Untamed Luxury Collection: Part 1

Nearing the bottom of the barrel of unswatched Color Club collections.

Ross now maintains mostly blister packs of L.A. Colors, some 4/5 packs of Sally Hansen and Revlon, some oddball collections by a designer (or designer impostor name), occasional Richon blister packs, some Cosmetic Arts, and mish-mash Color Club packs.

Now that Transdesign has decided that Color Club is an $8 dollar polish, I guess I will be picking up fewer of them. That's okay. OPI rarely gets too radical with a whole collection, sprinkling it amply with red and semi-dupes of previous polishes. Why should Color Club be any different?

Well, okay, Color Club did just trot out a holographic collection that settles the dust on finding old OMG's for high prices. At $10 for a 15 mL bottle, you can even delve into some frankening without feeling alarmed.

Back to Untamed Luxury, right?

I'm picking colors at random, three coats, unless otherwise indicated, and no top coat.
I often wonder - and am wildly inconsistent about - if top coats on swatches like this are de rigueur. On the other hand, Color Club did not send me these polishes, so I have no problem telling it like it is about a polish. Not saying I don't adore polish bloggers who are sent things for review. I am saying that I might as well just think about each polish in it's most natural state and since a good topcoat can fix a lot of issues (not all, as we shall see), why not just see the polish alone?

I'm not strong on that stance, but I guess since I did the lot that way, it will be the stance du jour.

BTW, I don't have Covered in Diamonds from this collection. Why? I had originally swatched it and edited the photos, but mislabeled a couple and knew I had to start over. I put the batch aside and ended up sending it off to a swap. Ewps!

BTW2 I dropped another camera and ended up getting a new Lumix with a better sensor. Holy cats. Less color tweaking, more fun with the camera. I'm officially wearing a lanyard whenever it touches my hands. Old camera wheezes along, poor thing, but these are taken with the Lumix. OMG, just love that thing!


A baker's dozen of Color Clubs, it feels lucky to me!


Onward!


Resort to Red

A deep, robust berry red shimmer. Three coats.
It does reveal some brushstrokes, but it's quite beautiful and almost feels like a holiday polish.

Unfortunately it's a pretty generic red, which is one of the reasons I think 14 polishes in a collection means you get a lot of same-ol', same-ol' that is unnecessary once you've established a collection.

I will say that the formula was pretty nice here, not too thick and it dried very well. I feel that it is better than several other polishes I have of this color, and a worthy "basic" shade.




Pretty in Platinum

This is a two coater, a bit on the thick side, which left it a bit lumpy and not a self-leveling polish. The color is a soft, pale gray. The finish is kind of a dull metal, like a pale auto primer, but with a frosty highlight.

I think the fine particles enable this polish to be used for stamping. I will have to try it out.

A pretty, fresh color. A top coat helps this polish pop the soft silver shimmer that runs through it.
Semi-easy to use, easy to use, covered in two coats.




Nothing But Truffle

The punfest continues as does the deep shimmer. Rich espresso almost fills your nostrils when you have this on!
If you enlarge the photo, you can see on the bottle a faint purple shimmer as well as gold. Although it really doesn't show up on the nail, it's pretty neat to see that it's got that subtle undertone.

Three coats, very easy to use, and dried very nicely! I have a lot more brown than I actually wear, but I love these rich ones with shimmer that has some character!




Ms. Hautie

Ms. Hautie is a distant cousin to China Glaze's Luna. It's got that metallic base, but it's packed with holographic glitter instead of iridescent glitter. What is interesting is that it also shows a color shift in the bottle within the actual shimmer base. So you've got this neutral gunmetal, that isn't tinted blue/gray, then there is a gorgeous fuchsia shift.

What's not to love? Well, a lot. There is a reason that the base for a lot of glitters is a jelly or a water: you can't see through a wall of pigment, now, can you?
The shift also fails to emerge on the nail, despite much contorting.

I suspect decanting about 1/4 and thinning it might give it a better outcome.

I have three coats, and I get that sense of semi-translucence in the metallic shimmer base.

This reminds me of how the future was imagined by people in the 1930's: cool concept, but not enough tools to execute the idea.

Ah well.

 
There also is some little bumps, similar feeling in China Glaze Luna: covered glitter that only makes its presence known by making a lump.




Positively Posh

This is a three coater, and I see that my middle finger  - second from the left -  has only two coats, hence the translucency at the base of the nail.
A pretty rosy mushroom brown.

I love these kinds of colors and have umpteen zillion of them. Hard to fault this one, though.

If I didn't have so many, I'd call this one up and invite it home, it's really just a great little basic with a glossy formula, ease of use, and quick to dry.



Soft as Cashmere

Another win!

I didn't do a comparison, but it's another that moves into the khaki family. Here it pulls out the green, but in some other lighting situations looks much more taupe, all hints of green vanish.
The closest thing I can think of is old Sally Hansen Metro Creme, which you can see here at Another Bottle of Polish (AMAZING) Blog. I thought I blogged it, but for some reason I didn't yet! Its feet are less firmly planted in the green realm, but it waves a khaki flag with gusto.

I hate to completely plug Old Sally Stuff, but dang, she really just threw some great stuff out there into the drugstore marketplace that the Salon makers didn't even really do (of course generalities are ridiculous, but, I rarely part with them unless I have too many or just can't make it work)

Digression over, this is a great little neutral, three easy coats, etc.


That's all I'm doing now. I will finish up in a day or so with the post.

Thanks for reading my little nail polish journal.