Kiko Sugar Mat Nail Lacquer Set - review and swatches part 2

Hello lovelies! As promised yesterday, I'm back with the second half of the Sugar Mat holiday set from Kiko. If you've missed the first post you can go read it by clicking here. In addition to the warmer shades in this collection, the first post also includes photos of the box these come in so make sure you check it out if you are thinking of buying this as a gift for someone. It's the perfect gift for a polish lover in my opinion. 

Today's post will include the cooler toned polishes in this collection, the ones I'm more used to wearing and photographing. Let's start with the first one. 

Kiko 455 Light Taupe indoors, artificial light

455 Light Taupe is a very interesting shade that can look grey or beige depending on the light. I know the correct word for that is taupe, but I can't help thinking of the word greige, even though it's not really correct. There's a very interesting shimmer in this one, pink and green, but unfortunately it doesn't translate in photos. 

Kiko 455 Light Taupe indoors, artificial light

Pigmentation for this one was ok, not an almost one coater like the red and pink, but still pretty good in 2 coats. Drying time was also good. I'm actually very impressed with how the people from Kiko have done this shade. It could have been very boring because of the color, but it ended up very interesting so kudos for them. 

Kiko 456 Teal Green indoors, artificial light

456 Teal Green is a spectacular shade! The name pretty much says everything about the color but there's a lot more to it. There are tons of turquoise shimmer in there, which gives a lot of dimension and makes this look like you've got jewels on your nails. It was very funny because my camera totally freaked out and wouldn't photograph this true to color at all. It looked incredibly blue on camera, so I had to alter it to make it look like it does in real life. 

Kiko 456 Teal Green indoors, artificial light

Opacity was again a medium one, which means that it needs two coats to look perfect. Drying time was a normal one as well. I think it's safe to say that this is my favorite one from the collection although it's pretty hard to choose it over the blue shade. I guess the fact that it's a unique shade in my collection of textures is also important.

Kiko 457 Royal Blue indoors, artificial light

457 Royal Blue is pretty much the textured version of Nails Inc Baker Street. I know Golden Rose has a similar color with a textured finish but theirs doesn't have any shimmer, while this one is packed with light blue shimmer. I also own the blue from the original Sugar Mat collection (644 Sea Blue) and they are definitely not dupes. This one is a lot brighter and has light blue shimmer as opposed to 644 that has silver shimmer. 

Kiko 457 Royal Blue indoors, artificial light

I feel like I'm repeating the same things over here but this had the same formula as the previous ones and was opaque in 2 coats. I did a full manicure with it the other day and had to leave the house so I added a coat of Seche Vite to make it completely dry. Here's the result. 

Kiko 457 Royal Blue with top coat, indoors, artificial direct light

The top coat makes the shimmer stand out and makes it look similar to Picture Polish Freya's Cats, one of my lemmings. I guess I'm satisfied with this and don't need the Picture Polish in my life anymore. I'm a big fan of adding top coat to textured polishes cause you never know what you will find. 

Kiko 458 Anthracite indoors, artificial light

458 Anthracite is a charcoal grey shade with the same pink and green subtle shimmer from the taupe shade. I'm not very happy with how this one photographed. It actually looks a lot better than this in real life. People that are fans of silver will definitely love this one. Again I did 2 coats and didn't have any issues with application or drying time.

Kiko 458 Anthracite indoors, artificial light

I can't believe I'm done with all the shades in this collection! I must admit that swatching and reviewing whole collections is very hard. I have great respect for the bloggers that do this often. To sum up, I'm very glad I purchased this set and I think that my collection of textured polishes is pretty much complete now. What I love about this set is that all shades look good on my skin tone. When I first saw the colors I was afraid that the peach and red/pink shades wouldn't suit me, but the people at Kiko have made them more cool toned, which makes me very happy. If I had to pick a favorite it would be shade 456 Teal Green, with 457 Royal Blue as a close second. That's no surprise though because you all know how much I love blue and green. I really hope you've enjoyed these swatches and some of you will find them useful. Thanks for reading!