NOTD: Maybelline Banana Puddin': Pretty, but a PITA

I have a complicated relationship with yellow nail polish. I like how it looks like on others, but I've been too scared to actually try it out on myself. So everytime I consider picking yellow as a mani colour, my brain goes through this thought process: Wear yellow - Don't wear yellow - Wear yellow - Don't wear yellow - etc ad infinitum. Yeah as you can tell, I'm a deep thinker. :P

I decided to finally suck up the courage to actually try out a yellow, because I figured if I hated it on me, I need never look back, and I can finally stop vacillating over whether I should wear yellow or not. So I picked out a pastel yellow that didn't have too many warm tones in it - I figure it would ease me into the yellow shock I might have. And after scouring around, I found Maybelline Banana Puddin'.

Here is Banana Puddin' on me, taken outdoors in natural light. I actually think it's as pretty as pastel yellow can get, although it's definitely not everyone's cup of tea (I'm still trying to decide if it's mine or not):



Banana Puddin' is a colour that has long been discontinued (thanks, Maybelline), and apparently it's a HTF (hard to find) colour, and a pretty coveted one at that. Apparently it's desirability stems from the fact that it's a wearable yellow for cooler skintones. Warmer yellows can often make cooler skintones appear very ruddy and red, giving a "lobster hands" effect, but unfortunately most yellows are warm, so a cool yellow is hard to find.

I do think Banana Puddin' is wearable enough for cooler skintones. Of course it's still not going to be a colour everyone will like, but if you are going to wear yellow, this is probably one of the more wearable ones around. It's also a soft pastel yellow, as opposed to neon highlighter yellow, so it doesn't draw too much attention to itself. It's a good start if you're going to be trying yellow for the first time.



Here it is in indoor lights. You can see it's more yellow indoors.

While it's a pretty yellow, it was a total PITA to apply. Yellows in general do tend to be hard to apply though, so it was no surprise to me. Still, it's a pain when you're doing your mani, because it was sheer and streaky. These pictures show 4 coats. Yes, FOUR FREAKING COATS. If you are skilled and apply thicker coats that are even, you might get away with three, but I suspect most people are going to use four. I dinged my mani so many times while waiting for it to dry, because four not-that-thin coats is obviously going to dry slowly.

Unfortunately, my attempt to finally decide whether I liked yellow or not wasn't very successful, as even after trying Banana Puddin', I still feel ambivalent about yellow. I don't know how I feel about it, and the lousy application isn't helping. What do you think? Would you wear yellow?