Browsing Tag

purple

Essie – Demure Vixen

Friday, 16 July, 2010

A nail polish fairy sent this to me the other day and I swooned…I haven’t been able to get my hands on Chanel’s Paradoxal and I know there is a huge difference between the two, but I was honestly hoping that this would kill any lemming moments I would have for Chanel. It didn’t. I am hoping that the nail polish fairy gods will hear my cry for Chanel Paradoxal soon…but I digress…

Demure Vixen is definitely demure, but in my opinion, no vixen. To me, vixen implies a steely sexy edge…this color doesn’t have it. This is one of those colors that I would call a lovely safe shade for work.

See below to understand what I mean.

Don’t get me wrong…this is a lovely shade. I adore this shade – it’s the lighter sister of  Sephora by OPI (aka $OPI)’s  Call Your Mother with a violet shimmer through it. This color was almost a sheer. This was it after three coats. As always, Essie’s formula was like butta!

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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 – A Grape Fit!

Wednesday, 9 June, 2010

I’ve been complaining about OPI and their inconsistent formulas and craptastic unpredictable brushes.

When OPI gets it right, they get it right. This is one of those times when they get it right. Formula dried beautifully and the brush’s bristles were actually uniform. Somehow I seem to be a magnet for picking a lame bottle of OPI.

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Butter – Scoundrel

Wednesday, 12 May, 2010

Don’t you love that word? Scoundrel. It sounds so old world and yet delivers a punch…these days it would garner a giggle or three. However, I’m not laughing at this color by Butter.

It’s not a glitter, but a fabulous creme. I happened to like this shade because it’s that cross between a darker shade of pink with enough purple in it to fall into an almost pink/lavender category. However, this shade is richer and just more luscious. How can anyone not love this color?!

Application was a little lumpy and hard to work with on the first coat but it all worked out on the second. Still smells kind of nice and not like nail polish.

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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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China Glaze Holographic

Purple! (and a green)

Tuesday, 27 April, 2010

Not quite keeping up with my self induced promise of mostly green, I present PURPLE! I have more than 18 shades of purple polish between here and Arizona. The colors on this wheel are partially here, but mostly in our desert home.

It was a pain in the butt trying to take a pic of that color wheel and I realized I should’ve broken it up into 4 separate parts, but I was feeling kind of lazy and I hope that when you click on the pics, they become huge and you can see the difference in the colors.

You’ll find lots of shimmer, creme, a matte and a couple of holographics.  Enjoy!

Outdoors – Shade

1. China Glaze – Octa Gone Wild (holo)  2. China Glaze – Grape Pop  3. China Glaze – Midnight Ride  4. OPI – Catherine The Grape 5. OPI – Eiffel For This Color 6. OPI – A Grape Fit!

7. China Glaze – Light As Air 8. OPI – Sapphire In The Snow 9. OPI – Visions of Sugarplums 10. Zoya – Savita (matte) 11. Zoya – Pinta 12. Barielle – Grape Escape

13. China Glaze – Grape Juice (Shimmer) 14. Orly – Cashmere Cardi 15. Orly – Midnight Star (slight shimmer) 16. Rescue Beauty Lounge (RBL) – Mismas 17. RBL – Scrangie (shimmer) 18. China Glaze – LOL (holo)

Outdoors – Shade with flash

1. China Glaze – Octa Gone Wild (holo)  2. China Glaze – Grape Pop  3. China Glaze – Midnight Ride  4. OPI – Catherine The Grape 5. OPI – Eiffel For This Color 6. OPI – A Grape Fit!

7. China Glaze – Light As Air 8. OPI – Sapphire In The Snow 9. OPI – Visions of Sugarplums 10. Zoya – Savita (matte) 11. Zoya – Pinta 12. Barielle – Grape Escape

13. China Glaze – Grape Juice (Shimmer) 14. Orly – Cashmere Cardi 15. Orly – Midnight Star (slight shimmer) 16. Rescue Beauty Lounge (RBL) – Mismas 17. RBL – Scrangie (shimmer) 18. China Glaze – LOL (holo)

Outdoors – Sunlight

1. China Glaze – Octa Gone Wild (holo)  2. China Glaze – Grape Pop  3. China Glaze – Midnight Ride  4. OPI – Catherine The Grape 5. OPI – Eiffel For This Color 6. OPI – A Grape Fit!

7. China Glaze – Light As Air 8. OPI – Sapphire In The Snow 9. OPI – Visions of Sugarplums 10. Zoya – Savita (matte) 11. Zoya – Pinta 12. Barielle – Grape Escape

13. China Glaze – Grape Juice (Shimmer) 14. Orly – Cashmere Cardi 15. Orly – Midnight Star (slight shimmer) 16. Rescue Beauty Lounge (RBL) – Mismas 17. RBL – Scrangie (shimmer) 18. China Glaze – LOL (holo)

The Promised Green!

What I love about this gorgeous green with a slight yellow undertone is that it has a gorgeous micro glitter that contains more green than gold. One has to literally have it up close and very personal to see it. My camera didn’t do it any justice in capturing the glitter. The very faint yellow in this (heck, it could’ve been the gold micro glitter come to think of it!) wasn’t very strong and didn’t look awful on me. Quite the opposite – it was very flattering! Another stellar choice on my part from BB Couture. This color is from their Men’s Collection. Love it.

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