Collection: Cuccio, Amore

I just received this polish in my October 2015 Topbox. On one hand, it’s pretty fun to try out new brands of polish. On the other hand, this bottle is so dated-looking that it was hard to get excited over it!

Cuccio is a salon nail polish brand that’s been available at online discounter NailSupplies.us (formerly TransDesign, one of my old haunts! No affiliation). And yet, I hadn’t seen fit to ever give them a try! They’re US$3.25 a pop over at NailSupplies, if you want to check them out.

I finally do get to try them, now, but unfortunately I was sent a color that is most unflattering to a warm-toned person. It’s called Bologna Blush (6068), which is also unfortunate because all I can think of is this:

I realize I’m a total pleb, and they really wanted me to think of this:

Regardless, it’s not a nice color on me. It’s a soft pink cream with heavy mauve-grey undertones. (It kind of is beef bologna-colored, isn’t it?) Basically, a pastel puce. Puce is literally flea in French:

From wikipedia.org:

The color is said to be the color of the bloodstains remaining on linen or bedsheets, even after being laundered, from a flea’s droppings or after a flea has been crushed.

Ewww. EWWW. I bet J.Crew’s not using puce in their product descriptions anytime soon.

Well, just because the word I used to describe the color sounds gross, doesn’t mean that the color is actually gross. This will definitely look smart on certain skintones (pinker ones, I imagine). It just looks icky on me.

As for the application, two coats gave me just about full opacity. I did use a third coat on the index finger because I was having some weird bubble issue on it. The polish mostly self-levels, and it dries to a nice shine. Overall, application was fine and I thought that for a $3.25 polish, it wasn’t bad at all.

The brush is the flat, wide type with a straight-cut edge. I dislike the cap a lot, not only because it looks and feels cheap, but it is also slightly slippery (which works badly with the tapered shape) and is not as pleasant to grip as it should be.

Would I buy another Cuccio? Only if there was a unique color I wanted. Though I guess for $3.25, you shouldn’t complain too much!

Cuccio Colour Nail Lacquer is 0.43 fl oz / 13 mL and retails for $4.21 (according to Topbox, not sure about the currency) or $3.25 at NailSupplies.us. The polish is free of toluene and dibutyl phthalate (DBP). The polish is made in the USA.

Cuccio Naturalé is based in Valencia, CA, USA.