Uncharacteristic Konad

This is a base of BB Couture For Men Intake Valve with Konad plate m73 stamped in Konad Princess Polish Grey Pearl. This is very uncharacteristic of me.... A soft flowery Konad? But I really enjoyed how this one turned out and I wore it until it chipped. Intake Valve is a total chameleon. Sometimes it looks like a pale putty color and sometimes it looks like a light pink/light mauve. And the Grey Pearl? It's purple. At least I think this is grey pearl. Konad Princess Polishes don't seem to have labels on them... or they fell off... one of the two. But yeah. This one is a soft shimmery dusty lavender.

I use plate m73 with this particular design a LOT, but I've never done such a feminine looking arrangement of colors with it. My favorite design with m73 is chrome gold like China Glaze 2030 over China Glaze Emerald Sparkle, and I think I've posted that one before.

I was admiring this manicure on my fingers on the day I stamped it when suddenly I realized what it reminded me of... This looks like those floral print turtlenecks my mother-in-law wears. (>.<)

And for something a little more interesting...

Check out this sweet eyeshadow! It's Too Faced Galaxy Glam in Moonbeam. Isn't is cool looking? I wish I had ordered all the colors now. I'm going to have to see if they still have them. This is a black matte base with metallic green and iridescent green/white swirled in, and when applied it gives a metallic blackened green iridescent look. I've been using it to do an iridescent green smoky eye with the Kat Von D green/white duochrome shadow from the Gypsy palette.

Seriously one of the coolest looking shadows I own.

OPI Shrek Forever After Collection Spring 2010

Okay, here's the Shrek. And I'm going to let you in on a little secret. Okay, no, it's not really a secret... But I've never seen Shrek. I saw part of it while getting a pedicure at a salon ages ago... But I've never seen the whole thing or any of the sequels. Why is it that every time a polish company does a movie or TV show themed collection it's never something I've seen? No big deal... I'm not really into TV or mainstream movies, so it's understandable.

Now that my train of thought has totally derailed.... What was I going to say? I don't remember. Here's some swatches.

Fiercely Fiona. Wow, what an unusual color! It's this odd murky yellow with a bit of spring green mixed in... It's light and it's a creme and I just keep thinking, wow, this does not seem like a typical OPI color. That's not a bad thing, it's just... so.. different! Weird even!

Funkey Dunkey. Funkey Dunkey??? Rich purple creme. Nice and opaque. It seems to be in the same family as Rescue Beauty Lounge Mismas and China Glaze Grape Pop.


Ogre The Top Blue. I've got an Ogre-Slaying Knige! It's got a +9 against ogres! Bright medium blue creme. Very pretty. I like how these blues look on me. Don't know if it's super unique but I love it anyway.


Rumple's Wiggin'. I have no idea what that means but it sounds funny. This is a very light pale purple creme- lavender pastel might be more accurate. It's a little bit like the Spring Illamasqua lavender... Wink? Caress? I can't remember the name. It's one of those, you know which ones I'm talking about?


What's With The Cattitude? This one so needs a lolcat to go with it. Anyway. Pastel blue. Looks brighter and more opaque in this picture than it looks to me in real life. It's more whitish and almost jelly finish to my eye. Honestly, I had a tough time applying this one, it was uncharacteristically streaky and unwieldy for an OPI.

Who The Shrek Are You? Haha! I like that name. This is a bright pea green. Slime green? OH OH I KNOW! It's chartreuse! I don't get to use that word often and it's a shame cause it's an awesome name for a color. Chartreuse. Just rolls off the tongue.

Formula was a little inconsistent on these. The non-pastels were fantastic but the pastels gave me a little trouble. They seem like the old OPI 3-free formula. Are they tweaking the formula again? OPI is usually so consistent and reliable for me. Other than the slight thickness and streakiness of the pastel shades, the polish was great. Very good dry time and all dried to a very glossy finish without topcoat. The Pro-Wide brush doesn't seem as wide in these for some reason. I need to compare. It seems smaller.

Overall, whoa, what an unexpected collection! Murky yellow greens? I really didn't see that coming at all. Pretty cool though. I'm a fan of 'un-pretty' shades so I was happy to see these murky slime greens. Glad there's no pink here! Oh, hey, I just realized that. No pink and no red! I'm shocked! Go OPI! I knew you could do it. A collection of green blue and purple! I just wish the shades were more unique- Fiercely Fiona is the only one that doesn't remind me of anything. I'm sure there has to be a similar shade, I just can't think of one.

(These were sent to me for review.)

Nubar Risque Reds Spring 2010

Wow, everyone really wants to see Shrek!

However, I thought I should post the Nubar Reds today instead because it's the last day of the sale that I only heard about this morning. Oops.

Nubar reds. A whole collection of reds. No comment.


Cabaret Red. Light true red with shimmer.


Enchanting Red. My favorite of the collection! Deep burgundy-red shimmer. It has that vampy glowing-embers look- like the middle is glowing and the edges are dark. Very sexy.


Fiery Red. Medium warm red with shimmer. With a name like Fiery, I was expecting something with maybe an orange-gold shimmer, but the shimmer in this looks kinda silvery-red.


Lustful Red. Bright red creme. Classic, but a little less saturated than some red cremes.


Seductive Red. Lighter than Enchanting Red. Deep cool red shimmer.


Sensual Red. Bright cherry red creme! I like this one better than Lustful Red, it's more saturated- more ooomph!

Sultry Red. Light faded pink-red with shimmer. My least favorite. Nothing about this color catches my eye.


Torrid Red. This one I love too. It's a total vampire color. It's a little more brown toned than Enchanting Red, kind of an autumn wine shade? They're similar but the base colors are different. Still glowy.

Formula was really nice. Good dry time. No application problems... Some dried a little dull, but that's not really important if you use topcoat (which you should!).

Overall, not really an exciting collection for me, though it does have a few pretty hot colors. Maybe this is like the Fortress collection- they're just trying to fill in the gaps in the polish line? I can't remember how many reds Nubar had before this- I know they have two I liked before, Sexy Red and Burgundy Velvet, but I can't recall too many others. So, if you're a red fan, and I know a lot of you are, this rocks for you! Me? Meh. I'm just waiting to see what Nubar does next- they've had an amazing track record the past few years: all greens, all glitters, all purples, all holos... I'm dying to know what the next will be! I'm hoping for blues. Or... no... not blues... I want more holos!

(These were sent to me for review)

New-ish Sally Hansen Hard As Nails Xtreme Wears

I'm on a Sally Hansen kick lately. Still hunting for old glitters... but some of the new stuff hasn't been bad! I really like the new brush. I've seen a lot of people say they hate it, but it seriously works for me. I love wide brushes. I used to hate them, too! Now I need them.

Going Green. Sweeeeeeeeeet! A really unique green! From the drugstore! Easily obtained and usually on sale! This is a lighter shade of green but luckily it's not mint (which I like to look at but it looks horrible on me, lobster hands, you know.). I'd call it grass green perhaps, medium, with soft subtle silvery shimmer. The only downside is it stains like a mofo. Seriously. I had green nails for a week. Totally worth it though.



In The Spotlight over Wet Cement. In The Spotlight is a hologram stringy/bar glitter topcoat. Not much on its own, but looks great over this grey. I'm one of the rare people who actually loves stringy glitter... It looks like a party on your nails! They're not common, which is sad. I guess I could always make my own, but... yeah. This one is not really super unique and it can be a little tricky to get the placement right but I still love it.

Pacific Blue. I am sad. I can not get this color to come out right in pictures. It always turns into this bright neon looking blue. It's not neon blue. It's a soft blue creme, perhaps cornflower blue? A little muted, very unique. Totally gorgeous. And I just noticed that it looks like there are runes carved into the side of my bottle... Huh?! I didn't notice that before.


Purple Pizazz. It was hard for me to pick a favorite from these, but this has to be it. It was love at first sight. It's a jelly purple with large flecks of iridescent gold-red shimmer. It's like Claire's Magic or Milani Totally Cool but the shimmer is bigger. The purple shade is so vibrant and in-your-face that it just makes me want to wear nothing but this polish for weeks on end. I love looking down at my nails and seeing exactly the color I've been wanting from a purple polish! It is sheer though, this is three coats. It looks okay with two coats but I always like my polish on the more opaque side.

Wet Cement. Nice alone too! Very flattering not too blue light grey creme. Not too much to say about it other than I really like it.


I hope Sally Hansen keeps doing stuff like this, but I also hope they don't keep raising their already ridiculous prices. At least this line is inexpensive. Those Complete Salon whatever ones are almost $8! For drugstore polish! Are they trying to become a salon brand or just convince people that what's in the $8 Sally Hansen bottle is somehow higher quality than what's in the $4 Sally Hansen bottle? I don't get it.

So... on a different note... I have a question for you guys. Are there any new polish collections that you're dying to see swatches of? Lately I'd rather post more random stuff than new collections all the time, but I have lots of the new spring/summer stuff swatched already. Like... four or five BB Couture collections, two Jessica collections, the Nubar reds, Color Club neons, Nicole, OPI Shrek and Soft Shades, Milani neons, Eyeko, Orly, Diamond... I feel like I need to just marathon post all the new collections to get them out of the way so I can go back to posting whatever random thing inspires me at the moment. Let me know what you would rather see first / what's most interesting.

Loose Ends and fun stuff.

After I swatched those new Sally Hansens that seemed very familiar, I had to go looking for what they reminded me of and I thought that I had posted the Sephora by OPIs already but I guess I hadn't! I never ended up getting all of them, but I did get these two:

Just A Fairy-Tail.

and

Mermaid To Order.

And yes, now that I'm seeing them again and not basing it only on memory, they totally are matches to the new Sally Hansens. Thank you to Krisprimps for refreshing my memory as well!

This is OPI Pink Me I'm Good from Valentine's day at Ulta. Not the best picture of it because it only shows the gold side of the glitter. It does a little green duochrome too, but it's subtle. One of the very few pinks I like to wear.

OPI Bling Dynasty from the Hong Kong collection. I didn't have a bottle of this at the time I did my post and I was going to go back and post this picture with the review, but it took me longer than I hoped it would take to get an acceptable picture of this.

That was a bit of a drag, now I want to post something fun.


This is an awesome Bourjois polish that my buddy Helen gave me. I don't think it has a name.... I've looked all over the bottle and I'm pretty sure there isn't a name. It's hard to capture in a picture, but it's a dark smoky teal/green with tons of shimmer and a purple-dark mauve duochrome. It's really freakin' sweet. It reminds me of black bird feathers, how they look black in one light and then they're iridescent in another? It has a really odd brush, a lot like the new Sally Hansen brushes- big and wide and flat! I actually really like that style of brush because it covers my whole nail in one stroke. I'm so in love with this polish. Thank you Helen :)

I got this Cargo Wet/Dry eyelining palette on clearance at Sephora a little while ago and I love it! I was very shocked by the size of it- it's as small as a credit card!- but apparently it doesn't need to be any bigger cause I've used it a ton and haven't even put a dent in it yet. I've only used the black, sparkly black and sparkly grey ones so far, but I think they're really nice. I use a drop of MAC water based mixing medium and a very short bristled stiff angled brush and the line comes out perfect. I used to use a cake eyeliner years and years ago and this reminds me of the one I used to use. I haven't tried them as eyeshadows. I don't know how well that light purple (yeah... two of those are purple, blame my camera!) would work as a liner though.... I haven't done a look yet that needed a light purple eyeliner so it remains untried.


Sally Hansen Hard As Nails Malachite Pearl. I don't think I even need to say anything about this. I think words would ruin it. Shhhh. Just gaze upon the beauty and let it speak to you.

Revlon Street Wear Burnt. This is the grey-green version. This is one of those Streetwears that has multiple versions all under the same name. I don't know why companies don't just use different names. I was at Sally last week getting some new Finger Paints and noticed that China Glaze Flying Dragon is a totally different color than it was when I first bought mine... Bizarre.... why not just name it... uh... Walking Dragon? Swimming Dragon. Cause it's not the same color anymore. Oh well. I love this polish. Why did Revlon ever stop making these?! Now their polish line is super boring. I wish they'd bring these back, or at least re-create some of the colors.

Color Club Pardon My French Collection Spring 2010

I am slightly confused by this collection- when I saw the name "Pardon My French" I immediately thought "oh, another sheer french manicure collection." But... when I tried the polishes on my nails I couldn't figure out how I would do a french manicure with these. The cremes are not really sheer enough to use as base colors, but you could definitely use them as tip colors. Perhaps the idea was to use one of the cremes as the tip color and one of the sheer glitters as the base? Or maybe this isn't a french manicure collection at all, it's just France themed. I don't know. Not even sure it matters! All that matters is... there's glitter.


I Believe In Amour. Pale creme pink.


Pardon My French. Pale pink-peach creme. I like this one... it has this nice delicate peachiness but it's still pretty stark-whitish so it really stands out on my hands. Sorta mod looking but also soft.


Take Me To Your Chateau. A pale blue creme. It's really not as bright as it looks here on my nails, but the bottle color is accurate. Also, see those streaks of darker color? My fault. It's unmixed pigment. It separated a little and I was too lazy to shake it before I swatched. D'oh.


Oh Naturale. Semi-sheer soft peach creme. This is a deeper, orangier peach- kinda like Crayola peach :) This was the only sheer one out of the cremes, but this is three coats and it's nearly opaque- only a little visible nail line.


Now onto the good part... the glitter.

I didn't take any pictures of the glitter alone because my nails were stained hot pink at the time I took these. >.<



Hot Couture over I Believe In Amour. NICE!!! As you can see, Hot Couture is a pastel multicolor/iridescent glitter in a sheer pink tinted base.



Hot Couture over Pardon My French. Also nice! I love how the paleness of the base accentuates the colors in the glitter.

Turn The Other Chic over Oh Naturale. This one is pastel iridescent glitter as well, but this is in an orange base. The orange base is not as sheer as Hot Couture so it's easier to wear alone. It's layered here but doesn't it look like it's alone?

Si Vous Please over Take Me To Your Chateau. This one is my favorite. A clear base with pastel iridescent glitter. Especially nice over this pale blue. It's so snowy and sparkly. I know it's almost summer but I'm really enamored with this wintery look right now. Not that I miss the snow yet...

Like I mentioned before, I thought these were going to be sheer but they really weren't. I did three coats of all and that was definitely enough. The glitters are sheer, though. Formula was basically Color Club standard- no surprises. The glitters are thick like the Color Club Japanese ones. You will want to wear a nice thick topcoat with the glitters because they are on the textured side. They're not that rough, but they do have a textured look after they dry instead of a glassy smooth look.

Can't wait to see what Color Club does next. I always look forward to their collections.

(These were sent to me for review)