**Disclaimer that I am not cool enough to be a nail polish swatcher/blogger. All of these opinions are my own, and all of these polishes were purchased with my own money.**
I don't believe I have ever been so excited to polish my nails in my entire life. I stepped on a sewing needle the day these arrived at my house and still chose to limp out of the mailbox to get them anyway.
Doctor Lacquer is an indie nail polish company based on space and medical themes, they have good reviews that I have seen and do quite a lot of thermal polishes. Instead of mini bottles they have medium bottles, which are referred to as meds (<3 p="">
Price
I got 5 bottles of polish, they were all medium size, but they look like traditional polish sizes to me. In total it cost me about 40$, shipping included which averages out to being 8$ per bottle. Not too bad, given the spike in drugstore nail polish costs and the uniqueness of the polish. It's affordable.According to science and math and not my anecdotal evidence, MEDS which are 10.5 mL are 6.99$ a bottle, and full size bottles which are 16.5 mL are 9.99$.
Shipping and Packaging
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Shipping was on time, but towards the end of her TAT (1-7 business days, which is pretty dang fast). She gave me a coupon code for it which means that she is aware of her TAT and didn't "lose" my order, which means a lot to me. I didn't have to contact her, but I think that sort of attention to detail says a lot about the kind of customer service an indie company has to offer.Packaging was very secure and included candy.
As a side note, I love seeing a short nail on a polish company's logo. I make jewelry and polymer clay figurines as a hobby, so its nice to have "working girl" (or "nail-biting girl") nails represented. 
I actually use the exact same bags she does, and I have the same problem with them being just a little too small for my needs.
Some Personal Polish Background
I am a lazy, lazy human being. Particularly when it comes to nails, even though in general I am not a sticky person, I somehow expect my beauty products to be applied and then magically preform at full power without maintenance. That is not a realistic expectation, and I am aware of that, but I am announcing this because my review will still somewhat reflect this. I was doing some base and top coat research today and came across wrapping your tips and before even knowing what it was I thought "ain't nobody got time for that".
I don't wrap my tips, I haven't gotten into the habit of regularly applying base and top coat. So, this will be an actual review of the formula. Also, I would like to formally apologize for the terrible swatches ahead. I am horrendous at painting my nails.
This is from the Something Spatial: Missions collection, which are holographic polishes based off of space exploration missions. It is a green based polish, so that is something I feel like I didn't fully comprehend when I bought it. I'm not saying it is just a green polish, but when I look at my nails from the side without anything underneath it, the polish looks green. That is fine, and its growing on me, but it is something to be aware of when buying holos because they aren't always going to be sparkly color-changing magic from every angle. They are just sparkly color-changing magic from most angles.
As for the formula, it has good grip, is opaque in two or three coats, dries incredibly quickly, and is gorgeous beyond what my swatches can show.
This is from the Something Spatial:Stars collection. They are tri-color thermal flakie polishes and I had to limit myself to one. I am a sucker for pink, and so I bought it against my better judgement. It is a wonderful polish, but I should have known better and chosen a better color for my skin tone. Regardless, the color shifts in this one are absolutely to die for.
On the left you can see what the polish looks like warm/on nails. The middle finger show show sheer the product is on the first coat. The other two nails are three or four coats of polish.
This is the thermal change when the polish is cold. The middle finger is two coats of polish held on an icecream thin mint, the pink and ring finger are again three or four coats of polish also held on an icecream thin mint.
The polish is extremely sheer, it requires a lot of coats, but it dries super fast and also super hard so if you like to poke at squishy polishes this is safe from your wrath. I find it is difficult to see the color change in the bottle on this one but it works beautifully on the nails. I don't feel like I need a top coat for this polish, but it might benefit from a shiny topcoat to add dimension and bring out the flakies a little more.
This is from a pastel duo on the website. It is still up, but its on sale, so I'm not sure if it will continue to be that way. The polish is a sheer white polish filled with pastel circular glitter. The glitter goes on well, I don't have to dig it out or use tweezers to get it on my nails, the glitter also stays pretty well with just the polish itself, I don't feel like I need to use a top coat. This dries very quickly between coats (30 seconds and you can add another layer), but it does need like 4 or 5 coats to get to opacity.
Dopamine is a thermal crellie from the Hormonal Efficiency collection. It is warm sensitive, but not in the way I expected. It doesn't have a color shift at any point above body temperature. So, it does change color when warm, but your nail is warm, so it only changes color on your hands when it is exposed to cold. I wear Dopamine often on my hands. You can really easily change the color of only one part of the nail polish, unlike Adrenaline below. However, it can be difficult to get on because the larger glitters are just a little too large. They sink to the bottom, and like to come off of the nail leaving huge dents in your manicure.
I love the colors of this polish though, it even looks gorgeous applied sheerly.
Adrenaline is a thermal crellie from the Hormonal Efficiency collection. The formula is squishy but not too squishy, and the glitter goes on super smooth and evenly. It takes at least 4-5 coats to get this opaque though, and I personally don't like how it looks when it is sheer.
The color shift of the polish is a little odd. It takes a lot in order to change the color of this polish, and I can't seem to get it to re-color only one part at a time. Also the color shift isn't super noticeable most of the time either, so even though it is a summer colored polish, you would get the most use out of this in the winter.
Swatches and Review
Viking
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| Excuse this swatch, I was lazy. |
As for the formula, it has good grip, is opaque in two or three coats, dries incredibly quickly, and is gorgeous beyond what my swatches can show.
Betelgeuse
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On the left you can see what the polish looks like warm/on nails. The middle finger show show sheer the product is on the first coat. The other two nails are three or four coats of polish.
This is the thermal change when the polish is cold. The middle finger is two coats of polish held on an icecream thin mint, the pink and ring finger are again three or four coats of polish also held on an icecream thin mint.The polish is extremely sheer, it requires a lot of coats, but it dries super fast and also super hard so if you like to poke at squishy polishes this is safe from your wrath. I find it is difficult to see the color change in the bottle on this one but it works beautifully on the nails. I don't feel like I need a top coat for this polish, but it might benefit from a shiny topcoat to add dimension and bring out the flakies a little more.
I'm Lavender Rain
This is from a pastel duo on the website. It is still up, but its on sale, so I'm not sure if it will continue to be that way. The polish is a sheer white polish filled with pastel circular glitter. The glitter goes on well, I don't have to dig it out or use tweezers to get it on my nails, the glitter also stays pretty well with just the polish itself, I don't feel like I need to use a top coat. This dries very quickly between coats (30 seconds and you can add another layer), but it does need like 4 or 5 coats to get to opacity.
It is not particularly flexible though,there are times where I have done something that pressed down on my nail and I've gotten a big crack in it and it peeled right off. Another thing is that it grips the nail decently, but I need like super woman nail grip and it doesn't have that, though that also means that I don't damage my nail when I pull it off.
You can see from the swatches that this doesn't do edges very well, for best results I would probably get a thinner textured white polish and use it as an under layer with this on top.
Dopamine
Dopamine is a thermal crellie from the Hormonal Efficiency collection. It is warm sensitive, but not in the way I expected. It doesn't have a color shift at any point above body temperature. So, it does change color when warm, but your nail is warm, so it only changes color on your hands when it is exposed to cold. I wear Dopamine often on my hands. You can really easily change the color of only one part of the nail polish, unlike Adrenaline below. However, it can be difficult to get on because the larger glitters are just a little too large. They sink to the bottom, and like to come off of the nail leaving huge dents in your manicure.I love the colors of this polish though, it even looks gorgeous applied sheerly.
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| Accomplished with an icepack |
Just on its own the polish went three days without chipping during my rock climbing trip, I also used it as proof that it was cold outside. By the end of the week I had one of my climbing partners look at my hands and announce that my polish was too dark of a purple not to be wearing gloves.
Adrenaline
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| Also accomplished with an icepack |
Adrenaline is a thermal crellie from the Hormonal Efficiency collection. The formula is squishy but not too squishy, and the glitter goes on super smooth and evenly. It takes at least 4-5 coats to get this opaque though, and I personally don't like how it looks when it is sheer.The color shift of the polish is a little odd. It takes a lot in order to change the color of this polish, and I can't seem to get it to re-color only one part at a time. Also the color shift isn't super noticeable most of the time either, so even though it is a summer colored polish, you would get the most use out of this in the winter.
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