Playing with MAC Old Gold Pigment

I've been obsessed with Old Gold lately. I've been wearing it for nearly a week straight, I only broke my streak on Sunday when I wore that BE Foiled Eye kit again.

I've been doing a variation on the same look, trying to get the most duochrome/iridescent effect as possible out of my shadows. I only got two looks to sort of turn out in pictures. I think I'm pretty good at taking pictures of my own hands now, but I haven't quite gotten the hang of eyeball pictures yet. I guess I need more practice. I can't seem to get the lighting right to catch the colors.

Anyway, I liked this one:

Natural light.



Flash and blurry, the shimmer and sparkle really shows up this way! So weird, the blurrier the picture, the better the glitter looks!

This one was:

MAC Paint Pot in Painterly
Fyrinnae Sake and Sashimi wet on outer half of lid
MAC Old Gold on inner half of lid
Too Faced Galaxy Glam shadow in Moon Beam in the crease and lower lashline
Urban Decay Liquid Liner in Lucky
Urban Decay 24/7 in Zero to tightline
Laura Geller Wonder Want highlight

This makes me think 'dryad'.
I love how it shifted from brown to different shades of green when I turned my head or blinked. All the shadows had some level of iridescence but it still seemed kinda dark to me. I needed to lighten it a little without losing any duochrome so I tried slightly different colors:

This one was:

MAC Painterly
MAC Old Gold all over lid
Too Faced Moon Beam in crease, lower lashline and mixed with Old Gold on outer edge of lid
MAC Golden Lemon on inner corner
Urban Decay Lucky liner with Fyrinnae Ink in Lovers Quarrel layered over it
Urban Decay 24/7 in Zero
Laura Geller Wonder Wand

Slightly different overall look. Not quite as dark, which I liked, but it didn't seem as duochromey. I tried one with Blue Brown and Old Gold and I didn't care for it. Must experiment more...


EDIT: D'oh! Forgot to say! Any recommendations for duochrome/iridescent shadows? I have quite a few but I am so crazy about them that I think I need all of them... ever. Every duochrome shadow in the universe. lol

First try with BundleMonster

I just found out about this BundleMonster thing what... last week? But I wish I'd learned of it sooner!

For the people who have no idea wtf I'm talking about, BundleMonster is a company that sells various things and among them are these marvelous Konad-style image plates. Basically they're off brand Konad plates with more interesting designs.

The first design I tried was the stars and I forget which plate number that is, but I think you can only order all the plates at once now so the star will be in there somewhere.

First, with Konad Black special polish over BB Couture Coal Miner. I like this very much.


Then with China Glaze Millennium over Coal Miner. Pretty, but after wearing these around for a day, I think I prefer the black-over-grey. That and my chrome designs sometimes come out funny cause I work too slowly.

A strange thing I noticed with this particular design is that it seems... too deep? After I scrape the plate and pick up the image, there's always a lot of polish left in the large star.

The plates seemed pretty similar to real Konad plates with a few obvious differences. First, these BundleMonster ones are SHARP!! They have no paper backing like Konad and they feel really thin. They require you to remove the protective plastic film on the face of the plate before use and I nearly sliced every finger open trying to complete that task.

Second, the full nail designs aren't as big as Konad's designs so if you have larger nails, you'll have to stamp twice or something because they're short and narrow.

I'll try out some more designs next time I'm inspired to do so, but my first impression of these was definitely a good one.

OPI Summer Flutter Collection Summer 2010

This is one of those mini-collections OPI does right around summertime... Like last year's Sunbelievable or Night Brights.

I actually thought this was going to be just like Sunbelievable when I saw the promo pics, but I was totally wrong.

Oh, it's a bummer, but I couldn't get any sunlight pics of these. Because... there was no sun. But I think they look pretty good indoors!


Catch Me In Your Net. Super sparkly glittery blue with gold glitter and subtle green duochrome. It's so sparkly my camera couldn't focus on it! Kinda sweet. You may be thinking, "Why, that looks like Zoya Charla!" I would have to say to you... You're right. It does. It's practically dead-on identical. Look:

Index and ring fingers: OPI Catch Me In Your Net
Middle and Pinkie: Zoya Charla

The reason I'm not calling it 100% identical is visible in that comparison. Charla is sparklier. It's more opaque, too. Those are both three coats and you can see visible nail line on the OPI but not on the Zoya. It also seems that the sparkle/glitter particles in Charla are larger. But, color-wise, they're the same. Only minute differences.

Flit a Bit. Standard orange creme. Not too red, not too yellow. I love it , but I can't say it's unique. Why is this the only creme in the collection? This might have been cool with some glitter, too. Maybe that's why they decided to make Nicole Traffic Cone. Not many glittery oranges in existence!


Flower to Flower. Under fluorescent lighting, the shimmer in this looked gold to me. In daylight I can clearly see that the shimmer is silver. That's... weird. Anyway. This is a bright cool bubblegum pink with fine silver shimmer. Very pretty, and it adds a surprising pop of color on my cool skintone.



Wing It! This as a very unusual color. It's very hard to describe. It's a deep reddish pink at some angles and it's weird murky pink-orange at others... So weird murky orange-pink jelly totally packed with blue-violet iridescent glass fleck shimmer. Or glitter. Glittery shimmer. Gorgeous. I wish OPI would do more of these duochrome-glass fleck- glitter type polishes cause I think they're AMAZING! Really eye-catching, even in low light.


The formula was great. Much better than the Shrek ones and more like the OPI formula I'm used to. Not thick, not thin, not goopy, not runny. I did three coats of all, but only the two glitters needed the third. Dry time was good. Dries to a shiny finish without topcoat. I don't know why I mention that in my review, cause you should be using topcoat anyway. But not all polish does dry shiny without topcoat, so... it's relevant, right?

Overall, I think this is a cute little collection. I'm happy with it. It has two glitters and orange! I want OPI to do more of these glass fleck style of glitters. They look awesome. Do a purple one!

(These were sent to me for review)

China Glaze Vintage Vixen Fall 2010 Quick Skittle Swatches

I really want to get some full swatches of these in sunlight before I do my full review. I haven't seen the sun in over a week so... I don't know when I'll be able to get that finished... But, I like these so much I couldn't wait to post them.

All are two coats.

Left to right (pinkie to index):
Jitterbug (smoky grey foil)
Midnight Mission (midnight blue with silver glitter)
Bogie (eggplant frost)
Hey Doll (rose mauve frost)

Classic Camel (pale golden yellow with gold shimmer)
Ingrid (taupe with gold shimmer)
First Class Ticket (deep purple with blue shimmer)
Emerald Fitzgerald (smoky blue-green shimmer)

Swing Baby (champagne-gold foil)
Goin' My Way? (brown with red-gold shimmer)
Foxy (autumn copper with red-gold shimmer)
Riveter Rouge (deep red-burgundy frost with lots of microglitter)

So cozy and fall-like. Makes me want to get out my plaid skirts and corduroy pants. Hope to have better pictures for a full review as soon as possible!

Bottle pics of new stuff including China Glaze Vintage Vixen, OPI Summer Flutter and MAC Superglass

I'm actually really super excited about these new collections. Finally, something I can't wait to post!

Why am I so excited about this stuff? One word.

Glitter.

Hopefully I'll get good enough lighting to swatch these soon, but for now, how about some bottle pics??


OPI's Summer Flutter 2010 collection. Wing It! (weird duochromey murky shimmery pink), Catch Me In Your Net (glittery blue-green duochrome shimmer, looks just like Zoya Charla), Flower to Flower (bright candy pink with gold shimmer), Flit a Bit (orange creme).



China Glaze Vintage Vixen! These seem right up my alley. Dark and full of microglitter. China Glaze keeps calling them frosts, but they don't look all that frosty to me- a few of them look like foils! I haven't tried them on to be sure, but I don't think they're frosty ick like we've been dreading.

Classic Camel, Ingrid, Swing Baby, Goin' My Way?, Foxy, Riveter Rouge.

Hey Doll, Bogie, First Class Ticket (which is dark purple, not blue), Midnight Mission, Emerald Fitzgerald, Jitterbug.

Oh yeah, don't forget that you can click the pictures to enlarge them. They're huge. You can see more detail that way.

These are Nicole's summer ones... But I don't know anything about them. I don't know the name of the collection or if they're exclusives or anything... All I know is... glass fleck!! Foily blue! Glittery sheer pink! A New Kind Of Blue, Rent A Magenta, Nail Ya Azalea (lol), Yum-Egranate (running out of name ideas, OPI??), Traffic Cone, Oy Oy Oyster (OPI goes punk?)


And my Superglasses that arrived yesterday. I love them. I want them all now. This is Fab Frenzy, Tunnel of Love and Superflash. I've only worn Fab Frenzy so far and that one looks great on me. Ahhhhhh so cool! Look at the little blue flashes of glitter in there!!

Jessica Daydream Collection Spring 2010 and Bonus! Jessica Burlesque Beauty Fall 2009

You know... I never hear much about Jessica. Never see many people talk about Jessica... Never actually see Jessica polishes. My local Target got rid of their Jessica display, even. And I only recently discovered the brand. That's strange. They have a lot of good colors! Midnight Moonlight rocks my world!

So... I was totally surprised when Jessica's Spring collection showed up on my doorstep. Didn't hear a thing about this collection until it was in my hands. Same thing with their Summer collection, too, but I haven't swatched that one yet. So, thanks Jessica PR people! I appreciate you keeping me in the loop! I think if I would have blinked, I may have missed this collection entirely.


Cloud Mine. This is the one I mentioned on Twitter being similar to Creme De Menthe. It's more similar in the bottle than on the nail. Too light, too blue but same overall theme. It's a pastel mint green with gold frost. The gold is almost like a flash on the top of the polish, I only notice it at certain angles. I kinda like this one except it gives me major lobster hands.


Enchante. Hot pink with subtle blue/violet shimmer. Almost metallic looking.

Eyes Wide Open. Ooh, this one I like. I don't know if you can tell from the picture, but it's like a jelly shimmer, if such a thing exists. It's translucent and each coat deepens the shimmer effect. It's a little bit iridescent. Oh, and it's orange. I like orange. This one is a bit corally.


Flight of Fancy. Light cool pink with silvery shimmer. Pretty, but not a color I could see myself wearing. I love the chunky shimmer in this. But, this one gave me the hardest time application-wise. Kinda gooey and thick.

Perchance To Dream. Light pink champagne frost. Again, not a color I think I'd ever wear, but I like the way it looks on my nails. It gives the illusion that my nails are really white underneath. It has a brightening effect. But... yeah.... frost... eek.


Starry Eyed. This one is hard to describe- foil frost shimmer pink? It has reflective foil-like qualities, visible chunky shimmer but also an overall frosty appearance. I think I'll just go with metallic pink.

Formula wasn't too bad. The one pink was very thick, but the others were the average Jessica formula. Which is a little thick to begin with, but flows easily. Dry time is on the long side, which I've found to be the case for most Jessicas as well.


And, how about a two for one? Jessica's fall collection from last year!

I never got around to posting this for two reasons. One, I don't think my pictures turned out all that well. Two, it bored me to death. But I have it swatched so I might as well post it.

This collection was called Burlesque Beauty and had a bunch of naked people on the box.

Feather Boa. Berry-purple creme.

Fishnets and Fringe. Dark smoky teal-peacock creme. This one has a little hidden shimmer too.

For Your Eyes Only. Dark indigo creme. A little bit like OPI Sapphire in the Snow.


Gorgeous Garter Belt. Berry creme.

Ruffled Bottoms. Okay, I like this one a lot. They're not all berry! This one is more red-toned in real life, but it's a medium purple creme.

Sexy Siren. Surprise! More berry creme.


And this is a comparison between Divine Pine and Fishnets and Fringe, because they're very very similar to each other.
Index and ring are Divine Pine.
Middle and pinkie are Fishnets and Fringe.


Wow, it feels good to finally get that posted. Now I can move on.

Comparison: Nubar 2010 Versus Sally Hansen Hidden Treasure

Index: One coat of Nubar 2010
Middle: One Coat of Sally Hansen Hidden Treasure
Ring: Two coats of Nubar 2010
Pinkie: Two coats of Sally Hansen Hidden Treasure
(All over one coat of Wet n Wild Black, no topcoat, no basecoat.)


Both of these are red/orange/gold/green duochrome flakies a la Nfu Oh suspended in a clear base.

As you can see, they're quite similar. They're not 100% the same, though. The flakes in Nubar 2010 are smaller and less densely packed and don't show as much green duochrome compared to Sally Hansen Hidden Treasure.

Here's a gigantor pic of the bottles to further illustrate the differences:


Sally on the left, Nubar on the right.

I think the Nubar looks much prettier in the bottle. The Sally shows more duochrome effect in the bottle, but the Nubar looks like magic. It's swirly and sparkly and flickering... I could just stare at it forever. You can see the difference in flake size this way as well. Nubar's are more irregular, some are bigger, some are smaller but overall they're smaller than Sally Hansen's flakes.

Formula is similar. Dry time is similar. Overall effect over black is similar. Price is similar. Unless you're like me, you probably don't need both. They're not 100% identical, but obviously they're on the same wavelength.