidney to sell for them.

Staying Power: Like most buttery lip products, these lip glazes aren't built for durability. I find Lychee is a bit more resilient than Seduce and at least leaves a light stain behind. Seduce, on the other hand, high tails it for wherever it is lipstick goes when it's bored of your lips within the first hour or so of wear.

The Dude, Seriously?

Colour Descriptions: When it comes to shopping for cosmetics online, accurate colour descriptions are an absolute must in my book. I can't swatch these products for myself so I'm relying on the company to essentially do it for me. Unfortunately, this is 100% Pure's biggest downfall as far as I'm concerned. If I'm going to be spending my money on something, I want to know what I'm getting, and that hasn't been the case with my 100% Pure purchases thus far. Lychee is described on the official site as a naked pink, though both swatched on my hand and on my lips it's closer to a deep, red-pink. Not the my-lips-but-better shade I had in mind, though I like the colour enough not to let that put me off. Seduce, however, is another story. I bought it for the same purpose Lychee had originally been meant to serve, and I was convinced that this time would be the charm. After all, with a description like 'light nude', how can a girl go wrong? Unfortunately, though the colour looks close to perfect when swatched on my hand, it comes off almost florescent orange on my lips. While I understand that a person's lip colour will alter that of a lip product, my own lips are only very lightly pigmented and certainly not in the habit of turning lipsticks neon.

The Verdict

I'm still smitten with the idea of fruit pigmented makeup, though this may be a case where something looks better in theory than in execution. From what I've seen myself and what I've heard from others, the line's products, and it's lip glazes in particular, are fairly hit and miss. I simply haven't tried enough at this point to tell you which ones fall into which category. For that reason alone, I'd say it's worth it to search out sites that offer samples so that you don't end up with a case of pylon lips. That said, though, when you find yourself a winner like I have with Lychee, it definitely feels worth it. So my final verdict would be to pursue with caution.

Seduce

Lychee

Top: Seduce  Bottom: Lychee