Skin & Tonics : Skincare Guides & Product Reviews

When you see a calendar, do you immediately have to look at the picture for your birth month? I do that. I also have to see what the flavor of the day is on my birthday at Goodberry’s (frozen custard! MMM!) every year. This year it’s lemon, which is my favorite flavor of just about anything, so that’s a win. July is my birthday month, in case you haven’t guessed, so I’ve been waiting with a little extra impatience for my beauty box subscriptions to see how everyone will unknowingly be celebrating my special day. My SquareHue finally arrived on Saturday, and you know what? It’s just okay.

The SquareHue offering this month is “The Salute Collection,” which obviously follows a patriotic theme. Sometimes patriotic themes are really heinous, for example, on every political campaign poster ever made in the USA. But sometimes they kick ass, you know, like Wonder Woman. I was obviously hoping for the Wonder Woman variety of patriotic, but instead, this month’s collection went in a different direction – a bunch of different directions, actually.

First up, we have Camo, a military inspired green that is probably a lot of people’s jam, but for me, it just sort of looks like I painted my nails with pond scum. Okay, maybe it’s not quite that bad. For some people, greens like this actually make elegant, interesting neutrals, but I doubt I’ll ever wear this polish. For what it’s worth, the formula is decent. The first coat goes on very streaky, and really looks like actual bog water, but the second coat provides smooth, streak-free coverage.

Next up is Salute, a true blue that’s quite a bit brighter than the blue on our American flag. I actually wondered for a minute if any of our military has a uniform with a blue this bright, but the Internet says no. It’s a really nice hue, and come to think of it, I do think Wonder Woman would be really pumped about this shade. But I’m not. This color really isn’t my steez. I know because I tried it, and every time I looked at my nails, it was like looking at someone else’s hands. The person those hands belonged to is really different from me. That person enjoys camouflage bootie shorts, frat parties, and Smirnoff Ice. Once again, however, two coats created smooth, streak-free coverage, though the color was chipped after only one day.

Lastly, we have Honor, an amazing metallic, gold lamé polish that really saved this whole box for me. I have a lot of gold polishes, but none of them have the dazzle that this one does, and none of the formulas for my other golds come close to touching the ease and smoothness of this one. I actually got streak-free coverage from just one coat of Honor, but I still applied two, because two coats of gold is always better than one. I’m also certain that this color is Wonder Woman approved.

Next month, SquareHue is doing an Endless Summer Collection, which could honestly go either way. If you’d like to subscribe to SquareHue in time for next month’s box, they are currently doing a special offer of $14.99 for your first box. After that, it’s $21 a month for 3, generously sized bottles of limited edition nail polish. You can sign up at the SquareHue website.