Color Club Hot Like Lava

I hope you're not tired of seeing pinks yet as I have another pink stunner to show you today. See, when I embarked on this Valentine-esque mix of colors for the entire month of February, it didn't dawn on me till much later that pink is not the only shade I should be focusing on. (Well, there's red, for starters, but after all the red I wore during the holidays, I'm all red'd out. So no, you won't find more red this month. Sorry!) There actually are a whole lot more colors to V-day than just pink, red and white. No, this is not blasphemy. You'll see what I mean in the next couple of weeks. Anyway, let's get on with this in-your-face pink metallic:

Shiny and hot pink. Everything a magpie of a hamster could ever want in life.

The Quick Take

Brand/Name: Color Club Hot Like Lava
Color: Hot Pink/Fuschia
Finish: Foil
Price: $1.86 - $8.00 CDN for 15mL
Seen at: Trade Secrets, Nail Polish Canada, Winners, Sally Beauty and various other beauty supply retailers.
Note(s): I got my bottle for the very low price of $1.86 when I purchased the Foiled collection set of 7 for a whopping $12.99 at Winners. Score!


The Fun Facts

I have a feeling I lost out on at least 1mL of the product from that corner.

Standard Color Club brush.

Pretty silver veining!

No, this is no duochrome, but I can swear there are angles and lights where this pretty hot pink can look almost reddish. Just check out that part of the bottle close to the neck in the color photo above. The darker areas look like a pale, cool toned red. Unexpected but very much appreciated! It's colors like these that fuel my need to own them all like Pokemon. (Gotta have them all!) The foil finish is perfectly smooth and shiny. No brushstrokes on this one! Top coat or not, Hot Like Lava definitely shines.
***All nail swatches were done with Orly Bonder Base Coat and two coats of Color Club Hot Like Lava unless stated.

Natural light/No top coat/No flash

Nicely saturated fuchsia foil. (Love the darker edges!)

Natural light/No top coat/Flash

Reflective is almost an understatement.

Sunlight/No top coat/No flash

Extra, extra shiny!

You've already read about how much I adore the Color Club brush here, here and here so I'll spare you the details. It's enough for you to know that it's pretty awesome and this righty's left hand loves it. Better still is how amazing it works with the consistency of this polish. It's like laying on butter on your nails. (Okay, I admit that was a weird metaphor but work with me here.) The polish is nice and dense that it's easily a one coater. Of course I still did two for the swatches, but that's mostly out of habit than necessity. I have to point out that the formula does lean on the thicker side but it's not so viscous that its unwieldy. As with your usual foil, Hot Like Lava dries super fast. This one easily makes it on the "paint and dash" list! I also have to point out that removal can be a tad messy as the teeny tiny glitter particles that make this shine can get stuck on your fingers. But then, what's a little clean up for a whole lot of bling?

Natural light/Top coat/No flash

This has top coat. Swear.

Natural light/Top coat/Flash

Hammie says: I..can't.. No..words..

Sunlight/Top coat/No Flash

Hammie says: *still speechless*

That's got to be a first. I thought the hamster would be yammering about how I might've forgotten to put top coat but I guess it was shiny enough that it rendered the poor little magpie guy speechless. How about that!


The Lowdown

Color Club is a pretty accessible brand so obtaining these polishes should be fairly easy. But the question remains: do I need this foil? If you have a Helmer drawer-full of foils, chances are you already have a duplicate for Hot Like Lava. Offhand, the first two that come to mind are Hard Candy Scam (old-school, might be hard to find and definitely more speckled looking than smooth like Hot Like Lava) and Urban Decay Big Bang (from the Holiday 2009 Apocalyptic Nail Kit and long discontinued so again, might be tricky to find). Recently, Pop Beauty released a set of foils for holiday 2011, almost around the same time the Color Club Foiled collection came out and a bunch of the colors had very close matches to the Color Club set. Hot Like Lava looked much like Ruby Metal although the latter was a whole lot more cooler toned. Sisters maybe, but definitely not twins. Also, there's as much as a $6 difference so unless availability is your issue, I'd go with the more cost effective Color Club. Now I come to the last possibility which I think is probably one of the easiest to find (if you have an Ulta that has it in stock) and the closest color match: China Glaze Mistletoe Me!. It was part of an exclusive China Glaze Ulta release for Holiday 2011. But again, for price and availability, Hot Like Lava can't be beat in my books.

As much as I love scoring a great deal, it also matters to me that while I do pay a lower price, I still get the quality of the regular priced item. Typically, the discount should only lower the mark-up on the item and should not, in any way or form, affect the quality. So I'm a little sad that my sets don't have any of the rubberized brush handles or even the labels at the base of the bottle. (Yes, that's why photos of those are all missing in the Quick Take.) Also, I'm more than a bit miffed that my bottle is obviously missing what I think is a sizable chunk of the bottom right part of the bottle. That could easily mean less product than what was promised on the label! No good.

Hammie has finally recovered his voice and says that despite the grievances I've outlined above, he thinks Hot Like Lava still deserves a high score. The sheer intensity of that pretty fuchsia pink combined with that ridiculously sparkly foil finish is the stuff made of epic win. The easy application and dense, streak-free formula scores even more points for this pink foil. Best of all is the awesome value for price and easy availability. The total score?

9 Hammie Points!

Happy Friday! Yay for the weekend! Mr. J and I are heading out to celebrate a good friend's birthday tonight. We've got all the Fs covered: food, fun and friends so it should be a blast! What about you, any fun plans for the weekend? Or will you be spending it frantically searching for the perfect Valentine's day gift (don't forget to get one for yourself, too!)? What's your take on foil-y pinks?