NARS Vintage Collection Fall 2010

I've been holding off on posting this until I could photograph all the colors next to the originals, but I can't seem to find my Full Metal Jacket and can't get my hands on King Kong and I just need to post these before they become irrelevant. Argh! So much for plans.

Anyway, this year NARS was awesome enough to bring back a few of their old discontinued shades including the mythical ZULU. I'm insanely happy about this and it really makes me view NARS much more positively. Many of us have been begging for a Zulu re-release since the day it disappeared- and apparently they listened!

Here are the shades:


King Kong. Rusty brown shimmer. I never recall this being a super popular shade as far as NARS polishes are concerned, but it's actually really pretty. Reminds me of fall for sure. Very smooth and velvety looking on the nail.

Full Metal Jacket. A silver-grey frost. This is one of the few frosts that I actually like. It's a little streaky but not obnoxiously so, it does dry a lot smoother than it applies. It's very shiny and metallic looking, but not quite chrome-like. It's sleek and sexy.


MASH. I think I'm just as happy about the re-release of MASH as I am about Zulu! This is an incredibly beautiful dark olive green with gold shimmer. One of NARS' best old shades, if you ask me.


Midnight Express. This one can change appearance a bit depending on how it's applied. This is two rather thick coats, but I think it looks better with three thin coats. It's a jelly, so the more even you apply the coats, the better. Really brings out the jelly effect. This is a super dark blue which looks especially nice in a jelly finish. Illamasqua Propaganda is similar in color and finish, but this was easier for me to apply and had a more jelly look.


Zulu. I apologize for the strange pictures. Zulu is really hard to capture and I wanted to show the green-ness of it. If you're not familiar with Zulu, it's a super dark blackened green jelly. One of the most unique and gorgeous polishes ever released. I know some would disagree with the 'unique' label, but I've really never worn, seen or frankened an exact match for this. The closest I've used is George Evergreen. Somehow none of the Zulu-clones have that dark jelly depth and squishiness that the original Zulu has. Unfortunately, the new Zulu also lacks a lot of the jelly effect of the original. Still awesome, though.

The best thing about the re-released polishes has to be the formula. It's three-free and greatly improved. The old ones were a little on the sheer and slightly runny-goopy side (I think they were three-free before, weren't they?) and took a while to dry. These are now thicker and more opaque which means they're easier to apply and need fewer coats. They also dry quickly. NARS' brush is not my favorite- too thin- but that's the only complaint I have about the bottles and formula.


I do wish they had re-released Platoon along with these to make a full six. But, they re-released Zulu, MASH and Midnight Express so I really can't complain! Really cool of NARS to bring back the old shades. If only some other brands would do the same- like Urban Decay or Revlon!

(These were sent to me for review.)

Sally Hansen Rockstar Pink and NARS Midnight Express

I was in a layering mood recently and this combination happened:

One coat of Sally Hansen Xtreme Wear Rockstar Pink over NARS Midnight Express. I loved this combination. I'm holding the bottle of Gelous basecoat to remind me of the trick I learned. I put a coat of Gelous over the glitter and then used quick dry topcoat to make the glitter more smooth. Sometimes with really chunky glitters I use two coats of topcoat, but if you use the Gelous underneath instead it seems to be a lot smoother and shinier than plain quick-dry
topcoat.


This is what the Sally Hansen glitter looks like alone:

It's a really dense multi-color glitter (great coverage) that consists of light pink, purple, blue, red and a little silver.

NARS: Old Zulu versus New Zulu

You know... I don't know if I've ever reviewed Zulu all by itself! I suppose that will have to wait until I'm done with this post!

As you all may know by now, NARS has listened to all of us begging them to bring back the beloved green polish and has re-released Zulu along with a few others that were discontinued around the same time (like Mash and Midnight Express).

My first thought when I heard that was "WOOHOO!", but my second thought was "Oh no, I hope it's still the same."

So, I grabbed my original bottle of Zulu and compared:

With flash
Left: Original Zulu, three coats
Right: New Zulu, three coats


Different angle. You can see a bit of a difference in the bottle color.



Left: New Zulu
Right: Old Zulu

Flash shows a slight shade difference.
Left: New Zulu
Right: Old Zulu

The question is, "are they different?" Yes and no. For one, the new version has received a formula update and is more opaque and less streaky than the original. But, color-wise, I detect a small deviation from the original color. It's most apparent on the first coat, but the original is a more saturated color and has a touch more blue. You can see in the bottles that the original looks slightly richer and more jelly-like. The new one isn't quite as jelly-like or as rich of a green.

Is it totally different? No. They're nearly spot on with only minor differences. And, unless you're like me and can see the difference between nail polishes that seem identical to 'normal' people, you probably won't even notice a difference. Especially not at three coats.

And just for fun, here's a really old picture of me wearing the original Zulu, two coats I believe:

You can really see the rich green base color here. At three coats it's near-black, which I love, but at two it's quite green. And yes, a bit streaky, but if you're careful and don't rush (like me, I rush, patience? What's that?) you can get a smooth even coat each time.


Very happy to see one of my favorite colors of all time return. I know everyone's been looking forward to this, myself included. And it still amazes me how almost no company has been able to duplicate this color. I've seen two that are close, but one is already discontinued and very hard to find. I supposed that's irrelevant now that it's actually back!

(The new Zulu was sent to me for review.)

New polishes from Eyeko

Eyeko has four more shades for summer and fall... Though I'm thinking we've seen two of them before!


Chi Chi Polish (for girlie nails). This is a warm pink glitter in a cloudy/milky pink tinted base. Immediately when I saw this I was reminded of NARS Arabesque as it's the same general idea:

Index and ring finger: NARS Arabesque (four coats)
Middle and pinkie finger: Eyeko Chi Chi Polish (three coats)

They're different shades of pink. Same pink glitter/milky base concept, but not duplicates. But I still think she might prefer the Eyeko...


Punk Polish (for neon nails). This is a bright nearly-neon pink creme. They've done a Punk Polish before, but this seems to be an updated version. I will have to find my old bottle to compare, but this 2010 Punk Polish in the tall bottle seems quite a bit brighter than the previous incarnation.



Rain Polish (for city nails). This is a beautiful, melancholy pale grey-blue with fine silver shimmer. Great concept, great execution. I love this color, it's perfect.

Saucy Polish (for naughty nails). This is a flaming red creme. Very bright and obnoxious, just the way I like it. It does remind me of Eyeko's previous Red Nail Polish, but again, I haven't compared directly. It could be another updated version.

The formula on these is much improved from a lot of the previous collections. Punk, Saucy and Rain gave me no application problems but Chi Chi was a little thick and sheer, which is kind of a difficult combination to work with. Three coats of each shade are pictured and the opacity is pretty good on all but Chi Chi.

I miss the old cute bottles with the wide mouths and silver caps. These new bottles just aren't cute! But they are still small and convenient... But easy to tip over and not as chibi looking.

(These were sent to me for review)

Fall Colors Eye Look

This one is from Tuesday. I woke up and suddenly it felt like fall, so I wanted fall colors! I think this one turned out great and flattered my eye color, seems like the darkness of the colors was offset by the sparkle on Asphalt so it didn't look too dull.


This was:
MAC Paint Pot in Painterly
Aromaleigh Asphalt applied wet on lid
Stila Ebony in crease
Fyrinnae Dark Magic over Ebony in crease and on lower lashline
NARS Night Fever applied wet as liner (about the only thing it's good for!)
Laura Geller Wonder Wand highlight
Cover Girl Lash Blast

Check out all the sweet multicolored sparkle in Asphalt. It's such a deceiving color. I had a sample of it in a bag and it looked black, but then I decided to order a full size cause, well, it was my last chance... glad I did because it's a really unusual and gorgeous color. Tons and tons of sparkle, my pictures don't even capture half of the rich color and outrageous sparkle of it. It looks black or charcoal but once it's on it looks more copper or even sort of purple-bronze in some lights.

And Fyrinnae Dark Magic is fantastic and perfect for fall. Rich metallic burgundy-red with blue-purple sparkles. Love this color. Going to have to pick up a full size next time I order.

Now I'm trying to come up with some good creative looks using only Evil Shades colors... I've been really digging Heartless Queen, Steele Green *sniffle* and Devil's Bonfire... swatches soon!

NARS Purple Rain

NARS Purple Rain. I was complaining on Twitter the other day about how disappointed I was in NARS Purple Rain... but I completely take back everything I said. It is darker than I had anticipated based on all the ads and promo pics I saw for it, but that's okay now! Once I put it on my nails I knew how wrong I was. This is awesome. So awesome. I haven't been impressed by any NARS polish since they discontinued all the good colors, but this one redeems them in my eyes. This is a rich and complex deep red toned purple with tons of red and blue shimmer. It is very shimmery and very gorgeous. My picture pulls it more blue than it looks in real life... But you knew that, because you always read what I write under the pictures so you know about my camera and purple, right? Right?!?! (HA!) So yeah, it's definitely a red-toned purple in real life. Not *too* far off from my picture. It's how it looks in the bottle in these pictures.

The first thing that came to my mind was that it looks like Illamasqua Baptiste... which it kinda does a little but they're far off enough to warrant owning both.

Index and ring: Illamasqua Baptiste
Middle and pinkie: NARS Purple Rain

See? Not duplicates of each other. They're both dark purple and shimmery, though!

So.... yeah. I really love this. And I think I have... what... 3? 4? Polishes named Purple Rain now. Nubar, Lippmann, this NARS and I swear there's another one. Creative. At least it's not Ruby Slippers!

Formula was excellent on this as well. Extremely opaque and dense and very smooth.


Just for fun, here's a picture I took of the label. I really like the way this looks. It shows the color accurately, too.

More Random Polishes I Like

Milani Orange Burst. Great shimmer with a bit of iridescence to it.




NARS Mash. Oh my.

Maybelline Vanishing Venus. Purplish-brown with green duochrome/shimmer!

BB Couture Joker. Perfect bright blue-purple with a little shimmer.

Hot Topic Turquoise Glitter.

Sephora Brand Fusion.


Claire's Galaxy. Purple/Fuchsia version. There's also a black with glitter called Galaxy.

Orly Opal Hope. Tons of crazy awesome green duochrome/flash/shimmer that's not visible in this picture. It's amazing.

Savvy Deep Amethyst. :Q_______

Zoya Bijou. Neon glass fleck jelly? Hell yeah!