Bah, Humbunny!

If you saw my review of Sinful Colors Sugar Rush collection, you know how I feel about pastels.  It's partly because I look...not so great...in them, and partly because...well...eww....pastels!  Grumpybunny shares my sentiments!

Easter's never been near the top of my list of holidays, and the color scheme doesn't help!  I...went another way.  If Easter had a "bah, humbug" of its own, I'd be all over it!  I can't even enjoy cheap candy tomorrow because I'm watching what I eat again.

I used Zoya Shawn, FingerPaints Paper Mache and Black Expressionism, OPI Fly, Revlon Sandy Nude, Ulta Sun-Sational, and L.A. Colors Reckless to make this curmudgeonly little guy and my anti-easter egg nails.


All grumping aside; if you celebrate Easter, I hope it's a good one!

My Picks from L.A. Girl 3D Effect

I rushed out to buy these and put a rush on this post!  The LA Girl 3D Effect displays just started showing up at Rite Aid within about the last week and they are going FAST!  I figured I should get this post up before they're gone.  They're also available on the L.A. Girl website and probably others that usually sell this brand.  There are eight scattered holographic jelly shades in the 3D Effects collection.  Three are very close dupes of Zoya Aurora, Storm, and Blaze.  There are also pink, teal, and orange shades and one that's got the holographic particles in a clear base.  I passed on the Aurora and Storm dupes and the one with the clear base, since I have very similar shades already.  I also passed on the pink and orange.  I've labeled the photos with the lighting used for each.

Brilliant Blue is a deep blue jelly with large scattered holo particles.

LED

I love this finish in general, but this is my favorite!  Two coats, smooth to apply, and beautiful even when the holo is just shimmery silver.  The holo is at its brightest under LED lights and is a bit weak in our usual "sunshine".

indoor sunlight

It was much better when I was out in actual sunshine this morning.  If you're somewhere sunny, you'll get plenty of holo from these.  It's there a bit indoors too.  A bit.

incandescent

I spent more time than I'd like to admit just wiggling my fingers around under my Jansjo lamp.  It's the only way a nocturnal, sun-shy critter like me really gets to enjoy holos...especially in the Philly area!

LED

Teal Dimenson is a bright blue-green jelly with large scattered holo particles.

LED

Two coats here too, and similarly deep and gorgeous!  The holo particles have more impact in Teal Dimension because of the lighter base.  I can see why they used the word dimension...

indoor sunlight

Again, not the boldest holo reaction in this pitiful sunlight.  I went outdoors to see if it was any better.  Nope!  Just got cloud reflections.  I feel like the holo's a little more obvious here overall though.

incandescent

Had fun finger-wiggling here too!

LED

Sparkle Ruby is a fuchsia jelly with large scattered holo particles.

LED

Unlike the other two, this is just one coat of Sparkle Ruby.  I'm kicking myself for not trying a second coat.  It may have been less...pink.  Still, the coverage is impressive, isn't it?

indoor sunlight

Because of the pinkish base, you notice more of the cool tones of the holo and less of the warm than with the two blues above.  Of the three I bought, Sparkle Ruby has the most obvious holo effect.

incandescent

I'm just not sure how I feel about the shade itself...  Finger wiggling was obligatory though, of course!

LED

I can't recommend these strongly enough!  Go get them!  Soon!!  I bought these three on Monday from a display that had been put out that morning and was 1/3 gone after I picked them out.  The displays I've seen since have been depleted even further.  There are only two of each shade per display...and they're gorgeous.  They'll be gone soon, I'm sure...so get to a Rite Aid this weekend!


I'm gonna try to break my bad habit of missing my window for holiday nail art.  There *might* be some kind of Easter thing from me on Sunday.  Maybe.

Hard Candy Sugar Rush

 Nothing too fancy. I'm actually just in love with the new Hard Candy Polishes. I wish Ulta carried them, since it's closer to home than Walmart. This one is Sugar Rush. I used 3 coats here, but you could totally get away with 2. I normally don't like the "jelly sandwich" look...but this just tickles me for some reason. Now I have to get the rest of the colors!

no topcoat here. Surprisingly smooth.

Orly High On Hope

Doing my best to resist the new Spring collections as much as I can...but...Orly High On Hope was another I just had to have.  I bought it in the same Sally Beauty trip as FingerPaints Itsy Bitsy Spider, but Orly is more widely available.  I think I saw the Hope and Freedom collection at Ulta already, but I'm not completely sure.

High On Hope has fuchsia/copper duochrome microfleck shimmer in a dusty dark blue base.

Hell of a combination, isn't it?  I love the contrast between the dark base and the shimmer.  I don't have anything else quite like this.  The formula was ok.  It's thick, but not unmanageable.  This is two coats.  I had a little bit of dragging in one spot, but I don't think it's that noticeable.  I didn't even see it until I started taking photos.

The shimmer is wonderful, and the duochrome isn't in-your-face, but it's there.  Both the fuchsia and the copper stand out beautifully against the blue.

I'm getting a bit predictable here, but I had to mattify this too.  Polishes like this just cry out for it!

Everything that's already great about High On Hope just gets better when it's mattified.  The microflecks stand out even more and the duochrome becomes much more apparent.  I didn't get to wear this for very long before I had to replace it with something I could wear to work.  I was really sad to see it go so soon!

The look of High On Hope more than makes up for the little issues with the formula.  It's got so much personality!

I had a really successful couple of polish hunting trips recently, so I have even more new stuff to show you soon than I already had in my swatching basket!  I'd better get back to it now!  See you again tomorrow, I think...with...something holographic... *wink wink*

Sally Hansen Lava vs Hard Candy Pieces Of Papaya

Pieces of Papaya and Lustre Shine Lava are close. Really close. A sane person definitely does not need both. Lucky for you, I am not a sane person. Hooray! On to the comparison

In the bottle:

Really fucking close. Ridiculously so. Hard Candy has a much rosier tone to it, where the Lustre Shine has a much more orangey, brassy look. Hard Candy's new bottle is really slick and modern looking, whereas the Lustre Shine is a teardrop shaped bottle that feels very retro. Both are completely fine, but I like the plain bottle best. It looks pretty on my shelf!

 On the nail:

Hard Candy is completely opaque at 3 coats. It aslo dried surprisinly quickly, which kept me from dragging the layers. I love the fuller, rosy finish with the pale gold and orange foily things going on. It's a very nice, feminine-but-not-boring color. I declare it SFW. 

Lustre Shine needs at least 4 coats to be opaque. The formula is pretty "frothy" and a bit of a challenge to control. I never can achieve a nice smooth line at the cuticle with this stuff. The nature of this polish gives me the feel of using an old polish that needs thinning.  It dries a bit slower, and as you can see, I dented it while trying to take the pictures.  It also has a very orange overcast that can be really hard to wear, plus the pink backflash of color reminds me of pink highlighters. The orange makes it probably-not-SFW.

There is also something....flat about it when compared to Pieces of Papaya. I don't think there is enough foily fantasticalness going on to distract from streaks. I compare Pieces of Papaya to the Orly polishes I have. The amount of shiny bits is perfect to cover up any awkwardness in the polish application.

you can see the streaks here. Also...where I gave up on the cleanup. 

Overall, they are both fine. But next time I go looking for a foily polish, I'm gonna grab Hard Candy. The bottle is nicer, the formula is easier to work with, the finish is nicer, and its cheaper! 

TL;DR if you like the Lustre Shine line, go to Walmart and buy Hard Candy.

A New Blog I Instantly Loved

Another of my favorite MakeupAlley Nail Board people has started blogging!  Fellrunner is sweet, helpful, and funny...and her nails are OUTSTANDING!  Last month, she started blogging as UKNailRunner. I feel really dumb for not putting two and two together when someone started commenting on here with that name, but I checked out the blog one day and there's no mistaking these nails!

Illamasqua Pink Raindrops * Photo belongs to UKNailRunner

Alison has the rare ability to make me like the look of almost anything she wears.  Pretty much everything is gorgeous on those nails!  She alternates between almonds and other shapes, but they're always so perfect.

M&S Ultraviolet * Photo belongs to UKNailRunner

I was really happy to see her return to almonds though, since I know she loves that shape...and the Nail Board loves it too!  It looks great on her and really makes her photos stand out.  Plus she shapes them so perfectly!

Hare Polish Heat Plague * Photo belongs to UKNailRunner

Gorgeous nails, terrific application skills, and an enviable collection of polishes...I love that the glee I feel when I see her posts on the Nail Board can now be spread to the wider polish-verse!

OPI Lincoln Park After Dark Suede with L'Oreal Confetti (mattified)
Photo belongs to UKNailRunner

See that right there?  One of my favorite manicures on anyone ever!  Gorgeous!!  Everything about it is just...perfect.  ...but then I love purple and matte finishes, and I'm slowly dying of jealousy over L'Oreal Confetti, so of course I adore this.  Know what I don't like?  Yellow...and pink...but then Alison works her magic and has me ooohing and aahing over this...

Elevation Polish Street Side NYC with Alta Costura Vernis Square
Photo belongs to UKNailRunner

When Royal Mail went bonkers earlier this year and decided to crack down on polish being shipped out of the UK, I thought of Alison first.  Nails this special should be able to swap polish worldwide!  I feel awful for all UK'ers affected by the crackdown, but especially for someone who I know has helped some really special British polishes "cross the pond".

NARS Zulu and Max Factor Fantasy Fire
Photo belongs to UKNailRunner

I need to wrap this up before I repost her whole blog!  Just....one more...and then you should go have a look for yourself!

Nail Venturous Humble Bee over Rescue Beauty Lounge Mismas
Photo belongs to UKNailRunner

Alison, I'm so thrilled to see you blogging and I hope you keep going!

Hard Candy Pieces of Papaya

Finally, my local Walmart has the new Hard Candy polishes! I ranted about their slow-as-shit stocking a while ago, and after some contact with their Social Media drones and a manager, I got an ETA. I went on down to Walmart, and there they were: all shiny and perfect. (the cosmetics racks were still woefully empty.)

I grabbed a lovely pink foil and headed for the door. (I had already stopped by a Walmart 60 miles away for Black Tie Optional)

This stuff is great. Awesome even. I used 3 moderate coats here, and it was pretty damned opaque. Unlike a lot of foils I have tried, this one wasn't super "frothy" and stayed pretty well on my nails while being applied. It is a bitch to clean up though (glitter everywhere!) so I definitely recommend the "shower method" of clean up. 

One thing I was struck by was how similar it was to Sally Hansens Lustre Shine Lava. This is everything Lava should have been but wasn't. I wish these had been out first. I will definitely be grabbing more soon.

St. Patrick's Day...only a week late

Other than my grandmother's birthday, St. Patrick's Day is kind-of a non-event around here. But I figured I should do something green...the kids might pinch me!

Colors Used

China Glaze Def Defying

Butter London Wallis

 I tried a bit of "braiding" with the colors. It turned out ok. This might not have been the best manicure to try it with. I really wanted to use Wallis (thank you, Ulta sale!) and I didn't want to use just one color. Ambition got the best of me again. I was still pretty happy with the outcome, however. It just wasn't perfect.

Damn you, SV. Y U SHRINK SO MUCH?

My "Late Night Rendezvous"

At 12:30am on March 25th, 2011, I was standing around in a diner.  My date was a few minutes late.  He'd told me a few times that he didn't think I actually wanted to meet him, but it was mostly schedule conflicts.  We'd met on OKCupid in early January and dates had been half-planned and then cancelled a few times.  He was sure I didn't want to meet him.  I forget who asked who to the diner, but a couple of minutes after 12:30, he walked in.  He looked so grumpy, but he smiled when he saw me.  We sat in that diner until the breakfast rush started and the manager asked us if we'd move to the counter.  We left instead and wandered around...neither of us wanted to say goodbye.  We came back to the diner parking lot around lunchtime.  He had to work that afternoon and I needed a few hours of sleep before work that night.  We still couldn't say goodbye.  We sat in his car, then kissed in his car, then finally said goodbye...almost fourteen hours after our date started.  He's the best man I've ever met and I love him so much!  We went back to that diner to celebrate our anniversary last night.  It's been two years today, but I feel like I've known him forever.

Please excuse his cuticles
He says Vikings don't get manicures

He doesn't care about polish at all, but he's good enough to give me the guy opinion when I need it.  A lot of girls wear their guy's favorite color or favorite polish on their anniversary, but that's not an option here...so I was a little stumped.  I asked the girls over at the MakeupAlley Nail Board for help, and PinkQueen suggested I should wear FingerPaints Late Night Rendezvous.  She picked well!

Late Night Rendezvous is from last year's Summer In The City collection.  If you see it in a blog sale somewhere or happen upon it in a Sally Beauty clearance bin, get it!  It's got a gorgeous blue foil finish and the formula's good.  This is two coats over the nude I was already wearing, but it doesn't need a base.  It's amazing mattified!

I was sick last week, so I'm a bit behind on my spring swatching.  The good news is...I finally found *my* nude polish!  More on that soon!

Pardon our wonkiness....again

Time for a fresher, lighter look for spring.  I'm fiddling, so if it looks very weird around here at any point...sorry!

Update- I think I'm done for now. If anyone's here, how's it look?  I'm thinking it might be too blue.

FingerPaints Itsy Bitsy Spider

I've been trying to avoid too many shopping trips and pass on as many Spring collections as possible, but I couldn't resist the buzz about Finger Paints Itsy Bitsy Spider from the Wild About Spring collection.  I wanted to check out Owlin' At The Moon (a light green shard glitter) too, but they had sold out of it at the Sally Beauty I went to.


Itsy Bitsy Spider has a dusty lavender base packed with blue-to-fuchsia duochrome microfleck shimmer.

The fuchsia shift is more obvious than my photos show, but this comes close.  The formula wasn't the best I've seen from FingerPaints.  It was thicker than I like and took three coats for *complete* opacity.  The dry time was also bad.  I ruined my ring finger twice!  It's only got two coats on that nail in these photos, and you can sorta see a few bare-ish patches.  The third coat was really essential, for me.  At some angles the fuchsia shift takes over and changes the whole look of the polish.

At extreme angles, you can almost get a hint of gold to the shimmer.  It's one that you wind up tilting your fingers around to get every possible view of the shift.  Other people do that too, right?  Don't you?

When I see this finish and duochrome in the same place, I just feel an overwhelming urge to mattify.  This is why...

It's good on its own, but mattifying it is such an improvement!  All of the elements of this shade really come out then.  You see the base color more, but the shift is also more clearly defined and the flecks stand out even more.

Itsy Bitsy Spider is a good Spring polish for people who don't like Spring polishes.  Lovely, delicate, and soft without actually being pastel.  Yay!

So do you need it?  Well...that depends.  I'd recommend Itsy Bitsy Spider, but not strongly.  You could get this look with cream similar to the base and a shimmer top coat.  That would probably be three coats too and take just as long to dry.  But the price is good and the formula isn't too bad...so...your call really.  I do like it, especially mattified!


I've only reviewed three polishes this week!  I feel like such a bum.  Better luck next week, I hope!  My swatching totes are still pretty full...

Nebula Nails...on Me!

Nebula (or galaxy) nails are the gateway drug of nail art. This design was among the first detailed, "serious" bits of nail art I tried. It's super simple: all you really need is a bunch of colors, a couple of toothpicks (or a dotting tool), and a cosmetic sponge. I realized the other day that I had yet to do it since we started rambling and ranting on the internets...so I had to do it. For Science.

Colors Used

Orly Haley's Comet

Wet'n'Wild French White Creme

Zoya Gilda

Zoya Raven

Rimmel London Wild Orchid

NYC Long Wearing Times Square Tangerine Creme

NYC Long Wearing Taxi Yellow Creme

China Glaze Def Defying

Sinful Colors Let's Talk

Color Club Beyond the Mistletoe (probably)

Revlon Superstitious and Celestial FX

When Revlon introduced new Nail Enamel shades with the Bubblegum Days/Urban Nights display, they also introduced new Top Speed shades in a selection called Spellbound.  These new shades are a variety of creams and two shaped glitters.  The hearts in Hearts Of Gold aren't my thing, but I eyed the other one so many times that I had to pick it up.  I can also never resist a blue cream.  [Seriously. I have 41 of them!]  Yes, this is the combo that everyone did, but...it's just so right!  Bonus cat is included at the bottom of the post, as an apology for being predictable.

Superstitious is a medium true blue cream.

Superstitious is unquestionably the best Revlon cream I've EVER tried!  Two coats and...a first for me with their creams...no bubbles!!  Hooray!  The color is terrific too, just blue...not bright or dark or anything else...just perfect blue.  Doesn't have the sulfur stink some blues do either.  Love it!

Celestial FX is a mix of glitter shapes in a clear base.  The large stars, moons, and diamonds are holographic silver and the tiny round glitter is a mix of blue, green, and orange iridescent.

This one is trouble!  It's got a cool look if you're patient.  I can't even tell you how many coats this is, it took that much dabbing.  The base is watery and excessive.  I'm surprised it holds the large glitters in suspension.  It barely pulls them out of the bottle.  Somehow when it does, you get 3 of them at the same time...usually all the same shape.  When you're done fishing, it takes a thick slathering of top coat to smooth out.  It's also a hassle to photograph.

In person, you see rainbows all over the big shape glitter...but they're camera-shy.

There they are!  ...but now the tiny glitter is almost clear.  So let's go somewhere a little darker, maybe...

Hey!  There they are...but now the rainbows are gone again.  Plus now you can see the ones that just would not leave my skin.  For all of its many hassles, I have to admit....Celestial FX is pretty fucking cool!  It picks up every little bit of light it can, so it would be great for nighttime events.  If you like it, make a mental bookmark.  It will be perfect for New Years Eve...if any of us remember it by then in the flood of new shades at the end of the year.

I'd recommend both, but remember that Celestial FX is trouble.  Fun trouble though!

Here's that cat I promised.  No makeup or polish on him.  He doesn't need it.  Saya's pretty without even trying, that lucky boy!

I usually put a 'tease' here with hints at future posts, but for looks at what's coming up, head over to Twitter.  Have a look at a nude polish that doesn't make me look dead!  Say hi to Nichole too while you're there!  Check out the giant bag of what she swears isn't pot.