Finger Paints Palette of Petals Collection Spring 2011

Hey guys... I'm really not up to writing right now, but I really need to work through my backlog of posts because it's out of control and I feel like I'll never catch up. Would you forgive me if I only post pictures this time?

This is Finger Paints' Palette of Petals Collection from this spring.

Aren't You Gladiolus?

Carnation Creation.

Chrysanthemum's The Word.

Dahlia My Number.

Did You Ast-her Out?

Heavenly Hydrangeas.

(This was sent to me for review.)

OPI Femme de Cirque Soft Shades Collection Spring 2011 Swatches and Review

OPI's annual Soft Shades collection is circus-themed this year. I have to say, I like the theme! No Soft Shades collection can rival my love for the old Princess Charming collection, but the names of the polishes in this set are fantastic.


In The Spotlight Pink. A soft, squishy-looking milky pink jelly. This pink is mostly neutral in the bottle, but it does border on warmer/peachy-toned against my skin.


So Many Clowns, So Little Time. This name seriously cracks me up... It's going on my list of all time favorite OPI names. The color is a creamy off white with a slight splash of pink and grey. Reminds me a bit of the whiter version of Bubble Bath.


Step Right Up. This one has a similar finish to So Many Clowns, but it has more pink and peach in it. Very pale, very white-based, slightly muted, like there's one drop of grey in it.


My favorite part of this collection is the glitter topcoat, I Juggle... Men. Well, it's not quite a glitter, but it's a sparkle. It's sort of like... maybe Orly Fifty-Four or CND Sapphire Sparkle, but it's even more like the duochrome shimmer in OPI Unripened / Nicole Blues In The Night. Funky irregular particles, like mini-flakes... Broken crushed flakes... Super duochrome gorgeous. It wouldn't show up on camera all by itself on my nails, but it's really intended for layering anyway, so I've layered it.

OPI I Juggle... Men sparkle topcoat over In The Spotlight Pink.

OPI I Juggle... Men sparkle topcoat over So Many Clowns, So Little Time.


OPI I Juggle... Men sparkle topcoat over Step Right Up.

As you can see, it's subtle over the sheers, but it adds a nice touch of blue/purple duochrome sparkle. It really shows up best over darker colors. It's especially nice over Color Club Total Mystery.

The formula on these was difficult. I found it to be somewhat watery but goopy at the same time, a texture similar to early Big 3 Free polishes. I did have a hard time applying these. They wanted to run into my cuticles. The Pro-Wide brush seemed smaller and flatter than usual and that added to the difficulty. These are meant to be worn as sheers, but my nails are way too stained to wear them that way, so I did five coats of all. When worn sheer, they are very subtle, providing only a slight milky wash of color.

The exception is the I Juggle... Men topcoat, which is a nice thin, even texture. It dries very, very fast and quite shiny, which leads me to believe it is actually a topcoat, quick-dry even, and not just for layering. It's fantastic.

These would probably make a nice, soft, natural looking french manicure. One that looks like clean natural nails with a touch of softness.

While the colors aren't really my thing, I do love that glitter topcoat and I love the names. They're very, very sheer so if you're someone who is only into subtle tints on your nails, these might interest you.

(These were sent to me for review.)

Color Club Wicked Sweet Collection Summer 2011 Swatches and Review

I know... I haven't even posted the Alter Ego spring collection yet and I'm already onto the summer collection. But, since I'm so late in posting spring, I figured why not wait on it a little longer and post the summer sets while they're still relevant?

Color Club is doing two sets of neons this summer, and not just plain neons. This set, called Wicked Sweet, just so happens to to live up to that title. They're not just candy-colored, they're candy scented as well!



Get Your Lem-On. This is a pale, green-tinged neon yellow with a green duochrome shimmer. The sunlight picture shows the green shimmer best and the indoor picture shows the base color truest. It's scented in a sweet, light lemon scent. This has my favorite scent of the bunch. I'd wear it just to smell it! The color reminds me a bit of Color Club Volt of Light.


Gimme A Grape Big Kiss. This is the standard neon fuchsia-purple creme. It looks a bit washed out due to the brightness of the color, but it pretty much looks like most other neon purples. The color is great... but the scent isn't my favorite. It's a candy grape scent, and I've never liked candy "grape"... Somehow the candy interpretation of grape doesn't taste or smell anything at all remotely like a real grape. But, that's just my personal taste here, if you love that candy grape scent, you'll probably really enjoy the scent of this.


I Always Get My Man-darin. A light, desaturated neon orange with contrasting green shimmer. I tried to capture that green shimmer, I really did. It is sneaky, but it's there. Very pretty once you see it in its full glory. The base color reminds me of fake orange juice... Like... what's it called... Tang? Or Sunny Delight. *shudder* The scent is a sweet crisp orange. Very light, but pleasant.

Raspberry Rush. This one is fighting with Gimme A Grape Big Kiss for my favorite color in the collection. It's pink, yes, but it's an awesome obnoxious gorgeous bright pink! It's too washed out looking in this picture (these crazy neon colors freak out my camera!), but you can get an idea of how bright and pretty it is. It's a much deeper pink, more of a magenta. The scent is a sweet candy smell, like the rest, but I can't quite put my finger on what it smells like. It doesn't particularly smell like raspberries to me. It sorta smells like when you open a bag of gummy bears, all the smells mixed together. It's nice, and it reminds me of something from when I was a kid, but I just can't remember what!


The Lime Starts Here. Light neon green jelly-creme. This is close enough to jelly to call it a jelly, right? But it's still creamy looking. So... jelly-creme it is. Nice and bright. Yellow toned. Has a sour candy lime scent. I dig it.


Wicked Sweet. This one looks like Zoya Phoebe with topcoat, doesn't it? Bright near-neon blue with electric blue and gold shimmer. The greenish tint to the shimmer makes the whole polish look teal in some lights. Quite glowy and beautiful. The scent is... blueberry? Blue raspberry? It reminds me of Crater Lake Company's Lemon Blueberry Frosting scent. I'm gonna go with blueberry then. Love it.


Yum Gum. This is a light pink neon, similar to something like China Glaze Pink Voltage. It has a creamy white base to the pink color. I like the color, but that name... Yum Gum? Really? Anyway... the scent is... gum. Bubblegum. Not the overly sweet kind, but the sorta dry hard kind, like the one that comes in baseball cards. Do they still put bubblegum in packages of baseball cards?


The formula was perfect. I didn't really have any problems with application. The texture is on the thin side, but it's not runny. Some of the shades are on the sheer side, but all are good with three coats. I'm wearing three coats in these pictures. The lemon and lime shades would probably look even better with a fourth coat, but I haven't tried. The drying time on these is confusing. They set incredibly quickly, but I found that I was still denting them nearly 45 minutes after application.

One aspect of the formula is notably different than my usual polish reviews... There's a scent. The scent is strongest when first applied and slowly fades away the longer you wear it. When I wore these with a coat of Seche Vite, I could still smell the scent for three days. It was very weak on the last day, but still there. It's not so strong that it gives you a headache, but it's not so weak that you have to stick your fingers up your nose to smell it.

I love the scents in these. They're so much nicer than almost any scented polish I own. They're all soft and sweet, no sharp chemical fakeness. They really truly smell like candy. I remember some of the scented polishes I had in the 90s... I think the brand may have been Loud! Music, or something to that effect. I had a vanilla and an orange one. They have me the worst headache every time I wore them, they were so strong and invasive and sharply fake smelling. None of that here. It can be a little unsettling if you forgot you're wearing scented polish, though. The first time I tried them out, I kept thinking... What's that smell? Why do my hands smell like gummy worms?!

Overall, I'm a fan of this collection. Sure, the colors are fairly common neon colors. Heck, a lot of them even look like existing Color Club neons. The scents make them special. And you know me... I'm a sucker for anything scented. Vanilla scented garbage bags, remember? So yeah, I am definitely a fan!

(These were sent to me for review.)

China Glaze Island Escape Collection Summer 2011 Swatches and Review

Another 2011 summer collection! I know, I'm not even done with the spring collections... But these were just so pretty and sparkly looking, I had to try them on... China Glaze Island Escape!


108 Degrees. A glorious glass fleck, the way only China Glaze can do them. The base of the color is a warmer magenta jelly while the glass fleck shimmer is a cooler toned pink and violet duochrome with a little hint of gold. Definitely brings back memories of their old glass fleck polishes... Doesn't this seem like a cousin to the classic China Glaze It's 5 o'clock Somewhere?



Blue Iguana. Another gorgeous glass fleck. This one is a medium/borderline light blue jelly base with a turquoise blue glass fleck and a tiny hint of purple duochrome. The duochrome is really more like a purple reflection- the polish looks blue, but when there's a reflection on the shiny surface, it's purple. Again, reminiscent of those great old China Glaze glass flecks like Drinkin' My Blues Away and Martini Pedicure.


Cha Cha Cha. A bright, glowy, yellow toned apple green and gold duochrome shimmer. Wow... Another flashback! Don't you think this is in the spirit of China Glaze Moonpool? Sure, it's brighter and less olivey, but still has such a similar theme. It's less frosty, so that's good.



Electric Pineapple. A yellow-green creme. I think this is my least favorite of the collection. It's not a bad color, but it looks bland next to all the other shades. It's really similar in color to Zoya Mitzi- it's about a shade lighter and not matte finish, but the shades are similar.



Papaya Punch. I might like this one even more than the glass flecks! It's a medium bright orange creme. It's not a neon and it's not too bright, it still has a little bit of softness to it. It reminds me of the fake cheese powder in boxed macaroni and cheese. I've said the same thing about Color Club Explosive... this is less yellow than that and not as bright.


Senorita Bonita. A red-toned purple with awesome pink shimmer. This was really hard to capture... that pink shimmer doesn't want to show up in pictures! But it's so so so pretty. Might need to enlarge the picture to see it. I think it shows up on my ring finger pretty well in this picture. The shimmer isn't glass fleck like the other colors, it's actually tiny little broken flakes of red-pink foil. Not chunky or glittery at all. Smooth. This color has a lot of depth and even a small amount of gold duochrome on the shimmer flakes. You have to see this one in person.


The formula on these was okay. They're a bit thicker than I expected. They didn't apply as evenly as some of the more recent China Glaze shades, but they weren't particularly troublesome. I might thin mine. Opacity was varied, but good. The cremes and Cha Cha Cha were good in two coats, but I thought the others looked best with three. I'm wearing three coats in all these pictures. No topcoat, either- see how shiny they dry without topcoat? Drying time was good as well.

You know what I like about this collection? It has echoes of past shades. And not random ones, either... Good ones. Ones that we all love and covet. It's like China Glaze is giving a nod to their longtime fans by including memories of some of their best discontinued shades in this collection. There are no direct copies or re-releases, but the similarity is obvious. Love them for that.

Overall, small but strong collection. The colors are WAY better in real life than they were in the promo pictures. The only weak point to me is Electric Pineapple because it doesn't have the same oomph as the rest of the shades. It's just kinda... meh. But the rest get two thumbs up from me, especially Papaya Punch. Love the sparkle and depth of the glass flecks, the flaky shimmer in Senorita Bonita and the brightness of the collection as a whole.

(These were sent to me for review.)

Zoya Mod Mattes Collection Summer 2011 Swatches and Review

In addition to the Sunshine and Summertime shimmer/creme sets for summer, Zoya has also released a mini collection of matte finish brights. They are:

Lolly. A bright pink creme matte. I like this shade of pink in the matte finish. It's a cooler shade of pink than OPI La Paz-itively Hot Matte and it has no shimmer.

Mitzi. A yellowy pea green matte creme! This is my favorite of the set. It really stands out on the nails. It's bright but murky at the same time. More dirty and yellowy than OPI Gargantuan Green Grape Matte.


Phoebe. A bright blue matte with blue shimmer. The only shimmer finish matte in the bunch. The shimmer is very subtle but it adds a nice satiny glow to the matte color. Think satin ribbon. Also, I just noticed that I have foundation in my cuticles. Ew. Sorry about that.

Since Phoebe has some shimmer, I was curious to see how it looked with topcoat to make it shiny:



It's nice glossy, too! The shimmer is still subtle but it looks electric. The blue on blue with a touch of green is really eye-catching.


The formula on these was good. You seem to have more time to work with these than previous mattes and that helps application somewhat. Your best bet is still to completely load the brush and cover the nail in as few strokes as possible, but you don't have to do it as quickly with these. They do dry completely in only a few minutes and they don't require topcoat so they're great for when you're in a hurry. They are much more sheer than other mattes and I needed three coats to make them look perfect. The wear time is average for mattes; I wore Phoebe for two days with no chipping or tipwear until the end of day two when a large section of polish on my index finger cracked off unprovoked... It's so weird when that happens. It just goes POOF! and it's gone.


I love the mod look of these. Very funky and even a bit psychedelic. It's nice to see more colors of matte, I'm getting a little tired of all the matte greys and blacks! Matte nail polish isn't over yet... wonder if anyone else will do more mattes this year?

(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.)

Playing with China Glaze Crackle Glaze again...

I did this mani that I really hated, but I didn't feel like taking it off and starting over. No matter what I layered over it, I still hated it... So I figured, why not add one more layer just to see what it looks like? I didn't necessarily love what I ended up with, but it was at least better. I photographed the evidence:


Here's me playing with China Glaze Fault Line and Broken Hearted. I don't remember everything it's layered over, but it included Milani Magenta Metal as the base and Sally Hansen HD in Byte on top of everything. I liked the subtle crackle effect of Fault Line with little glints of duochrome sparkle from Byte peeking through. Fault Line still doesn't crack as well as the other shades, but I did get it to crackle more this time by applying it over completely dry polish and waiting 5 minutes before applying topcoat.



This one I actually liked. It's China Glaze Lightning Bolt over the random pink polish mess. I love the way the glass fleck sparkles in Byte shine through the cracks of the white polish. White crackle is really neat. I want to do it over neon yellow... think I'll try that soon.


So, there's that. Just thought I'd share a few more layering combinations with the crackles. I'm still a bit obsessed with crackle. I don't think I've done more than one or two manis in the past month that haven't had crackle on them...