No! Yes! More Missha HGR01

Silly, I know, but I thought, I'd show that it is a bit translucent and can be layered, even though it is dense in a couple of coats.

Regarding the formula: very wonderful. Fast drying and best of all, to me, it smells like tea rose, almost minty, too. Perfection!
I think the formula puts it off the radar of faves. It really is beyond fantastic. I wore this on a road trip and it never chipped.

Even wore "the hell" out of the following layer and because the old Sally Hansen "shellac" formula was brittle, after time long cracks emerged, but nothing chipped. Ever.

Gush much?


Here's a shot of the Baroque Frost that I layered it over:

It is a golden olive that needs it's own blog entry, but for now suffice it to say that it's a sheer shimmer needing five coats to really cover. Loads of sparkly shimmer, but so sheer. Franken? Top coat? Still up for discussion!



You still get that tasty foil minty green, but you can pull more yellow out, too:

So it pulls a wee bit more golden with the base. Booya!

Still, you get the blue shift:

Excuse the bubbles, the topcoat was in dire need of thinning.

There you have it! Missha HGR01. Chalking it up onto the pages of favorites in my book.

Thanks for reading my little nail polish journal!

Missha, Missha, Missha!

Perhaps you will be patient with me. I've got a lot of photos here. Why? Because I think I've found my dream green duochrome.

Sheer delight.

Some more sun shots:

Now shade:

It is a very unusual polish. It looks like it could be a frost, but it is those small particles, like a foil, but not so metallic, that make it up. This isn't a shimmer, but another thing. New and not just glassy, but full of color and sparkle.

Here is the bottle:

Never really going gold, it goes into a bit of a warm green, hinting at a jade. Dare I say "peridot"? ;)
Fortunately it's not a gold or a yellow.

More interior shots:

Sorry, pure indulgence at this point....hehe.

Emerald foil??? What up that??? Nooooiiiiiiice!!!

Blue? NO! YES!!!!



*pant, pant, pant*

Too much. Too, too much.

Must split blog post....


Thanks for reading my little nail polish journal!

L'Oreal Summer 2011

This was a limited edition set that came out this summer. Though it is late in the season, these are our hottest days and it really is a short, dry, baking blast before autumn sniffs around the corner.

Very beautiful glassy particle shimmer, loaded with punch in the summer sunshine.



Coral Starfish

Three coats, a little bit on the sheer side of things, but the punch from the golden shimmer in the rich red/orange coral base is a delight.
Application went very well, dried nicely too. I wore this one for several days and enjoyed a very easy no-brainer kind of wear. Win!



Yellow Seahorse

As above, great formula to handle. This is three coats and you can still see visible nail line, but unfortunately  you can't see the orange shimmer that is buried in this cool glassy particle shimmer.

A bit of a better shot to see the shimmer: very warm and golden. Even more coral/orange than in this photo.



Pink Shells

Three coats of hot magenta beauty. Shimmer that really glistens. No problems with application and really quite excellent coverage. Of the four, this is my favorite. Zap! Pow!



Blue Marine

This one, I must admit, is the most disappointing of the lot. Truly a stunning polish in the bottle. The blue/green color shift felt like is should be heaven on the nail. The worst part: this is four coats!

I tried it over black:

The glassy particles are quite visible, you can see the green and the blue shimmer, fabulous!

Here you can see the duochrome of green/blue that the particles have.

So this last one feels like it needs a base of navy, black, green, etc, but the glassy glitter that is here makes it worth it. This "glassy particle" is around a lot, so I am not saying this is a total win because in the bottle it really looks luxuriously dense and so you think there will be amazing coverage. Then you get it on your nail and it's rather hard to see.

Well, there you go! A sun drenched set of polishes that really maximize those new glassy particles that seem to be everywhere: glimmer/glitter/shimmer all rolled into one.

Thanks for reading my little nail polish journal!

Where Everyone is a Winner...

First thank you so much for entering my tiny give away!

I think that it is so awesome that you entered! All six of you! Yes! If I was in a betting mood with these odds I'd be living large, rescuing all the wayward pugs and horses and kitties. 

Who won what, and who they are! (links provided for blog-esses, blog goddesses)

Maybelline Mattes:

I only had one entry! 

Laquerlove! Congratulations!

Another Bottle of Polish blog is awesome!

Starry Temptress:

Two entries!

Two Winners! Why? I had a lucky run at Ross and grabbed another set.

The wonderful Gotham Polish won a set of Starry Temptress!

Annie M you also get a set! No blog, but thank you so much for entering! (if you start a blog, let me know, I'm a born follower of nail blogs! )

Congratulations ladies!

Rebel Debutante: 

Three entries, two winners. 

First I drew Alaina of perfectly wonderful Perky Polish! Congrats! You will get the set that is in orig package.

The other wonderful blog entry: Purplegreenpanda! I will put together my swatched Rebel Debutante set. It's not got packaging, but only one swatch on it!

Congrats ladies!

Pardon My French:

No entries!
BUT!....

Congratulations Donna J of Donna's Cheap Thrills super fabo blog! Though you entered for Rebel Debutante, my Ross was giving me no love, sigh. 

Congratulations Everyone! 

Thank you for entering!!!

Every single person who entered won a prize. Why? With six entries, I'd feel like a complete heel not sending everyone a prize.

I will be emailing everyone for their mailing addresses so I can put together the packages. 

Thanks so much!

:D

Glistening Blue Foil

China Glaze Blue Island Ice Tea is a beautiful light blue foil.

Shimmery, glitter, metallic, and eye catching. More like glinting sun on ocean waves.

Three coats, a bit slow to dry, but once dry the quick-dry top coat I used cause a bit of shrinkage. Note to self. This is actually not a metal foil but a "glassy particle" type of foil.

I then added an accent finger of Glitter Gal's Holographic Blue 706

Smaller bottles, but so packed with holo tastiness that it boggles the mind when it hits the sunshine!

Soothing and beautiful, blues and holo blues work for me.

Thanks for reading my little nail polish journal!

Apple Bottom Nail Polish

Yet again, Ross yields the odd polish set that I pick up and think "hmmm". Wait. What?

I got home and googled "Apple Bottoms" and found a jeans brand.

Well, there you go! I couldn't deduce who made the polishes, but pulled them out and swatched them.

Sun was on my side!



Club Queen

A silvery moonlit color that was frosty and somewhat perle. Sheer. This is four coats. I tried it over something else, but didn't quite make it.



Take Me To The Beach

Sheer, a little frosty, and a lavender pink shade. Three, perhaps four coats?


Gold Mine

A warm gold with a tinge of sparkle thrown into the mix. Three coats. Bit brushstroke prone.


Paris in Pink

A glassy golden flake runs through this three coater. A pretty color with lots of pop and flash, but the staining was astronomically huge.



Rock Star

Still stained after last swatch!

The reason I picked up the box. Three coats and a gray/purple/blue smokey shimmer. Perfection. A keeper!


Red Delicious

Jelly red with holo glitter. Three coats and a nice build of intensity. Love.

This set has the same bottles as my WetnWild Craze collection, so I imagine that there is a connection. Although I've poked around both eBay and the interwebz and seen OPI, Sparitual type of bottles (as well as others) available through Chinese wholesalers, so that's not any true indicator.

An odd set. Some polishes are not even worth the time, other stain and others are completely cool and unique.

Weird, but there you go!

Thanks for reading my little nail polish journal!!

Thank you for your entries!

Thanks to all who entered! I will be rustling up a post on entries and winners. Believe me, when you see the numbers you will be amazed at how actually easy it was to win.
I'm kind of shocked, in a good way, because I love sharing polish with polish lovers.

More soon!

Layering...Periwinkle Style

More of that delicious blue I love so much!

This will be a photo heavy post, so bear with me!

I don't have many Revlon Street Wears, I think they all hit the Dollar Tree before I was really even aware of nail polish again. I found Charming on eBay and grabbed it.

Three coats here and a delightful blue/purple duochrome. Sheer, yes, but silver glitter and that blue jelly base are made to layer!

Here is a bottle shot to see what a changeling it is:

It really does play some games with light.


Hold that thought. What to layer it over? I think it would work over a lot of mid-toned blues. Cashmere Cardigan by Orly, A World of Compassion by Sparitual, and Modern Grace by Revlon come to mind. I decided to opt for a new polish by L.A. Girl: Extreme from their Color Addict Line.

A dreamy periwinkle blue with a greenish yellow shimmer throughout. What a nice combination!

Let's bask in that, shall we?

The violet blue combined with that yellow is almost genius.
Three coats.

Here you can see the blue shimmer can easily eclipse the yellow when indirect light hits it.

Finally:

Mmmmm! Tasty!

Now that I've gotten that out of my system....here is the combo:

Glitter and shimmer and duochrome, oh my! You can see the faint yellow peeping through, too! Fun!

Another:

But it disappears with ease.

They adore each other!

And here is a bottle shot:

The violets complement each other. There is something rather pleasing about this shade of blue. Mmmmmm....Charming!

Thanks for reading my little nail polish journal!

My Roman Ramble

Puns seem to run rampant in the realm of naming polishes. I am not anti-pun, who could possibly not enjoy the lighthearted humor in a painful pun?

Borghese seems to name their polishes all in sensuous Italian. Plumaggio Purple, Stellare Notte, Principessa Ivory, Mezzanotte Blue, well, I could go on. I feel like it's a touch of Rome Adventure and Troy Donahue will invite me out to ride on his Vespa. Viva la Vespa! Oops, mixing brands here!

Troy is not my generation, but I recently saw that movie and was amazed at how they cleared Rome out for each and every scene! My taste runs to Roman Holiday - who doesn't adore Audrey Hepburn?
 Then again, probably pre-EU Roma was an affordable adventure for an average American. Now it's all pretentious Eat, Pray, Spend. Really, if a mere school teacher could spend the summer in Roma and now it takes a hearty chunk of a book advance, times have changed.

So where the heck is the nail polish?

Uh, yeah! Film commentary aside, here's the polish:

Cleanup, lacking to illustrate the sheerness...yeah...that's my excuse!

Sheerness. Incarnate. Four coats over a clear basecoat, but coat three coverage began to become a reality, but it took a fourth to seal the deal.
Over black it is one coat and is becomes a Christmassy shimmer.

I love green, and this one is a deep emerald. I am classifying it a layering polish, though, because it is very sheer alone, too sheer to really do much else. Oh, it could be a great franken supply!

:D
Thanks for reading my little nail polish journal!

Blog-o-rama

The blogroll is here!

Enjoy!

Unlabeled Sally Hansen Finally Gets Its Day

I've used this polish as a layering type of thing, but I felt it was time to give it a chance on its own.

It is an odd thing, sheer and yet a bit opaque, not quite "middling". Sometimes you can see the aqua sparkle and sometimes you can't.

I was out and about when I swatched this and had four of the Opals to swatch, but forgot my black, which is completely important to even trying to swatch those!!

So I gave this one a go.

See the cool cap?

Four coats and still it is sheer.

Here the aqua shimmer popped.

The more I wear this the more I think it's suitable for the office, but has a bit of sparkle to jazz things up.

In the shade the frost comes through loud and clear.

In truth, I probably keep this bottle around because of one thing: matching cap action! They have this pale lavender mauve cap with a speckled shimmer! Greatness!

The formula was a bit tetchy, nothing new there. Unfortunately the entire back label was removed before it even was packaged for the Dollar Tree, so it is a complete mystery what it may have been called. I wonder if "frost" was in the title? hmmmm! ;D

Thanks for reading my little nail polish journal!

Forget-Me-Not by Essence

If you like periwinkle, then you will adore Essence Forget-Me-Not

A creme with a secret shimmer. How about that, eh?

Two coats, easy formula. In fact, I kind of regret not getting the mint green one, so nice was the application.

Here is the bottle so you can see the simmer a bit better:

A bright blue emerges, and it's just dandy!

Here is a sun shade comp:

So nice! $1.99 a bottle and a smaller mL amount, but quality is excellent for the price.

And you know, this polish is magical: Every photo I took was a nice one! Wow! :D

Thank you for reading my little nail polish journal!

Hey Existing U.S. Followers....

Don't forget to enter the big summer give away!!!

It's not too hard, follow the link here

Right now I have one entry. Yes. One.

Am I going to walk the blogger perp walk to the post office as I ship all the loot to one winner? When I said the odds were extremely short, you probably thought I was joking!

It's easy! A few searches, email your name and your blog if you have one.

Don't forget! You have until the 20th of August!

If Ever a Re-blog was in Order....

My original post about Orly Fantasea and L.A. Girl Enchanting is at the top of the list.

I originally blogged about it here.
Yeah, you don't need to say it, I am agog at the state of my hands. Moisturizer? Gloves? Cuticles? My blissful unaware self thought "oh, anyone can blog nail polish!" HA! I am probably the slowest learner of clean up, cuticle care and application on the planet, but dang, my ballz out "manicure shot" quote even causes me to chagrin!

I am laughing on the inside.

So, while I am the first to say I have a lot to learn, let's begin to examine these dupes a little closer, with a bit better application. Shall we?

Enjoy!

What is it that makes Orly Fantasea so unique?  A bronze/brown shimmer in a purple jelly base. A base, I might add, that is an intoxicating combination of that kind of purple that appears to possess the beauty of twilight after a rosy sunset.

It is a sheer animal, too. Though it will build into a nice little polish on it's own, it is a great layering polish.

What could be nicer? That it's not alone, that's what! L.A. Girl has a dupe. So dupe-tastic that one wonders how easy it is to make, or is there one big pot with L.A. Girl, Orly, Sparitual and Forever 21's names written on it? Hmm? No looking behind the curtain because I am nowhere near the Wizard.

Hold your fingers above the names and block them out, can you see a difference? I can not!
Alone, it is a shimmerfest in that purple base.


I popped it over black:

A bronze, with a pinkish duochrome, emerges! Truly a brown at first glance, but you can see that the jelly base isn't opaque enough to do much and so the duochrome shimmer is cut loose.
This is one coat.
Still, very much the dupes.

The bottles, for your viewing pleasure:

No difference whatsoever.


Then I tried on New York Color's Peony, trying to find a base that complemented the jelly base in Fantasea:

I found this in the drug store, a limited edition by New York Color, and quite a beautiful one, too!
Three coats, easy to use formula, easy clean up and nice wear. Such an autumn color, but I seem to forget when I found this! Odd. My only complaint would be that I got a tiny bit of bubbling and I am not sure why.

Here is a bottle comparison the L.A. Girl Enchanting:

Pug shedding knows no boundaries, excuse the hairs!

Made for each other?

I think so!!

That robust shimmer definitely is up front and yet the deeper base of Peony makes the L.A. Girl Enchanting emulate the bottle a bit more! Perhaps another base like purple or even a mauve might also be fun.

I like this combo! A lot!

This isn't on the Orly permanent collection, but I have seen it on a couple of etailer sites.

It appears that the L.A. Girl has pulled all of their cylindrical bottles from their website and a lot of the other colors seem to be gone, too. I have a number and several are pretty cool, weird cool, like jelly, odd colors, and dupe of another Orly. Odd!

Such a strange/beautiful color. But, not yet impossible to find!  I think on top of being a really nice layering polish, its capabilities as a frankening ingredient are pretty nice, too.

Thank you for reading my little nail polish journal!

Hot Tomatoes!

I have been in a comping kind of mood this summer, and this post is no exception.

I admit that probably few people will find these polishes as they are not out any more.

But, if you run across them, you never know, do you? This may come in handy!

First up, Maybelline Red Alert

A red that has bright clarity and no implication of neon or brownishness. Fantastic!
Pure red.
Found at a Dollar Tree among many that were passed by and ignored. These reds must evoke something vintage, but not vintage cool, because they were all sitting there, forlorn. I grabbed one because, hey, I'm prone to that. Plus my favorite brown, (see it here) was one such "last picked for the team" sort of colors.

Three coats, easy dry time, a little bit of nail line visibility without the benefit of jelly-ation, but then again, the color is so crisp and perfect.




Second up, Borghese Maraschino

This color can only be described as a "dusty neon red" it is so amaze-cakes in real life. I have three coats here. A little loose-y goose-y with the formula - and I didn't bother to clean up - but there is something rather heavenly about this red. A wee bit tending on the sheer side, but not horribly bad.
I wore this one for a while and it held up nicely.
To me it is dusty, but quite bold. Odd combination.
Found at Ross, I passed on a purple for this one, and for me that is oddness incarnate! Kind of wish I got the purple creme, too, but alas, Ross is a hit or miss operation with regard to Borghese. For a $1.99 I can't complain.

Oh, forgot to add: I did a "in store comparison" of Borghese Maraschino (on my nails) with a bottle of Sinful's Timbleberry (in the bottle) and they are identical. I don't need any more of this color, but the good news is that if you have a big display of Sinful, you will be able to get this shade of red. Yay!

Here is a comparison, not to say that the polishes are similar, however their differences highlight their own unique properties.

This is quite an accurate photo of the colors. You can see that Maraschino is a bright yet, muted red and Red Alert is very hearty, bold, but nothing to suggest any other color than red.

If you do see them and enjoy red, I put both on the recommend list.

Thanks for reading my little nail polish journal!