Honeybee Gardens Water Based Nail Polish in Abyss (Black)

For this Honeybee Gardens water based nail polish review I tried out Abyss (black). Black nail polish is all the rage right now, and it is also a good color to have for nail art, so I decided to add a black polish to my collection.

Packaging

Honeybee Gardens WaterColors water-based nail enamel comes in an ordinary nail polish bottle containing 14ml. There is nothing special about the bottle, but I also have no complaints about it.

Application

I painted my nails on Wednesday evening after my shower and before going to bed. I started with a layer of clear nail polish, since Honeybee Gardens recommends to do so with dark colors. Then I used 3 thin coats of Abyss, followed by one coat of clear. This polish seems to take longer to dry than other water based polishes. I let it dry for about 5 minutes between layers.

Smell

The clear nail polish has a slight tangy smell and irritated my eyes a little bit. The black nail polish (Abyss) only has a very slight smell.

Brush

The polishes have medium/small sized brushes.

Consistency

The colored nail polish is a bit on the thicker side for a water based polish. It almost has a gel texture. It paints on smoothly over the clear base coat, but the first and third layers looked a bit streaky. The layer of top coat helped to smooth out the nail polish.

Color

The clear nail polish looks white in the bottle, which is normal for water based nail polish. When the clear base coat dried it almost disappeared. It hardly even left a glossy finish.

The first layer of Abyss went on translucent, like a jelly nail polish. The second layer was almost opaque.  It looks like licorice! With 3 coats it is a glossy opaque black.

The Honeybee Gardens website describes Abyss as matte black. I thought they were confused until I painted on a layer of clear as a top coat. It changed the polish to a matte finish. Eeek! I liked it better glossy. So now my left hand has matte black nail polish, but I am keeping my right hand with glossy black polish. By the morning, when the polish had cured, the nails with top coat had a bit of gloss to them, but were still more of a dull grey-black than the nails without top coat.

Honeybee Gardens Abyss Nail Polish with Clear Top Coat- Matte Black

Honeybee Gardens Abyss Nail Polish Without Clear Top Coat- Glossy Black

Wear

Day 1 (Thursday morning):

Honeybee Gardens Water Based Nail Polish on Day 1

Day 2 (Friday morning):

Honeybee Gardens Water Based Nail Polish Day 2 Left Hand

Honeybee Gardens Water Based Nail Polish Day 2 Right Hand

The Honeybee Gardens nail polish is already starting to chip. I chipped the polish on my right thumb nail opening a zip lock baggie. Some of my other nails started to chip a little during my shower.

I painted my toenails with Abyss the day before painting my fingernails. My toenails look awful after just three days. I wore peep-toe shoes to ballroom class last night and the polish started chipping off like crazy. I could understand if just the nail that the shoe was rubbing on got chipped, but it’s not just that one. And the polish is almost half chipped off. Nail polish usually lasts for a month on my toenails, even with some of the water-based brands.

Day 3 (Saturday morning):

Honeybee Gardens Water Based Nail Polish Day 3

The nail polish on my right hand, which does not have top coat, is quite chipped. The nails on my left hand, which do have top coat are doing much better. They only have slight tip wear or tiny chips.

Day 4 (Sunday morning):

Honeybee Gardens Water Based Nail Polish Day 4

The nail polish on my left hand, with top coat, is wearing much better than the polish without top coat, but it is also starting to chip.

Day 5 (Monday morning):

Honeybee Gardens Water Based Nail Polish Day 5

Today, the nail polish on my left hand is chipped, as well. Using a coat of clear nail polish as top coat definitely helped the polish not chip as quickly. I would not advise wearing Honeybee Gardens water based nail polish without top coat.

Day 6 (Tuesday morning):

Honeybee Gardens Water Based Nail Polish Day 6

Honeybee Gardens Black Toenail Polish After 1 Week

Today I have been wearing the Honeybee Gardens Abyss nail polish on my toenails for one week. I used one coat of clear as a base coat and 2-3 coats of black polish. I did not use a top coat on my toenails. The polish is horribly chipped!

Day 7 (Wednesday morning):

Honeybee Gardens Water Based Nail Polish Day 7

The nail polish has already been looking terribly chipped for days now. The nails on my right hand look worse than they should, due to an incident with nail polish remover last night. I keep some of my removers and polishes on a shelf in the bathroom. When I was reaching for a nail polish I accidentally knocked over my Scotch Naturals remover. The pretty frosted glass bottle shattered to pieces on the floor. I immediately started cleaning it up, without thinking about the fact that I was still wearing nail polish. It removed a bit of the polish off the nails on my right hand. But they already looked horrible after a week, anyway!

Removal

Honeybee Gardens Nail Polish Remover is the most like regular non-acetone remover out of the removers from water-based nail polish brands that I have tried. It has a score of 3, indicating moderate health concern, in the Skin Deep Cosmetics Database. When I looked at the ingredients list I noticed right away that it contains methyl acetate, which is used in some regular non-acetone nail polish removers. Methyl acetate can irritate skin and eyes and is extremely flammable.

When I first started using the remover I noticed a chemical smell, but it was soon replaced by a perfume smell almost like coconut. I did not like the feel of the remover on my skin, as it was extremely drying and uncomfortable on my fingertips. It reminded me of why I would wear a glove on one hand while removing polish from the other hand, with regular nail polish remover. Even though it contains Vitamin E, it was not enough to make up for the drying effect. The Honeybee Gardens remover did do its job and easily removed the polish from my fingernails in 15 minutes. After removing the polish I put a generous amount of jojoba oil on my nails to rehydrate them.

Overall Opinion of Honeybee Gardens Nail Polish

I have never seen a nail polish chip as badly as Honeybee Gardens nail polish, water-based or otherwise! The polish was literally flaking off my nails. I would find little black flecks around the house and wonder what they were, until I realized it was chips of nail polish. Using the clear nail polish as a top coat definitely helped extend the wear of the polish, but it still only looked good for 3-4 days. I preferred the glossy finish that the black nail polish had without a layer of top coat. However, I only recommend wearing this polish with top coat, as it chips too easily otherwise.

Overall, I would not recommend Honeybee Gardens WaterColors water-based nail enamel. If you are looking for a nail polish line that includes base and top coat, take a look the Keeki Pure & Simple nail polish reviews. If you would prefer a water based nail polish that does not require base and top coat, check out the Acquarella water based nail polish reviews.

Honeybee Gardens Nail Polish Ingredients

Colored Nail Polish: water, water-miscible acrylic resins and thickeners, butyl carbitol (also called butoxydigloycol, has a score of 1-2, low hazard in Skin Deep). May contain: mica, ultramarine blue, carmine, iron oxides, titanium dioxide.

Clear Nail Polish: water, water-miscible acrylic, polyurethane formers and thickeners, non-ionic soaps. May contain: ultramarine blue, carmine, mica, iron oxides, titanium dioxide. Score of 2, low health concern on Skin Deep. Apparently this is the old formulation for Honeybee Gardens WaterColors water-based nail enamel.

Nail Polish Remover: methyl acetate, butoxydiglycol, aloe barbadensis leaf juice, equisetum arvense (horsetail) extract, tocopheryl acetate (vitamin E), fragrance. Warning: Extremely flammable. Liquid and vapors may ignite. Score of 3, moderate health concern on Skin Deep.

Where to Buy Honeybee Gardens Nail Polish

You can help support Pretty Painted Nails by purchasing through one of my affiliate links. There will be no extra cost to you, and I will earn a small commission. Thank you for your support.

You can purchase Honeybee Gardens WaterColors from the Honeybee Gardens website or from Amazon.

Have you tried Honeybee Gardens water based nail polish? Did it last better on your nails?

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