Revlon Wild

I was at the little Rite Aid in Milton Freewater, OR that I periodically pass through whilst traveling and as I usually do, took a browse. I honestly wish my Rite Aid was set up like this: wide open cosmetic aisles with lots of good stuff, lots of displays. Mine is crammed all together.

I ran across the Revlon aisle in search of a holographic topper and found some other goodies. Revlon Wild was a nice surprise.

Revlon Wild

It's an intriguing combination of green shimmer, a gray frost and seafoam small flakes. I instantly knew I wanted to have it.

Three coats, no top coat.

I think my photos don't show it off well, but truth is, a frost just gathers light and reflects it back so much that it's quite unforgiving. You can see some of the flakes if you enlarge the photo.

Next I pulled out Saffron Colour 15, a polish I found on eBay back when international sellers had a ton of cool polish available.

Here it is:

Three coats as well.

Both greens evoke the tropics, so I thought I ought to combine them...

I love this! It brings out the gray and the green flash is beautiful.

I didn't want to put this over a black, but I may try it again over a navy as I think the little flakies will pop out more.

I don't follow Revlon polish much, I know they have a regular line, which Wild is a part of, and a gel type of one. This, to me, is quite unique.

Thanks for reading my little nail polish journal!

Greens for March: Jessica's Envy

Here's a polish I've had for too long and realize I hadn't blogged it. Worse, or best(?) I have a dupe!

Jessica Divine Pine

Three coats, no top coat. Shine on! Note please that my photo is blown out a bit to show the yellow undertone, it's darker than this normally.

This polish has secret shimmer, but it's super hard to see. It also doesn't have a uniform creamy formula, the particles are larger, like they are in a suspension (well duh) but the first coat shows more of this, and the overall effect is that it gives it a "foamy" feeling rather than a straight creme finish. This lightens the polish up, more light moves through it and it's less dense than a standard creme.

It's warm, it's a yellow green that's been crushed down into the vamp zone. Kid yourself not, it will go black under much lighting.

I compared it to Zoya Envy and guess what? Yup....

I would say that Zoya is a slight bit deeper, though not by much. The more I look at the photo the less I can really tell them apart. 

I've blogged Zoya Envy a couple of times before and formula-wise, I'd say they were about the same. 

Jessica is readily available online. I found mine on their website quite some time ago when I first saw this polish on Scrangie's site. 

If you like shades like this, but want something a little more luminous than Zoya Envy, this polish I do recommend. Though Zoya works the sales quite often, I've noticed (at least this year) they limit promotions to polishes they want to promote, rather than people like who have long wish lists and a tight budget. 

Thanks for reading my little nail polish journal!

Greens for March: Gem Green by CQ

So out of the drug store milieu of nail polish shopping, that I didn't even know that Scherer nail polish had gone out of business back in 2013 until I started writing this post. Very sad.

Scherer made some duo chromes called Chameleons (I moved most of mine along because I could not make the formula work for me, despite their innate beauty), as well as CQ and Petites. Little workhorse lines of polish that sat quietly in the back aisles of my local store and never putting out special displays to get people excited about them. All quietly doing great little jobs at a price point about 1/2 of Sally Hansen's Complete Salon Manicure line. Drat. I adore every one of my CQ polishes and Petites.

I tip my hat to them.

Here is Gem Green

Three coats over nude nails and the mint shimmer is full of holo as well.  No top coat and the holo on my indoor, daylight corrected lamp was not really showing up. The bottom photo is a flash and even then I could not coax it into camera readiness. Fortunately it is a pretty stand alone topper. To enhance this in future wearings I would wear a ridge filler and a solid nude base, then its sheerness would not be an issue.

Tried it over Color Club After Hours.

With the sun hitting it smack dab in the face, the scattered holo came out to play.

I did wear this for several days and you can see a small chip on my ring finger.
Plus a bit of tip wear, too.

Thanks for reading my little nail polish journal!

Greens for March: Sally Hansen Frost Freeze Reborn

I want to do more with duo chrome stamping so I pulled out Sally Hansen Color Fast! Frost Freeze. I blogged it here. It's an old big 3 polish that is hard to wear because it is thick and yet needs three coats. It reminds me of a 1930's color scheme.

I'm not wearing it. So, time to try it out in another iteration. I thought I'd try it out in a vintage textile look.

Sally Hansen Frost Freeze over Maybelline Sandstorm

Sandstorm is a lovely pale tan. It took a solid four coats with my ridged nails, so three and a ridge filler or three if you don't have ridges. I did dry well, though, so yay on that point. 

Let's talk about Frost Freeze, it stamped beautifully. This is my favorite kind of stamping. So subtle and yet so pretty. 

Though I tried to pick up that pink shimmer that you can see in my original post, I could not. 

Almost so subtle you could wear it to a conservative office. Well, maybe. I can't see Ruth Bader Ginsburg, but maaaaaybe Sonia Sotomayor. Though Antonin Scalia could probably get away with a holo, let's be honest. 

Back to the polish. Was so glad that I tried it over black (a Pure Ice I've rebottled and don't recall the name)

Wow! The pink shimmer is there. Wow! I was very surprised. Pleasantly! Can I say wow again? I think I will! Wow!!

Can't find the Color Fast line on eBay, but Maybelline Sandstorm is there. Sandstorm was limited edition, but that's just what I read on the label. ;D

The plates are Bundle Monster: BM16 for the pink over black, but not the revision one available on the site, though this pattern is available on that plate. BM19 for the green leaves. BM19 has also been revised on Bundle Monster and this pattern is not on it any more, which is a bummer, but I think it's not hard to find something similar.

Thanks for reading my little nail polish journal! 

Greens for March: Ulta Trio

Color me surprised. I had purchased an Ulta gold glitter that had a terrible habit of eating whatever it was below and never drying. I kind of grew a grudge against Ulta nail polish.

Somehow I'd gotten three Ulta's through the sale bin and one in a lot off eBay. They've been sitting around untried for a long time and I was about to purge them out of hand, but thought at the very least I should swatch these before unloading them.

Well. Blow me down. I was completely stunned by the formula. I can't speak directly to the new Ulta line as mine are older.

A few things: brushes were kind of a letdown. All were thick, creamy and applied with great coverage in two coats. I may check out more of these polishes, but the array of colors right now isn't tapping into anything I really need, yet if I were starting over, I'd look more closely at these. The formula reminds me of Catrice: thick, easy to work with, and very wearable.



Ulta Envy

Two coats, no topcoat.

Beautiful deep emerald green. A touch brighter in my photo than in real life, and it will go dark into black, so it's got some vamp DNA.

I was stunned at the formula. Wow.


Ulta Tainted Love

Two coats, no top coat.

Another real beauty. Rich teal loaded with golden glass fleck shimmer. This one pulls more green because of the strong yellow, but you can see the teal at the edge of the bottle.

Just gorgeous.


Ultra Underground

Two coats, no top coat.

A blackened teal shimmer that shifts over into the aqua territory. Fairly generic, similar to Essie Dive Bar and Revlon Beguile, so I may move this over into the stamping world.

I had to decant this one into an old NYC top coat bottle because the brush was out of this world bad. Like it was "Oh yeah!! We need a brush!" Awful.



As an aside all of these stamped well, the bases are deep and they hold their color.

None of these shades seem to be on the Ulta site, kind of a bummer because Tainted Love is so pretty.


Thank you for reading my little nail polish journal!

Greens for March: Sour Face

I thought I'd blogged Zoya Tangy ages ago, but I guess I did not.

Zoya Tangy

She's a bit sheer. This is three coats, no top coat.

I think had I put on a ridge filler and a nude polish as a base I could deal with its sheerness with a little less, er, discomfort, but it's not a really covering. Plus it's a wee bit patchy over the ridges on my ring finger.

I then wanted to try it over a topper, I used Zoya Envy

It cools down the yellow undertone, although I had a lot of patchiness on my ring finger, which made me frustrated because I didn't want two coats, just one.

Looking back this would have been a treat over Maybelline Galactic Green. I don't want to abandon it because it is lovely. I may also experiment with water marbling (sorry to make you suffer through my attempts, just keeping that flag raised, y'know?)


Thank you for reading my little nail polish journal!

Greens for March: Guppy 77 And Friends

Olive green seems like it's coming into its own, with Wet n Wild Moss being a very popular polish last season.
Over the years there have been many good ones: from Butter London Wallis (nothing tastes as good as thin feels; except ice cream, pizza, potatoes chips, and lasagna, but I digress...), Chanel Peridot (and all the dupes - blogged here), and of course the long discontinued China Glaze Cat's Eye (not yet blogged for some absurd reason).

I have Guppy 77, which is a brand out of Korea. I purchased this on eBay a billion years ago, and finally cut to the chase and blogged it.

Add a swizzle stick, good gin, show it a bottle of vermouth and we've got a martini! Yum!

It's a pretty shimmer, three coats, no top coat. 

As I put this on I realized that the coolest thing about this polish is the base. It's not green, it's gray. You can see it a bit at the top of the edge of the bottle. It's a bit of a head turner, because this shade of green looks wonderful with gray and blue.

I thought I'd try a couple of blues out as a base.

First up here it is over a navy, L.A. Girl Vamp.

I love the dimension, how it darkens around the edges. This is one coat over L.A. Girl Vamp.

L.A. Girl Vamp is one of those older L.A. Girl polishes they had on their site several years ago, then they all seemed to pop up on Discount Cosmetic Outlet for a song.

I love this shade of navy: not black, you can see the navy.

Here it is, no top coat, being a fine navy, the perfect neutral.

As you can see, it's a beautiful cobalt leaning navy. Not too bright, still navy, but not black, which is fine, but sometimes you want to see the blue.

This is three coats. 

At this writing, I see that Discount Cosmetic Outlet has closed and the domain has expired. Boo hoo! I don't see L.A. Girl Vamp on eBay, either. No loss, it's a neutral and there are a ton out there. Still, DCO was a pretty amazing resource.

Now here is Guppy 77 over Sally Hansen Gray by Gray.

I. mean. seriously!

Virtuosity incarnate!

I am so pleased with this layering result. The gray peeps through the green, and it's just perfection.

Rarely do you find such wonderful combinations like this, and I can think of a small handful of polishes that can perform this kind of sleight of hand. Nice discovery!

I no longer find Guppy on eBay. 

Thank you so much for reading my little nail polish journal!

Greens for March: Zingy Dupes

I found Revlon Bonsai at Dollar Tree, and kind of regret ignoring this brand in the past, because every single one of these "new to me" Color Stays and Brilliant Strength polishes have been a nice surprise.

Revlon Bonsai is a tangy acid green shot through with a strong yellow shimmer. No apologies, some people won't enjoy wearing this. I think, for me, it's more of a summer polish.

Revlon Bonsai

I believe I have (had, I'm purging these days) similar colors, but this one pops. It's more like sour apple married acidic green. I'm kind of a fan of these kinds of greens.

These are on eBay, some in lots, some on their own. These Revlons are like old Rock Stars: doing a great job, but not hot and current, which is a bummer because truth be told, the formula on these has completely turned my head.

I wanted to compare this to Zoya Midori, named like that similarly colored melon liqueur.

Can you tell them apart?

They are virtually identical.

Left to right:
Revlon Bonsai
Zoya Midori
Revlon Bonsai
Zoya Midori

Both had lovely formulae and I wore the mani for a time as the colors were just the same and found wear to be equal.

One can live without the other, unless, like me, both seem like they need a bit of airplay.

Thanks for reading my little nail polish journal!!

Thanks for reading my little nail polish journal!!

Greens for March: Maybelline Galactic Green

Hey fellow green heads!

I don't know about you, but fresh spring green is hard not to love.

I will admit that it's not the most forgiving shade, but it has got a lot of great features.

It's a two coater, which is very good. I can be forgiving of the big 3 chemistry because the color nails it. Not too yellow to say "chartreuse" but not to blue to say "mint". It's just got that fresh spring bud feeling about it.

I almost got rid of this one, but after swatching, I realized I have nothing truly similar.

Unable to find on eBay and Amazon, so it might be one of those you have to keep an eye out for.

Similar to an older Wet n Wild Fusion, blogged here. It's a pretty similar shade, but has a soft kelly green shimmer and is more blue toned by comparison.

I was purging a lot of my gold caps, but decided to reuse a lot of them as stamping polishes.

Here's Galactic Green over Borghese Mezzanotte Blue.

Love this!

This is BundleMonster Buffet Style Secret Garden collection. It's a 25 piece set with a lot of springtime themes, including this lilypad scene with some fish swimming around. I really like it.

Excuse me for not cleaning off the plate, but you can see the cool patterns. I wish I had bigger nails! These are beautiful!

This green is a perfect with this deep navy. I think it would just sing with a cobalt blue, too.


Thanks for reading my little nail polish journal!

Greens for March: CND Okey Dokey Artichokie

One of those phrases you might have heard your grandmother say to you, but today, it's just not around much.

Neither is my grandmother, but, she has a strong memory for me. Funny, mean as owl sh!t, and feisty. Sentiment, well, it's a mixed bag.

Here's a beautiful duochrome from CND, from when they were putting out some awesome polishes.

Three coats, no top coat.

As a certified 5th gen Californian and Artichoke lover, I love this polish. Packed with some big 3 chemistry, I might evaporate it out and try to revamp it with some OPI thinner., we'll see. This formula is in need of a thin down and it isn't a fast drying polish, either.

 The green shift into amber rocks, though. I love shimmers with a lot of good stuff going on.



I threw it over Borghese Mezzanotte Blue:

Out popped the amber shimmer, leaving the green behind.
You can see a bit on the tip of my index, on the left. I couldn't get a good shift with my lighting, but the green now goes to the background.

I found mine through an online etailer before they were gone, this is occasionally on eBay for a decent price, but often it's a hard to find. I can't think of another green like this in my duochrome/multichrome drawer.

Thanks for reading my little nail polish journal!

Greens for March: Revlon Tantalize

Tantalus, in the Odyssey, residing in the underworld, was in the worst shape ever: up to his adams apple in water he thirsted, but in reaching for the water it fell away, and he was unable slake his parched mouth. Starving, he was put beneath a tree of sweet, ripe fruit. When he reached for it, the limbs of the tree would swing out of his reach, his hunger never met. Thirst and hunger, in his reach, but out of his grasp.

If you ever want to read the Odyssey, I highly recommend Stanley Lombardo's translation, The Iliad, too. It made it accessible to me, especially after trying to read 18th century translations.

Tantalize by Revlon

A contender for my favorite polish, next to Princessa Martian Jade, blogged here.

A contender, not a usurper, though.

Three coats of absolute sparkling peridot brilliance. I used a combination flash and my lamp, it's just perfect for the right summer day.

Juicy, glitzy, citrus zing, it's like the brink of something you just can't reach.

In truth, this polish is sheer enough to contemplate adding something like glitter, shimmer, or holo, it might be able to carry it off. Down the pike I will consider it. Right now, I just enjoy it.

Brilliant Strength appears to be on the way out, since I found mine at the ol' Dollar Tree. I hope it's just some color change, these are really a win!

Thanks for reading my little nail polish journal!

Greens for March: Sumatra

Obtaining classic status, I see this one mentioned with regularity on the message boards. Everyone who picks it up is pleased they found it and happy to wear it.

As I've said before, these new Revlons are turning my head. My budget is such that I am really only delving into the Dollar Tree for these, but I do think they are worthwhile polishes.

Having said that here's Revlon Rain Forest

Perhaps one of your better marriages of jelly base and glass fleck shimmer.

This is three coats, no top coat.

It can go dark, so that the shimmer disappears, but when the light hits it just right, it's all about the shimmer.

A warm green the evokes deep shadows of Sumatran forests.

Let's keep the Orangoutangs safe and cut out the palm oils. At least that's what I'm doing. I can't take many more stories of baby orangoutangs in foster care because of forests getting burned down for yet another palm or coconut oil farm.

This polish reminds me of that.

Thanks for reading my little nail polish journal!

Greens for March: Hunter Green

So, American Apparel has been in the news as it revamps it's brand devolution.

I just went to their site and see that the polishes have been, for the most part, removed. Will they return, who knows. I'm not sure what direction it will go. 

American Apparel Hunter:

Three coats, lovey polish with no top coat.

I find the formula smooth and rather easy to manipulate. It isn't pure heaven, but you feel like you are on the road to heaven with this formula. 

Color-wise, it's beautiful and quite un-vampy so you do get the green payoff.

I wanted to compare it to a couple other greens:

Left to right:
Orly Enchanted Forest (blogged here)
American Apparel Hunter (actually blogging right now...hehehe)
OPI Christmas Gone Plaid (blogged here)

That blue you see on the center nail is flash, not some blue shimmer.
All three are quite similar, I'd say that in a pinch, one will do versus all of them.

I also think of the three, Orly is most green and brightest, with OPI Christmas Gone Plaid being the darkest.

Poking around eBay I see a few AA's, not sure if they will job-lot these, or they will show up elsewhere now that AA has stopped selling polish. I can't predict if they are just going to go back into the retail stores, or what.

All three are kind of hard-ish to find online. Worse, perhaps, OPI and Orly yield zero results when I search (found OPI's search engine!).

Interesting.  Nearly every collection that comes out in the fall has a red/burgundy/maroon/purple vamp. Why are green ones falling to the wayside? They are all so great!

Keeping one's eyes peeled on eBay might be the best avenue, you never know what will show up!

Thanks for reading my little nail polish journal!

Greens for March: Frost and Shimmer

Another green that has been in my collection for a long time that hasn't been swatched.

Maybelline Lime Aluminum

Three coats, no top coat.

This was pretty thick, though I did thin it and it worked fairly well. The fine metallic glitter that runs through this polish lends itself to a metallic feel, but for me, it's just a shimmer with a lot of silver.
Aluminum. Why. I don't know. 

This is a trend that seems to have been in the past, that I've seen with fairly frequently: shimmer and glitter.

It's been in a number of polishes I've run up against and I'm not entirely sure if it was a "thing" or if it was just a combination that manufacturers came up with because that was the pigments they had available to them.

Color me: confused.

Most shimmers cover the glitter, but in this case it doesn't, which is helpful, as you want to see the glitter itself rather than "bumps" - which are just not very attractive (witness the fail on OPI's Holiday 2015 collection, "ew" being the operative term when those glitters went on.)

I can't find it on eBay, but it might turn up. I found mine back in the first bloom of ol' Dollar Tree hauls. Gosh, those were the days, if you don't mind my being somewhat sentimental!

Thanks for reading my little nail polish journal!

Greens for March: Glitter Gradient

Essie Sew Psyched is a green, but layered it dons the neutral mantle. This is a great feature in a polish.

Here is Essie Sew Psyched with OPI Servin' Up Sparkle and Pure Ice Heart Breaker.

Three coats of Sew Psyched topped with Pure Ice Heartbreaker and a bit of OPI SUS as a tip gradient.

OPI Servin' Up Sparkle is from the epic OPI and Serena Williams collaboration. Frankly, one of my favorites. I could be bias, I'm a big fan of Serena, she rules. No, putting bias aside, that was packed with great duos.
It's holo glitter and it's not super unusual, but it does have a good density for coverage, one coat did enough so I didn't have to fiddle around with it.

I think Pure Ice Heartbreaker is just epic. It's a shifty little luminous green that pulls blue at certain angles. I rarely check out Pure Ice, my Walmartland is like it's run by the Soviet Empire: dingy lighting, no end caps with special collections, and a polish selection that looks like it was in a bread line for freaking days: spent, tried, burnt out, and just depressing. Come on Walmart, get your shinola together. It's not like you don't have the budget!


Here is Essie Sew Psyched alone. It is green, but softer, more gray. 

A soft lichen green, it has a silvery white shimmer that really makes it like a "frost creme", which is kind of crazy, but very cool.

I really love this kind of polish because it works as both a green and a neutral. Wow!

Thank you for reading my little nail polish journal!

Greens for March: CND Jaded

Let's start with a big blast of green, shall we?

Here's an old one: CND Jaded.

Found at a blog sale, a lot of it's gone, but it's a glorious emerald shimmer.

Three coats, no top coat.

Back when I was first getting into polish CND had these flat ovoid bottles, these are now discontinued and they only sell extended wear polishes.

Pre-3-free, though as I thin it out to use, I figure some of that will evaporate out. 

Meanwhile, this is very beautiful.

I put it over navy blue to bring up the blue undertones.

This fine, metallic shimmer goes a lot of miles with its beautiful blue/green depths.

Thanks for reading my little nail polish journal!