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Nubar – Sparkle Collection – Spring 2010

Friday, 11 June, 2010

I did show Hyacinth sparkle earlier, but I decided to add it in here again because it wouldn’t be fair to that poor swatch to not be part of the kewl krowd!

Notes: Formula dried fast. I’m not a fan of glitter, but I did fall in love with these. Nubar, Zoya and China Glaze are my favorites. SpaRitual really doesn’t fall in there (even though I love their nail polish) because they are extremely hard for me to come by. If SpaRitual would let  me buy on their site or if my fave nail polish man here in CA would sell it, I would be reviewing SR a lot more. The glitter in these are extremely dense. So dense that even 2 coats of a top coat couldn’t produce a smooth surface. I don’t like dented polish. I know it sounds silly, but that’s just me. Each of these polishes were 2 coaters unless otherwise noted. They went on extremely well and no clumpy, lumpy, piss-me-off messes. Way to go Nubar! 🙂

You’ve seen this before. 🙂 I wore it a few weeks ago to cheer me up when we were going into a rain filled weekend.

Not sure why but when I saw this I was reminded of China Glaze’s Ruby Pumps. This was far prettier in the shade than in the sunlight. Sun totally washed it out.

Dug this light green green glitter that had the right combo of warm and cool hues. I think people of both skin tones can wear this safely.

Mega dense glitter that really sparkled so intensely I think it actually tamed the sunlight that shined down on this color. One of my faves from this collection.

I couldn’t make up my mind as to whether I liked this or not. I’m leaning more towards like. Pretty magenta-esque color that was easy to apply.

This aptly named color could have benefited from 3 coats instead of 2. This one is at the bottom of the list for me.

I think this is the type of glitter polish that you use over other dark colors to bring out a prettiness to them. I don’t feel this is a stand alone glitter…maybe I should’ve done three coats.

For me this one and Hyacinth sparkle were my all time favorites. I’m going to have to put this on for the weekend.

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OPI – Green-Wich Village (and a rant)

Tuesday, 8 June, 2010

It’s sounds truly silly, but I had been having a hard time finding this color. Most of my nail polish sellers didn’t sell it and I wasn’t going to buy OPI online. I went to my nail polish man here in California and BAM! he miraculously had one bottle of my good greenness.

I bought it, totally excited.

What a let down. The formula was runny. The brush was so freakin’ messed up I couldn’t paint my nails to save my life. This took FOREVER and a day to dry. I literally waited an hour between two coats. What did I get for that wait? BUBBLES. Yes, it BUBBLED. After almost 3 hours, I was ready to throw this nail polish bottle at the next person who cut in front of  me on the freeway without using their signal. I hated the application of this polish THAT MUCH. Never has a nail polish ever incited such blind rage.

However, that aside, I am starting to really dislike OPI’s brushes. I tweeted the other day that I have about 50 some odd bottles (and after I had looked at my spreadsheet, it’s a little over 100) of OPI and about 7-10 of them have wacked out, jacked up brushes that really mar application. OPI, if you’re going to bitch about quality control and distribution, make sure your brushes in your bottles are good. No other brand has ever had such crap brushes as OPI. What gives? Seriously…what gives? I’m not joking anymore. Ok, rant done.

Now on to the hideously disappointing pictures of Greenwich Village.

Look at those bubbles. 🙁 They make me sad.

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Zoya nail polish swatches

OPI Flutter Collection (Part I)- Wing It! and Catch Me In Your Net / Zoya – Charla – Summer 2010

Sunday, 6 June, 2010

Ok, so…I’ve got some colors here that are a part of OPI’s  Summer 2010 Collection called Flutter.

So the first color I’m showing is called Wing It!

I’m not a fan of this shade. It’s a bit too sheer for my taste…to make matters worse, I feel this pink is a bit too youthful for me. Like Fairy Princess kind of pink for a little girl. What may camera failed to capture was the pretty iridescence of the glitter. It’s actually prettier than the actual base color! So while I was disappointed in this color, it was a bit too pink/too close to coral for my taste.

Look carefully at this color…isn’t it gorgeous? It is, isn’t it? Scroll down for the reality.

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So here we are…literally dupes. You can’t see how gorgeous this (these) color(s) is(are) – it’s like mermaid scales. There is a slight green shimmer and gold glitter that runs through it. Absolutely gorgeous. What a pity that it’s a total dupe of Zoya’s Charla.  So…surprise! If you weren’t able to get a hold of Charla, grab OPI’s Catch Me In Your Net.

Heck, here are the ding dang bottle shots!

The formula on this was runny and hard to work with. Both of the colors above were 2 coaters.

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OPI – Damone Roberts 1968 / Nubar – Knight’s Armor and Nubar 2010

Friday, 14 May, 2010

I didn’t know where to begin. I got a box and a puffy padded envelope full of nail polish in under 24 hours. I was squeeing with glee.

I couldn’t make up my mind, so I ended up just trying on Knight’s Armor, then deciding to swatch it. So it’s a sloppier than usual application for ALL these swatches. I just got a little too excited.

As for the Damone Roberts one, I had originally been wearing Knight’s Armor on my left hand and DR1968 on the other. Hah. I liked how DR1968 looked on my right hand, so I took off KA (as you might see some glitter in the DR1968 swatch) and now all my fingers are sporting DR1968…with one lone exception: my thumb. That has Nubar 2010 on top of it. I was all over the place today.

Thumbshot – Damone Roberts 1968 with Nubar 2010. Regular Shade and Sunlight shots below!

I was fully prepared to NOT like this color. I put it on…and I really liked it. I bought a few extra bottles because I plan on having a give away here soon, so stay tuned. Anyway, this formula was slightly thicker than the usual OPI but what I liked most is that it dried fast, which is unusual. This is 3 coats because I suck at applying nail polish.

I think my really bad photography skills came into play here. I feel like I made this polish look ugly. It’s not. It’s so gorgeous. I wanted to compare it to Orly’s Goth, but it wouldn’t be fair to either of the polishes. This glitter is all one size and the base for this is a bit more dark grey. Also, there is more glitter in this than Goth. Orly’s Goth is a black base with different sizes of the glitter. This was truly fabulous. Knight’s Armor is part of Nubar’s Fortress Collection.

The formula dried quickly and wasn’t as gritty due to the glitter. I have the Sparkles collection as well and that glitter collection is beautiful, but it’s so dense that when I applied a top coat, it never was a full glossy shine. You’d end up seeing and feeling the texture of the glitter underneath.

I’ll be swatching Nubar’s Fortress Collection soon, but in the meantime, I just had to get this pretty color out there and into my swatch blog.

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OPI Shrek Forever After Collection (2010)

Thursday, 6 May, 2010

This is a limited edition collection OPI released that is based on the new Shrek movie that is due out on May 21. I could be wrong on the date, but I can’t be arsed to look it up. Sorry. I’m too involved with the nail polish!

I was able to swatch these yesterday and I pretty much fell in love with all of the OPI Shrek collection. I like kind of odd, close to putrid colors…plus, these were crèmes, how can anyone not love crèmes?! Formula wise it was a dream – went on well with minor problems and dried fast. Yay! It’s a win, win all around.

OPI Shrek consists of 3 dark colors (blue, purple and green) and 3 not-quite-pastel, but I felt they were to complement the darker colors. Like a mani/pedi combo for the summer thing. Very tips and toes! Come and see what I’m rambling about.

Indoors and in the shade, this color didn’t look so bad on me. I loved the fact that it wasn’t like Sally Hansen’s Yellow Kitty. I thought it might be, but it wasn’t. This is definitely far more opaque and not at all hard to work with.

This is the sister color for Fiercely Fiona…well, at least I thought so. Shrek and Fiona should always be together, right? I love this type of green. It reminds me of a sweater I bought way back in the day. It’s this color. My cousin hated it. Hated it. Hated that shade of green. Made sure I knew it everytime he saw me wearing it. Yet he’d get so incensed when people would compliment me on it, always asking where I got it. When he died, I was tempted to throw that sweater into the casket so he’d spend eternity with it. How wrong am I? Thing is, everyone in the family understood and thought it was funny I was tempted to do that. Then again, that’s just my family’s twisted sense of humor. Some day I’ll share those with you, but for now I won’t.

This color wasn’t so bad on me, but it’s a pastel and pastels hate me. It’s ok. I hate them back. Yet I still try to wear them thinking that I look good in them. NOT.

A very pretty purple crème that’s come a bit too late in the purple game. Sorry, OPI. I mean, I still appreciate it, but Nubar, Rescue Beauty Lounge and China Glaze have beaten you to the punch on this.

Out of the entire collection, Who The Shrek Are You? and What’s With The Cattitude? are my favorites. This isn’t quite as deep a turquoise as it could be, but it’s still pretty darn beautiful. The correct shade that I can really associate it most in terms of gem stones is called Sleeping Beauty Turquoise. Sleeping Beauty Turquoise is mined in Arizona. What makes it different from regular turquoise that is prevalent in Native American jewelry is the lack of intense color. It has a slight shade of purple that runs through it making it less bright, bringing it to a muted shade of turquoise that works well with my skin tone. When set in silver and gold, Sleeping Beauty Turquoise doesn’t look as ‘plastic’ as some other turquoise can. Ok, sorry, digressing. I love jewelry and making jewelry and I shouldn’t pull that into a nail polish post!

Not quite electric but not exactly dull, either. This was the first color I applied and had some issues in application because my brush’s bristles were a little on the uneven side. It took me a few minutes to get used to application and it shows. However, it doesn’t detract from the blue goodness of this color, does it?

OPI Shrek collection is out now…grab the colors while you can. I’ve a feeling they will go pretty fast.

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SpaRitual Spring 2010 – Believe Collection (Part I) and NFU Oh

Tuesday, 4 May, 2010

I purchased this collection two months ago and completely forgot about it. 🙁 Well, it was hidden…so out of sight, out of mind. I knew I had purchased it, but didn’t know where it had gone to. The room I share with the cat is where I also have my polish collection. I honestly thought the cat had done something to it. Turns out it was erstwhile hubby, moving things around while looking for a some random cord to connect something to his computer, but that’s another issue completely. I will say that he needs to join Cord Collectors Anonymous.

Anyway, I now present the first half of SpaRitual’s Spring 2010 collection called Believe. It came with these cute little charms with words and sayings on them like, “Wish”, “Believe” and “I Can”. You’ll even see a tag in one of my swatches!

I loved SpaRitual’s formula – it was even and smooth with a minimal chance of me messing it up – which I did. Can you spot the flaws on the application, aside from my obvious cuticle pull mishaps? 🙂 Formula was so easy to work with and it dried so fast I was a bit stunned. The brush on Spread Your Wings was a bit jacked – more bristles than the other bottles and at a strange 15 degree angle. I thought it was supposed to be like that until I noticed some bristles less than a millimeter longer than the rest in the bottle.

I split this collection into 2 – Part I is the ZOMG MUST SHOW YOU and Part II is I MUST SHOW YOU THESE LATER! In other words, the first part wowed me while the second part made me look and go, “Oh. ok. Not so bad.”

Enough of my nattering – here are the pics.

How gorgeous is this purple?! I love cremes and this purple creme makes my heart beat a little faster.

Despite the jacked up brush, this color really moved me. This is the shade of red that I love wearing. How can one NOT love wearing a color this luxurious?

Hello, green lover…*purrs* How beautiful is this? I didn’t have to do anything to this picture – just cropped it. The green looked exactly perfect and when I ran it through PhotoShop, it barely did anything to it to balance it out. When I had this one, this green shot straight to the #1 spot for my greens. IMO, this is the go to green for me. I used to dislike green polish, but the ones that have come out in the past couple of years have really made me change my mind.

Perfection in the sun, too.

Was playing about and put NFU Oh’s #51 on top. The sunlight washed it out, but it was a lovely combination. The NFU is lighter and what you can’t really is the dimensional depth the glitter added. I had a shade shot that was slightly blurry but even in that you couldn’t see the difference. You can really see it in person.

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SpaRitual Spring 2010 – Believe Collection (Part I) and NFU Oh #55

Tuesday, 4 May, 2010

I purchased this collection two months ago and completely forgot about it. 🙁 Well, it was hidden…so out of sight, out of mind. I knew I had purchased it, but didn’t know where it had gone to. The room I share with the cat is where I also have my polish collection. I honestly thought the cat had done something to it. Turns out it was erstwhile hubby, moving things around while looking for a some random cord to connect something to his computer, but that’s another issue completely. I will say that he needs to join Cord Collectors Anonymous.

Anyway, I now present the first half of SpaRitual’s Spring 2010 collection called Believe. It came with these cute little charms with words and sayings on them like, “Wish”, “Believe” and “I Can”. You’ll even see a tag in one of my swatches!

I loved SpaRitual’s formula – it was even and smooth with a minimal chance of me messing it up – which I did. Can you spot the flaws on the application, aside from my obvious cuticle pull mishaps? 🙂 Formula was so easy to work with and it dried so fast I was a bit stunned. The brush on Spread Your Wings was a bit jacked – more bristles than the other bottles and at a strange 15 degree angle. I thought it was supposed to be like that until I noticed some bristles less than a millimeter longer than the rest in the bottle.

I split this collection into 2 – Part I is the ZOMG MUST SHOW YOU and Part II is I MUST SHOW YOU THESE LATER! In other words, the first part wowed me while the second part made me look and go, “Oh. ok. Not so bad.”

Enough of my nattering – here are the pics.

How gorgeous is this purple?! I love cremes and this purple creme makes my heart beat a little faster.

Despite the jacked up brush, this color really moved me. This is the shade of red that I love wearing. How can one NOT love wearing a color this luxurious?

Hello, green lover…*purrs* How beautiful is this? I didn’t have to do anything to this picture – just cropped it. The green looked exactly perfect and when I ran it through PhotoShop, it barely did anything to it to balance it out. When I had this one, this green shot straight to the #1 spot for my greens. IMO, this is the go to green for me. I used to dislike green polish, but the ones that have come out in the past couple of years have really made me change my mind.

Perfection in the sun, too.

Was playing about and put NFU Oh’s #55 on top. The sunlight washed it out, but it was a lovely combination. The NFU is lighter and what you can’t really is the dimensional depth the glitter added. I had a shade shot that was slightly blurry but even in that you couldn’t see the difference. You can really see it in person.

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Illamasqua – Milf

Sunday, 2 May, 2010

I just found a whole bunch of Illamasqua swatches I’d done but have not posted. I processed this one and it’s an old one, but a color I’ll wear again. I swatched this back in January when I spending time in our home Arizona house. I can’t believe I forgot I have this!

Looks nice and opaque in the picture. Application was also quite nice, too. I usually have a very hard time with opaque cremes, but this was really so easy I couldn’t believe it! This was a two coater.

Oh that sun! It brings out some realities, doesn’t it? This color still is not bad on me but I have to be careful of the colors I wear because it can turn on me in a second, making my skin look like a dull, almost gray type of yellow.

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