Color Club Alter Ego: Reveal Your Mystery Collection Spring 2011 Swatches and Review

This is only one half of Color Club's spring 2011 collection, "Alter Ego." The Reveal Your Mystery set is a collection of light, un-intimidating sheers/neutrals/soft shades. It's practically a polar opposite to the dark, deep, mysterious and colorful shades in Keep It Under Cover.


Get A Clue. A soft pastel pink creme. This is actually a really nice pink because it has a hint of grey and lavender in it. It's very rare to find a pastel pink like this that actually compliments my skintone instead of making my fingers look dirty or bright red.


Give Me A Hint. Your standard grey/taupe/purple hybrid creme. This one leans a little more on the grey side than the purple side than some similar shades.


Incognito. A sheer, fleshy pale brown based nude. This seems neutral toned to me, and against my cool-toned skin it doesn't seem to pull particularly warm or cool. It's like a lighter version of Lippmann Naked.


Revealed. This is an interesting color... It's a warm peach creme base with some red and violet subtle shimmer. I really love how the shimmer lights up the color. It's subtle, but it looks almost like a duochrome when the light hits the shimmer.


Secret Rendezvous. A light lilac creme. This picture makes it seem pure blue, and it is quite blue in real life, but it definitely has some purple to it. I like the name of this because it reminds me if playing DDR. Random.



Sheer Disguise. A nice light grey. I love grey polish. This is a very pretty grey, though there's nothing particularly unique or different about it. It's on the light side and has a bit of blue to it.


The formula on these was great. I had no problems with the formula or the brushes or anything at all. Everything was smooth, fairly even, and perfect in three coats (I did three coats on all). A few can be worn sheer if you do only one coat. Good dry time, good wear time, easy removal, no staining or anything like that. Quite honestly, nothing to report!

The box set of this collection comes with a bottle of Milky White French Manicure Basecoat. I didn't take a picture of it, because, uh, it's clear. But not just plain clear! It's clear with a blue tint and it counteracts yellow tones in the nail. This is a genius product and I think everyone should have a bottle. I've been using it for years and I always make sure I have it on hand, just in case. I were to wear a sheer or for some reason go without nail polish, I would make sure to apply this as my basecoat. Not only will it hide the yellowness of stained nails, it will brighten and whiten the look of the nails and even fix certain types of old nail polish. Really. If you use it as topcoat over certain shades of polish, for instance, a glitter with a clear base that has yellowed with time, it will take out the yellow. Awesome stuff, seriously.

While these are all nice colors and I do like all of them, there isn't anything terribly exciting about them. Well, I guess I suppose that's the point of neutrals and sheers. Good formula and flattering colors, but the exciting part of the collection is yet to come...

(These were sent to me for review.)

Nubar Spring Garden Collection Spring 2011 Swatches and Review

Here's Nubar's spring 2011 collection, "Spring Garden". A set of pastels that are a little different from all the ones we've seen lately. They're kinda dirty (in a good way) and each shade except Honeysuckle has a silvery hidden shimmer.


Baby Sprout. Not the mint green clone I was expecting! This is just barely green, like a creamy white with a bit of green cast to it. It's lighter than China Glaze Groovy Green. Really pretty color, though unfortunately it gives me mega lobster hands.



Blue Hydrangea. This is a pastel blue- it's like a dark baby blue or a pale sky blue. It is the only one that actually looks shimmery, the shimmer in the rest of the colors is more of a secret shimmer. The shimmer gives it a reflective pearl finish.



Earthen. A dirty, murky grey! I like. It has a little bit of a taupe tone to it, but it looks mainly grey on my skin. The very fine shimmer softens the color a little bit so it looks sort of... fuzzy? It's ever-so-slightly pearly, but only in certain lights.


Honeysuckle. Here's the obligatory Pantone 2011 Color of the Year honeysuckle shade. It's the only true creme in the collection and it adds a jarring pop of bright color amongst all these faded, dusty pastels. It's bright and clean and surprisingly nice; it has a subtle jelly look to it, though I wouldn't call it a true jelly finish (it's too opaque). Oddly, I never think of this color when I think of honeysuckle flowers. The honeysuckles I remember from my Grandma's garden were all white and yellow.


Pink Lily. Light, peachy pastel pink. Slight subtle pearl finish from all that fine silver shimmer in there.


Purple Aster. A light lavender pastel. Not quite as blue toned as it looks here, but still slightly blue toned in real life. I had about two seconds of sunlight to take this picture, I think it shows how subtle the shimmer is. Only a hint of silvery frost, you would never know if you didn't see it in direct light.


White Peony. This looks like a pure clean white in this picture, but in real life it has a bit of a dirty look to it. Not enough to call it off white or ivory, but it looks slightly faded and really creamy. I can't tell if this one has shimmer or not, actually... At some angles it looks like it, but my eyes hurt from staring at it!


Yellow Primrose. Very pale butter yellow. Lighter than Nubar Lemon Sorbet and Maybelline Banana Pudding. Very cute, very springy. The shimmer in this is almost invisible, but it softens the look of the color so it doesn't look chalky.

There's one more color in this collection- a coordinating glitter topcoat called Dewdrop. It doesn't really show up well alone, so I've only photographed it layered. It's a pastel opal glitter in a clear base, reminds me of something like Color Club Bishop's Weed or China Glaze Glacier.

I've done one coat over each color, no topcoat.

Dewdrop over Baby Sprout.

Dewdrop over Blue Hydrangea.


Dewdrop over Earthen.


Dewdrop over Honeysuckle.


Dewdrop over Pink Lily.


Dewdrop over Purple Aster.



Dewdrop over White Peony.


Dewdrop over Yellow Primrose.

The formula on all of these was good. It was thinner than usual but still nice and even, not runny. These weren't as opaque as previous Nubar cremes, I found that I needed three coats on all shades to get them completely even. Drying time is good. Bottles and brushes were all without defect.


These pastels are a little bit different from all the other pastels this year. I really like Earthen and Yellow Primrose, and White Peony is a nice white for wearing alone since it's not quite as chalky looking as other whites.

These will be available soon on ByNubar.com, though I don't know the exact date.

(These were sent to me for review.)

China Glaze Crackle Glaze Layering

A few of you suggested that I try layering the crackles over each other, and I was curious to see how it would turn out... So, I layered some more crackle glaze over my existing mani and I think it turned out pretty cool! Here's what I tried:

Broken Hearted over Crushed Candy over Essie French Affair. This one didn't seem to want to crackle as much over crackle, but it still looks pretty cool. The parts where the pink and blue layer over each other turned purple! I think I like it!

Cracked Concrete over Crushed Candy over Essie French Affair. I like this one better! It crackled more. I love the color combination. Know what it reminds me of? That weird 'abstract' 80's-90's corporate art with the weird geometric shapes and splatter paint patterns in teal and grey and peach... Know what I'm talking about? The type of generic art you find in offices and stuff? Sometimes there's a palm tree, but usually funky boomerang shapes and triangles...

Sorry about the blurry pictures. I can not hold my hands still today. They're shaking so bad I'm even having a hard time typing. Bleh!

New Wet n Wild FastDry Nail Color Shades for 2011

Along with those awesome eyeshadow trios, Wet n Wild released some new shades of FastDry nail polish for the new year. Apparently, they re-used some names that they used for last fall's colors, but the shades aren't quite the same. I was mistaken in thinking that they were re-releases; I didn't buy any of the fall colors because they didn't look that interesting to me, but these shades are fantastic. These are the ones I chose (though they all looked great):


Blue Wants To Be A Millionaire? This is a really sheer blue holo. It's very pretty. It reminds me of the light blue Nubar holo Absolute. It's not a strong hologram finish, it's really delicate and light.


Buffy The Violet Slayer. Pretty much the best purple shimmer ever. My picture is nowhere near accurate; this is the craziest, prettiest, most vibrant violet-purple color. You really need to see it in real life, it's amazing. Look at the shadow on the bottom half of the bottle, that's much closer to the actual color. It's not blue toned like it looks here. It glows.



Gray's Anatomy. Practically an exact replica of Lippmann's Wicked Game. It's a multichromatic shade that flashes grey, green, purple, blue and silver. It's a little frosty, but since it's a duochrome, I can ignore that.


Hannah Pinktana. Really? That's the name they chose for this one?! There was no other television series title they could have worked the word pink into? Silly name aside, this is another sheer, delicate holographic finish but in a shade of mauve-pink. This one is a little too sheer for me, but it sure looks pretty in the bottle. Maybe I could franken it with something to make it less sheer.



Party Of Five Glitters over Buffy The Violet Slayer. This one was a little too sheer to wear alone. It's a combination of large and small hexagonal glitter in shades of silver, pink, red, green... wait... is there one more shade in there? That's only four! Maybe there's some blue, I can't tell. This one was rather hard to apply, the clear base is thick and the glitter is sparse, kind of a difficult combination.


SaGreena The Teenage Witch. Oh man, these names are killing me! But this is a rather nice shade of green. It's a medium emerald green shimmer, bordering on frost. It's a little more sheer than I prefer, but it's not bad at all.


The formula on these is just okay. It's a little inconsistent, a little runny/goopy in some shades and some of the colors are a little sheer. It's not terrible but it's not the best. The bad part is the brush- it's slanted! Very odd brush. Not my favorite. I think they might need to re-think the brush design on these. The drying time is good on all of these, so no problems there.

One of these days I might pick up the rest of the colors, but these were the ones that interested me the most. There was this gorgeous gold glass fleck that looked really nice.

I'm continually impressed with Wet n Wild's new products. Really happy about the prices, too!

China Glaze Anchors Away Collection Spring 2011

This year is off to a really good start, polish-wise. The second new collection of 2011 is a great one- China Glaze Anchors Away. Looks like there's going to be a soft and muted yet not quite pastel color trend this spring...


Ahoy! You all know I'm not big on pink, but this pink is AMAZING. It's more of a deep magenta than a true pink, but it's a jelly and it has iridescent gold shimmer. The combination of the bright, colorful jelly and the glowing gold shimmer is just fantastic. The jelly base tints the gold flecks a little so you get lots of different tones sparking on your nails.


Below Deck. One of those ever-popular purple-grey shades. Is it Greige? I forget what term everyone's using for these now... Grurple? Anyway, I've heard from a few people that this was intended to be a replica of the old Channelesque, and it does look pretty similar! Channelesque seems lighter to me, though. This one reminds me more of Metro Chic.


First Mate. Lovely soft navy blue creme. It looks too bright in this picture- in real life it has a really soft, dusty sort of look. Really pretty. One of the only navy shades I like... Most of the time I feel like Navy can't decide if it's blue or black and it's always so dull... this one is perfect.



Hey, Sailor! This is an attention grabber for sure. Crazy bright loud obnoxious red creme. It looks dangerous! I love it. It has that retro sailor pin-up girl look to it, those kinds of reds are my favorites. This is almost a jelly, too, it has that soft squishy look to it when it's applied.



Knotty. This is an interesting shade- it's a glass fleck nude? It's a light tan/beige nude shade with silver-white flecks of shimmer. Maybe not the best color on me, but I really do like looking at it. I don't own many shades like this.



Life Preserver. A soft burnt orange. Really rich looking, so saturated and creamy. I really like orange polish and this one is not the common bright orange. It reminds me a lot of one of the shades from the Immaterial Girl collection from a few years back, but I can't remember the name! Vintage Crepe? Ah, I can't remember and now I'm rambling.





Lighthouse. Holy smokes, this yellow is awesome! And easy to apply! A bright yellow jelly base with shiny, sparkly pale yellow glass fleck shimmer. It has a lot of depth to it, I love the way the shimmer looks sitting in the lower layers of the polish and then how it sparkles at the top layer.




Pelican Gray. Light, pale grey, neutral, with a little soft shimmer to it. It's a hidden shimmer like the kind in Zoya Marley, you can't really see it but it gives a nice soft cloudy look to the color. Love these kinds of greys. Or maybe I just love all greys, I can't decide.



Sea Spray. So many beautiful colors in this collection... this might be one of my top favorites. It's a very pale blue but it's not pastel. It has a lot of grey in it and a very subtle shimmer. It looks rainy. Reminds me of something like Eyeko Rain Polish- rainy sky blue!



Starboard. Soft grassy green. What's not to love about this? It's my favorite type of green, too- yellow-leaning and not too blue. Very creamy soft finish, has that soft, cloudy marshmallow-ish look like the rest of the colors in this set have.


Sunset Sail. A peachy beige nude with some silvery microglitter. Looks a shade or two darker on the nails than it does in the bottle. It's on the warm side but I still think it looks pretty good on my cool skintone!


White Cap. Gorgeous. Sheer white jelly with gold duochrome shimmer. It's like a cross between a glass fleck and a flake finish- tiny little flat flakes that are very, very shiny. It's so bright and luminous, it looks so clean.

The formula on these was good. A little on the thick side, but with flawless application. Not runny or anything like that. The opacity on these is decent but I found that I needed three coats for complete coverage on most shades. All pictures are three coats, no basecoat or topcoat. They dry really shiny without topcoat. Drying time is average.

I really love these shades. Some of them look like other old China Glaze shades but I don't know if any are exact matches. I don't dislike a single shade in this entire collection- they're all beautiful! After all the dark vamps and shiny glitters of fall and winter, I'm really craving these types of soft, greyed-out muted creme shades. The smattering of glass flecks in the collection is just the icing on the cake for me. I'm quite pleased with these. I see myself wearing Sea Spray a lot this spring...

Two thumbs up for me. Refreshing change of pace from all the glitter-heavy manicures I've been sporting lately. Lots of wearable soft shades, very calming and peaceful.

(These were sent to me for review.)

Zoya Intimate Collection Spring 2011

Happy new year, everyone!

First new collection post of the year, yay! It's Zoya's new Spring 2011 collection: Intimate.



Caitlin. I know it looks totally blue here, but that's just the lighting. That whole, "it gets dark at 4:00 :(" thing... But really, it's grey, like the bottle color. It's a medium grey creme with purple tones in it, like a lighter version of Kelly.


Dannii. Isn't Dannii pretty? It's a purple shimmer that reflects red and gold. Not quite a true duochrome, but definitely iridescent looking! The shimmer in this is that signature Zoya shimmer- pearly, a little bit flaky, big particles, slightly like a glass-fleck finish.


Dove. Appropriate name. It's a light dove grey creme. So pretty. I've been craving colors like this lately. This seems like more of a neutral grey- it doesn't seem to have blue or green undertones in it at all- just pure, creamy, cozy light grey.


Gemma. I wish I could have gotten better pictures of this! Maybe I'll try again when the sun comes back. I think this is the star of the collection- unexpected, unique, and awesome! It's olive drab with a violet duochrome! I tried to capture the purple flash in the pictures, you might have to enlarge to see the veins of purple shimmer. This brings me back to the 90's when colors like this were all I wore. This one makes me so happy.




Jules. This one's fascinating! It looks taupe overall, but it's made of different tones of light gold shimmer and it seems to have a bit of purple in the base, too. The same kind of shimmer as Dannii. Not frosty or streaky, just lots of little specks of metallic foily particles.


Marley. This one is a light pastel purple, but it seems to have a touch of light grey in it to keep it from looking too bright. And instead of being a plain creme, it has a hidden pearl shimmer that makes it look really soft and creamy. It does have a very subtle pearl finish on it when you view it in sunlight, but it mostly looks like a really soft creme finish.

The formula on these was great. They were neither runny nor thick, I didn't have any application issues at all. The polish went right where I wanted it to. Opacity was good- most colors only needed two coats, but I think Gemma and Jules look better with three. I did three coats in these pictures. Drying time was good (I used Qtica basecoar and Seche Vite topcoat when I did full manicures with these colors). They seemed to wear really well, too. They didn't chip at all by the time I removed them.

My thoughts? Perfection. I think this collection is absolutely perfect for spring. One word keeps coming to mind when I look at all these colors- cozy. They remind me of cozy cashmere sweaters. Some of the shades even remind me of rainy spring skies. They're soft and muted but they're not dirty or blah looking- they have a freshness to them that keeps them from being bland. Plus, it's a spring collection that isn't pink-heavy! It has two kinds of grey and a green duochrome.

I've really been craving these types of colors after all the dark vampy fall and winter colors. The soft greys are especially appealing to me. And Gemma? Amazing. Green/purple duochrome is kinda my thing, you know? How could I not love it? In fact, I love all the shades- I don't dislike a single one, they're all so nice. Soft, cozy, rainy, no pink... It gets my seal of approval. I'm really happy with these shades.

This collection will be available on Zoya.com starting January 15th, 2011.

(These were sent to me for review.)