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!

Ulta Jaded - Mercurial, Changeable, Moody Green

Yes!

Finally!

Greens for March! My kind of madness.

I have to admit I kind of cheated throwing that last red post on the last day at the last minute. Hee.

So I've had this polish for quite a spell. I've kept it with greens, although I do have color shifting polishes separated out and could store it there, I doubt I'll really do much more with it, it's a bear of a formula. Second (third?) Ultra polish that just didn't work out formula-wise. 

Let's get to the photos:

This is a very sheer, gray based frosty shimmer. It has a translucent metallic quality to it, which I really think is quite alluring, but on the other hand, it is enfant terrible as far as dealing with it. As you can see brushstrokes were de rigueur, this requires a sure hand and no hesitation - as you can see I did in the index finger.

Sometimes you think you've got it, then after you think it's dry it dents, does a smudge, or a deep fingerprint. Gah! I redid a couple of fingers before I even got this much accomplished. Hmm.

It shifts form a shadowy green to a soft aqua blue.  Quite an atmospheric polish.

I tried it as a topper over New York Color Palm On The Beach: 

Gone is the color shift but up front and at attention is a pretty jungle green.

Palm On The Beach will be featured in an upcoming post, I'll get a photo then, but it's a bright parrot green and it only required one coat. I love how it looks. 

From sombre to jubilant. 

I am working with several old polishes and trying to fix their formulas, I'll have a post on this, it's a work in progress. I might goof around with this one. We'll see.

Meanwhile...Let's Go Green!

Color Club Beyond The Mistletoe Collection Part 2

Here is part deux of Color Club's Beyond The Mistletoe Collection. A superlative little coterie of wonderful glitter polishes.

Here is a link to part 1

I've got three coats of base color, two of glitter and will highlight any base I've not blogged about before.
No topcoat!


First up is Candy Cane:

A pretty reddened purple mauve I've paired it with Diamond Cosmetics Meditate.
Candy Cane is a mix of pink, purple and silver glitter.
Delightful change from all the holo.


Next a reblog of a beautiful color that is hard to find a dupe for, Sally Hansen The Good Earth:

Blogged a while ago, it really seemed like it needed a proper outing again.

Topped with Color Club's Ginger Bread:

Ginger Bread is packed with gold and holo glitter. Love it over the deeper background, too.


Here's another one in need of a swatch, Ulta's Ban-Blue-Zled:

Largely a crelly, indeed a little bit of a translucent but not transparent.
I've since frankened this polish adding a passle of holo to it. Looking at this photo now I wish I had kept it as a creme!

Now topped with Color Club Jingle Jangle:

Jingle Jangle has no holo either but a light purple and a light blue glitter.
Pretty and reflective, but more springtime in this combo with the pale blue base.


I found my set at Ross. And my backups, now that I think of it. Excellent glitter set to have in your collection!

Thanks for reading my little nail polish journal!

Bar Glitter Muted

Bar glitter, love or hate it, it's a staple.

You need at least one, okay, ten in your collection.

Here's one you didn't know you needed!

Finger Paints Amazing Glaze.

Finger Paints is a staple at Sally Beauty. All of their core line seems to be named in art themed puns.

No worries. I can deal with puns.

Here is Finger Paints Amazing Glaze over Ulta Concrete Evidence:

All that bar glitter cha cha yet subtle and understated.

Ulta Concrete evidence is a soft light gray that seems to fishtail between a green undertone and a rosey one, depending on the light. 

This is three coats. Unfortunately I got a dent in one finger the following day, plus wear was a little weak. 

Two coats of Amazing Glaze.

Does it NOT look like every single microbe shot you've ever seen on any Nova special, biology book, or oddball "slide photo"?

Seriously, a bacilli fest!

The beauty of this bar glitter - aside from bringing out my inner nerd - is that it has a beautiful iridescent shift. Over gray it is blue and purple. Plus every time the light hits, like in the upper part of my ring finger on the left, it just glows.

Here's a daylight shot.

Honestly fabulous.

The shadow hides the dent in the index finger.  Hehehe!

Ulta's Concrete Evidence really didn't jibe or something because it just seemed to not want to really just dry down. Wear was really evident after one single day of normal usage.

I have a lot of gray, so no worries if this one is not a complete win. Having said that, on someone else it may be a great polish. 

I know very little about Ulta polish stock/availability/pricing. I think I got this on a blog sale. Or, if I did make my bi-annual trip to Ulta it might have been on super sale and I grabbed it. Not sure. 

Amazing Glaze, well, another blog sale, and I can't say if it's core or not, I never go to Sally Beauty. Finger Paints is a nice brand, but they have so many limited editions that are difficult for me to access at my regional store that I don't keep up.

This one was a fun find. Bar glitter win!

Thanks for reading my little nail polish journal!

Ulta Blue Crush versus Color Club Electronica

I've had this Ulta Blue Crush for a while, I just blogged about it, and I really like it. The more I looked at it, the closer it looked to Color Club's Electronica.

I realize, as an aside, that it's very hard to organize by bottle color. The main issue is that stuff really doesn't always look the same in the bottle as on the nail! Sometimes two bottles look identical and one has hardly any pigment or the way it's concocked cococted (eep! speak english!) by the maker it ends up being, well, just different!

Here is Blue Crush, yet again:

Three coats, no top coat and here you can see it is jam packed with a ton of pink glass fleck, it actually looks like a mini-flake.

Here is Color Club Electronica, from their Musique collection:

I think that this has a similar concept, however it seems a little less pronounced.

Again, three coats, no top coat.

Electronica is more glossy, and although these had to be lightened and I had to remove some red and green, it's more blue than it looks in real life. Originally I looked like I had jaundice, and that wasn't going to work.

Because Blue Crush has a stronger fleck presence it looks more purple.

Here is a side by side:

I will say that this is much closer, however less blown out, ugh, my photography skills and purples are always taxed.

This is a trio of shots of one manicure with Electronica on the left side of the nail and Blue Crush on the right side of the nail.
So the top shot shows the Electronica side and the bottom the Blue crush side and the center shows both.

I've never tried this before, but they are so close that it's the best way to see the differences. Not that they aren't very similar, but Electronic is darker. Very nearly dupes.

Personally I love both, so although I have similar bottles of polish, they have enough of a difference to make them pretty much worth having each one.

Please enlarge the last photo to see the subtle variations.

As far as acquiring the Color Club, I believe it's still out there. The Ulta was just a fluke, I rarely shop there, so it's hard to say if it's around, I don't know much about their polishes.


Thanks for reading my little nail polish journal!

Purple Swatches

I have a lot of purple and blue that I have been neglecting, it's time to get going!

Random drawer grabs, many have been in my collection for a long time, just needed to be blogged/swatched.

All are without top coat.
All are three coats.

Ulta - Blue Crush

I call this a purple, but they call it a blue, who's to quibble? It's an eggplant base loaded with red and blue shimmer.
Easy to use, reminds me of Color Club Electronica with it's bold shimmers.
I think I picked this up through a blog sale, I am not close to an Ulta and rarely shop there, at least that's what I think, it's been a while since I got it.
I love the vivid blue and red shimmer, it's pretty nice.



Kleancolor - Purple Velvet

 Shimmer plummy purple. 

My photo is a bit more blue leaning than the real polish. Kind of a frustration, but since I have to tweak most purple photos, I feel like this isn't a great representation of this polish. You can see the blue shimmer popping through, but it's really more purple. Le sigh!

Kleancolor is an affordable brand, I see it all over eBay, where I purchased it. 

It does, however, have an ingredient that is horrible: sour and acrid. Without a doubt an intolerable smell that completely ruins the brand for me. 

Revlon - No Shrinking Violet

In the past I have to admit that Revlon shimmers were a complete fail for me. This one, however, was fabulous! I touched it lightly to check if it was dry and it was completely dry! Wow!
This is no longer available, as far as I can tell on the Revlon web site. I picked mine up in a Ross pack, so I am figuring it must be a goner. It's all over eBay.
This is a pretty color accurate.
It's a bit muddier on the nail than in the bottle. Kind of an neutral shimmer in the purple family.

Great formula, though I will admit I'm less than impressed with the color.



Maybelline - Purple Rage

Old Maybelline Express Finish gold cap.
A purple base and a cool shimmer that tends toward blurple. So cool that it looks like gray in my lighting.
During the day it emerges a tad bit more blue leaning.
Tight formula, these Maybelline Express Finishes are pretty good in that regard.


I would admit that I would call the last three almost a frosty finish.
None of the four are really exciting for me, either. 

Burnt Orange

This polish came as a freebie from an eBay seller. It is little, but very unique! It might be similar to WnW Rustic. I don't have many like this, especially in the salon lines. It's hard for me to pop $8 for orange nail polish! (although I've got umpteen bottles of purple that are probably so similar, you'd have to use a microscope to see the differences!)

I don't know how old it is, but it's a color that evokes many memories of 1970's cars.

It is a metallic, it also shows brushstrokes and isn't really flat or chrome-like. It's pretty! Perfect for October!

I thought I'd try to layer it a couple ways, too. You know I am kind of a layering fan.

Here it is with Ulta's Gold Digger:

This is a bit of a messy application! Sorry!!
On the index and ring finger are 2 coats.
On the middle and pinkie 1 coat.

The problem here was a bit of a formula one: Ulta Gold Digger seemed to melt the 3 well-set coats of the NoName orange! It was ghastly! It never really dried and I wiped it off. Fail!
I don't know what it was in the Ulta polish, but it was not a marriage made in heaven!


Then I tried my Princessa Melon. This came with that fantastically wonderful Martian Jade. It is a sheer that never builds, even after 5 coats. A pretty orange/pink coral and somehow it's kind of blah alone because of the sheerness.

I put a coat over the no name burnt orange:

OOoooooh!

Much glowing goodness!

I have to say that this combo is quite nice!!
If I had better skills at cleaning up the edges, I would say that you couldn't even tell it was two polishes.

Thanks for reading my little nail polish journal!

Love Affair - Princessa Martian Jade

My first polish after many years was IsaDora Opal. Then last summer I found OPI Sahara Sapphire and, as I said in my first entry, I flipped over the idea that "normal" colors included blue. (So long had I not paid attention, I figured most of it was variations on pink and red)

One day in Ross I found this 5-pack of Princessas. I grabbed it!

One polish, Martian Jade, seemed too beautiful! I put it on and wore it for a week. To me, it was perfection. I felt like I had the most perfect nails and the best cuticles (well they were probably pretty bad, actually). The feeling is still there. *thrump, thrump, thrump*

I put it on and wore it on an over night trip out of town, so much fun to wear that polish!

Here it is in all it's beauty:

A nearly mirror like finish that has this gorgeous green color. I love it so much.

Wait! There's more!

Three coats.
Dries like a polish should!
Wears like iron.
Well loved. Cosseted. Cuddled. Swooned over.

I wear it once a year, I'm still trying to round up a back up. This is the "polish I grab in case of a fire" nail polish. It's so gorgeous.



Here it is with a couple of top coats!

This is Ulta's Gold Digger. It's a sheer. (why am I so surprised!) It was on sale for 99 cents, so naturally I had to get it.

Here it is with Sally Hansen's (should read "Legendary" in front of it!) Hidden Treasure.

It really is combination of a foil and a chrome. It's got that mirror, but not that dead mirror.

And layered, well, it takes layers very well, indeed!!!

I guess this is the polish that cemented my love of greens. I don't know about all those rare and precious "limited edition" colors that go for $50 and more on eBay, or require you swap your entire Zoya collection to get, but this humble polish make my heart go pitty pat!

Hooray!!!

Wish it was a more popular brand!

Thanks for reading my little nail polish journal!

p.s. Here's a fun update! I went to the  Richon web site and looked for the nail polishes and found none! PANIC!!!
I picked up the phone and spoke to a very wonderful lady named Dawn. She told me they still sell nail polish, but mostly to wholesalers and a lot goes over seas, Ross, ironically, was one of their retail outlets (I am in a remote area, a tidy little Ross that gets some in around the holiday season).
I was telling her how much I loved the polish and she said I could order a bottle if they had it in stock.
Well, I hate to admit it, I got six.
Ha! I know! I could paint something with it!
But, I might just slap it on again in a couple of weeks and bask in it's glory.

Everyone has a "to die for" polish. What is yours? I would love to hear!
Promote it!
:D