Nubar Fortress Collection Swatches and Review

The latest collection from Nubar is a set of 8 black and gray polishes in various finishes. I am thrilled to show you swatches of them! The concept of the collection is wonderfully unique and the formula of them is OUTSTANDING. Let 's get into the swatch fun>>>

Knight's Armor - I am quite sure that I don't have to tell you this is the polish from this set. I'm telling you right now if you were to only buy one color from this collection this is it! This is one of my polishes wishes coming true. I really haven't felt that any black/silver glitter combos were glittery enough. Well this is definitely glittery enough plus some! The glitter is so dense it nearly gave full coverage in one coat. (This swatch is 2 coats) And the glitter particles are very large and square reflecting a ton of sparkle. This is a stunner! I wore this one immediately. At the end of the year when I'm coming up with my "Best Polish of 2010" this will absolutely be on the list. Wow.

Dark Castle - Ooooh. How awesome! This is a very rich black with dark silver shimmer. This is super pigmented allowing me to do one coat. I don't usually like black polishes very much unless they have a ton of shimmer or glitter but this is hott. I really love this.

Silver Sword - This is a charcoal shimmer. This is very pretty and nice but has that metallic/brush stroke syndrome. But only a little. I think it looks very nice once on, and it has a smooth formula. This swatch is 2 coats.

Stronghold - I love this polish and I love the name! This is a dark, stormy gray creme. Oooh ooh! And guess what? This is only one coat.

Palisade - This is a medium toned, cool gray creme. And surprise! It is one coat!

Barricade - This is also a medium toned gray creme. It is only a touch lighter than Palisade and it is different from Palisade in that it has yellow undertones.

Citadel - This is a light gray creme with yellow undertones. This swatch is 2 coats. It could have been 1. More on that later.

Marble Tower - This is the lightest gray of the bunch and the last one to see! It is close to Citadel but a smidge lighter and cooler.

I assumed that a comparison swatch was in order to help distinguish between all the similar gray cremes:

From left to right: Palisade, Barricade, Citadel, Marble Tower (The bottle is Stronghold)

So Palisade and Barricade are close but Palisade is cool/slightly blue and Barricade is a bit yellow.

Citadel and Marble Tower are similar but Marble Tower is the slighty blue/cool tone and Citadel is a bit yellow.

Now my reaction to this collection was all over the place. At first I was pumped because I love gray polish and OMG Knight's Armor. I knew I would love it before it even showed up. I was unsure about the shimmers. I wasn't excited for them but when I swatched them I felt differently. I really love Dark Castle. I think Silver Sword is nice, but I don't like it near as much as Dark Castle.

And what about 5 gray cremes? Hmmm. On the one hand, I love cremes. But when I thought about it... 5? Why does more than half of the collection need to be creme? I would think having the opportunity to do a variety of finishes in gray, you would do, well, a variety? Am I wrong? We could have had a foil, a duochrome (we know Nubar is master at duochromes) a holo, maybe even a matte.

On the positive side, however, the shades are all different. And once I started painting my nails for the comparison swatch I thought of a brilliant idea for all of these cremes... An ombre manicure!

So once I was done with the swatches that was the mani I did. At least there is that pro to having 5 cremes. And if you don't want all 5, you can pick the shdes you like by their warm or cool undertones.

Another positive to these cremes is that they go on in one coat. It took me two for the lighter ones the first time around, but the next time I just did a bit of a thicker coat and every one of them was flawless in one coat. You know how rare one coat colors are and out of 8 this has 6 one coaters (I think Knight's Armor would be done a disservice is only applied with one coat and Silver Sword is slightly brush stroke-y so it needs two.)

Overall verdict: Great collection. Unique concept, great formula: super pigmented and smooth and come on... Knight's Armor. Let's be serious. That is one hell of a polish. I can't shut up about it!

They all look like a little fortress when they are all standing together.

I do not know the official release date of this collection but it should be soon and will probably retail for $7.49 a piece or $49.95 for the 8 piece set.

Disclosure: The products featured in this post were furnished to me by the manufacturer or PR company for review. For more information please visit my disclosure policy.