Nubar has a new collection slated for Spring 2012 called Jellybeans. The name, I'm assuming, is an allusion to the fact that these are pretty much all jellies. The jury is still out on these, I'm a little ticked off at the application of a few of these, but there are a couple that are just drop-dead gorgeous. Some will will be great for "jelly sandwiches," the name for glitter sandwiched between a few coats of a jelly polish. Some of these won't work for that, but will still look gorgeous alone, and a couple are plain weird, one just plain hideous, but all are shiny as hell.

Blueberry

I'm starting out with my favorite; Blueberry. It's a jelly, but it's pretty pigmented. In the photo you can see my smile line showing through, but in reality it looked pretty opaque, yet squishy, shiny and lovely. The application was simple and I only needed two coats. It's a beautiful clear-toned bright royal blue. It splits the difference between bold and neon.

Cherry

Cherry is my second favorite. It's an orange red with slight burnt tone to it. It's very nautical feeling to me. Two coats was plenty, and the texture is very squidgy looking and it's very, very shiny. Gorgeous.

Strawberry

The above photo of Strawberry is three coats, and it's really pretty at this opacity. It's very soft and sort of edible looking. It's not streaky at all, despite how it looks on my ridgy pinky nail. The creamy strawberries-and-cream look is going to be so pretty in Spring. Incidentally, this one works the best of all of these, in my opinion, for the Jelly Sandwich due to it's easy buildability and streaklessness. Below, with one coat, it's a good polish for a quick and dirty manicure when you're in a hurry and just want something girly and glossy.

Strawberry (1 coat)

Grape

OK, here's where it all starts going downhill a bit. Grape is pretty, definitely, but it's really streaky, sheer, and it's not unique enough to warrant either of those issues. This is three thick coats that I sort of floated all of the nails in an attempt to get even coverage. I refuse to do 5 coats for a swatch, and four is pushing it, so I did as best as I could with three. Below you can see one coat. It's not quite sheer enough for a Jelly Sandwich, in my opinion. I'm sure someone else will try successfully, but I didn't like this enough to try past the sample Jelly Sandwich on the nail wheel at the bottom of this post.

Grape - one coat

Blue Raspberry

This one makes me sad, it could be so pretty if it weren't quite so sheer. This is three thick coats, and it's still streaky. It would make a great Jelly Sandwich if you're willing to do three or four coats, let them dry and then apply glitter and then another coat of this. I like the idea, but I don't have the patience to make it work. It sort of reminds me of one of those Rescue Beauty Lounge Spongebob polishes, but I can't remember the name. Wonder how it compares?...

Blue Raspberry - one coat

Kiwi

This is the most difficult polish in the collection, application-wise. This is three really thick coats and it's spotty at best. I really feel like this one has no redeeming qualities. It reminds me of OPI Gargantuan Green Grape in many bad ways, except the color of this is a bit softer and a bit prettier. If I didn't anticipate 5 thin coats to get there, I'd give it another try, but I don't own that sort of patience.

Kiwi - one coat

Lemon

This one is very sunny and pretty. I personally don't have another quite like it. The application isn't bad, three careful coats will do it, and it's squishy and shiny. There aren't a lot of negatives, honestly. I probably should have posted this nearer the top because I do actually like it quite a bit, but I'm not rhapsodizing mainly because it sort of clashes with my skin. This is a personal issue, and if you look good in yellow, it's really cool and I recommend it. I have barely any pink tones in my skin, but yellow polish sucks them all to the surface. The nature of the beast and all that...

Toasted Marshmallow

There are no words. Why, Nubar? You love to throw the weird ones in just to make people think, and usually I dig that. Moire... Reclaim... yeah, those are awesome, but this? This makes me sad. I like the actual color itself. I wouldn't mind an accent pillow in this color, but not a polish. Yeah in the bottle it looks like delicious creamy caramel sauce, and I want to just pour it down my throat, but on the nail? I mean, I can't think of one skin tone/depth that would rock this. The greatest tragedy of all?... It applies so perfectly. Of all the polishes in this collection it applies the most flawlessly, and I have no desire to wear it. So sad.

Here's a nail wheel showing the Jelly Sandwich potential for some of the Jellybeans polishes. I didn't show Blueberry, Cherry or Grape because the glitter was nearly invisible. I didn't even try it with Toasted Marshmallow because I was afraid of how much like vomit it would look.

Overall, Strawberry is the best one I think, for Jelly Sandwiches. On the top right I tried painting the nail white, adding glitter and slapping a coat of Blue Raspberry over it. That's another tack to use... A coat of white, some glitter and a couple coats of a Jellybean. I might experiment a little more.

My favorites from the collection are Blueberry and Cherr, hands down. They are great and worth owning for sure. Blueberry is very unique, even in my sizable blue-centric stash, and Cherry is a really unique warm red-orange that's been missing from my color palette.

The products in this post were sent to Beautopia for review.