Browsing Tag

purple

china glaze nail polish swatches Fall 2008 Rodeo Diva

China Glaze – Fall 2008 – Rodeo Diva Collection

Wednesday, 24 February, 2010

I remember seeing this back in 2008, before leaving for India. I was so tempted to buy it, but didn’t. I really didn’t want to buy it, then try to lug it to India or worse yet, leave it behind. So I didn’t buy it.

The nail polish guy I go to here in AZ had these puppies on CLEARANCE for a mere dollar. HOLLA!!! I grabbed as many as I could, but sadly, not all colors are here. I’m not about to go and buy from an e-tailer because the colors I’m missing aren’t ones I think I really I want, anyway.

This was definitely one where I went, “I don’t like this color in the bottle, but boy do I love it on me!” It’s a super rich raspberry tone that’s broke up with a lovely frost.

I love green nail polish and this is no exception. I didn’t understand the fuss, now I do. Definitely one that I am happy to have in my collection!

Now this…this really stole my heart – can you see why? I swear it reminds me of my favorite colors from my junior high days. This color was flattering on my skin tone – definitely a keeper, too!

So the girl who loves dark nail polish (that’s me!) loved this, too…despite the faint shimmer running through this. This was such a deep dark eggplant kind of purple that I ended up liking the faint shimmer. It brought a kind of depth that I didn’t know I’d truly appreciate until I saw it on me.

A lovely ocean blue nail polish with a shimmer and and some subtle micro glitter thrown in for good measure…and what a difference that makes!

This is another eggplant-y shade that they had…but they threw in some warm gold micro glitter that really…really made this color seem slightly bronze-y and just a beautiful shade to have on your nails.

Ok, now this…this is the total surprise for me of the collection. Not quite a black nail polish, but the base was so dark a green it appeared black. Then they had put some shimmer to it that was gold. The result? A gorgeously mysterious dark green nail polish with some beautiful gold/bronze shimmer. A real gem!

Rebel Debutante spring 2010

Color Club Spring 2010 – Rebel Debutante

Wednesday, 17 February, 2010

This is actually the first time I’ve willingly purchased Color Club. My fellow nail polish girlfriends have sent me bottles of the stuff and in turn, I’ve forwarded them on to other people.

I made the decision to buy when I saw the swatches on Scrangie’s blog…and I’ve got to say, I’m not impressed by the colors. Well, there are two that I like. There were 9 colors, but I only bought the 7 that enticed me the most…and if I could do it all over again, I’d probably only get 5.

Just a note – these pictures were taken with a mixture of sunlight and indoors. Normally I do my swatching during the day, but the sun set and I decided to finally try the light box set up hubby used for my jewelry. I used my same lil old camera and maybe it’s time for me to graduate to the big kids stuff…but anyway, this is my first time using the light box so please don’t be so harsh on me.

Who Are You Wearing?
Not one of my favorite colors. When I saw it in the bottle, I thought it could quite possibly be a dead ringer/sister/twin/dupe to my all time favorite OPI’s Tickle My France-y. Nope. Not a chance. While I appreciated the efforts put forth by Color Club, this didn’t do it for me.
Rebel Debutante
This is the name of the collection and I thought the signature color would be…well, kind of stand out. I was disappointed that it was a close to but not quite neon. I mean, it’s green and it looks pretty, but it wasn’t my cuppa.
Best Dressed
It’s a little too much brown going on for me…I can do my best mannequin hands impersonation with this color!



High Society
A very pretty mellow mushroom taupe color! I love these kinds of colors.


Uptown Girl
You can’t really see how pretty this color is – it’s a beautiful, rich purple creme…and I totes blew it with my incompetent light box skills. Sorry.


Ms. Socialite
Yea, I messed up on the name on the pic. Oops. 🙂 If I had been able to use the light box properly you would see this as a gorgeous purple plum. My bad.
Gossip Column
An epic fail on my part in trying to capture the prettiness of this color…it reminded me of a peacock kind of blue. Actually, I’ll take it back, both of the swatches are very true to life despite my ineptness with a light box.


Loved a handful of colors and the formula for that green wasn’t the best. For the most part all of them needed 3 coats but only Gossip Column and High Society were the ones that could get away with 2 coats.
For my first time with Color Club, I’m pretty happy.
Imperial Splendour

MAC Cosmetics, Spring 2010 – Imperial Splendour nail polish swatch

Friday, 12 February, 2010

12 February, 2010  11:08AM

MAC Cosmetics, Spring 2010 – Imperial Splendour

What a gorgeous deep purple creme. I hate sparkles and shimmers in my nail polish and this was just…beyond gorgeousness. This makes CG’s Grape Pop and RBL’s Mismas look so…sad and lonely.

Formula was a little on the too thin/runny side, but if I laid it on a little thicker than usual and let it completely dry between coats, I got no bubbling. It was completely dry in 30 mins. I got a little fidgety at the 15 marker,b ut it was worth the results!

MAC Cosmetics’ Imperial Splendour
Shade (L); Sunlight (R)
arabian night commander in chic done out in deco drugstore polishes marine blue revlon rimmel scheming street wear

Drugstore Stuffs

Thursday, 11 February, 2010

10 February, 2010
11:23PM
So I made a trip to the drugstore and my friend also sent me some drugstore polishes…
I also did a comparison of OPI’s Done Out In Deco and Rimmel’s Commander in Chic.
Index and Pinkie: OPI’s Done Out In Deco
Middle and Ring: Rimmel’s Commander in Chic
I love mushroom-y taupe-y colors and was thrilled when I saw Commander In Chic. It cost $3.99 and was well worth it. It’s not breaking the bank, but I know some people have issues with paying more than 99 cents for a bottle of nail polish. I don’t know why I thought CIC was similar to OPI’s Done Out In Deco, but I put whatever it was I was smoking down and saw it all clearly. I’ll have to compare OPI’s You Don’t Know Jacque with CIC and see how it stacks against it each other.

Street Wear by Revlon: Scheming
I was so surprised that I really liked this color…I mean really liked this color. There are little gold sparks that show up when in direct sunlight. Application was mega easy and dried quickly. Pity this line was discontinued.
Rimmel’s Marine Blue
These types of shades always reminds me of the ocean…I know it’s meant to, but I love colors like these. It’s a pity they don’t look good on me, though. Ugh. I am going to be sending this color to my friend Lauryn.
Sally Hansen’s Arabian Night
A gorgeous purple polish with some rockin’ gold glitter to break up the purpleness. To be honest, I think the purple would’ve been really pretty without the gold glitter. Nonetheless, it’s still a gorgeous polish all together…pity it’s a real pain in the butt to remove thanks to the glitter. Not as bad as China Glaze’s Dorothy Who? in removal, but darn close!
china glaze nail polish swatches spring 2010 Up and Away Collection

China Glaze – Spring 2010 – Up and Away Collection

Thursday, 21 January, 2010

Couple of notes – the flash distorted some colors and I’ll let you know where. Also, it’s a big collection – 12 colors. So this post is pretty image heavy.

Despite the fact that I have an intense dislike for pastels, this collection for Spring 2010 that China Glaze has put out totally does it for me. I’d wear all the colors except Happy Go Lucky, High Hopes and Peachy Keen.

I’d have swatched this outdoors, but it was raining cats and dogs….and my impatience got the better of me. 😀

Last note: the formula was wonderful – only 2 coats were needed.

Light As Air
No Flash, With Flash
I loved this light lavender on me…it had a hint of grey that was more thanlikely brought out by my skin tone. But whatever the case may be, love this color.
Lemon Fizz
No Flash, With Flash
I never thought I’d like a pastel yellow, but the pictures make it look somewhat flattering on me…it’s not when you see it in person. It brought out the yellow undertones in my skin and it wasn’t pretty.
Something Sweet – No Flash, Flash
A light pink that is definitely very sweet!
Fe-Fresh Mint – Flash, No Flash
A very pretty minty green. I almost expected it to smell like mint, too! It didn’t. Very bright on me, but a fun color. I’d wear this.
Peachy Keen – No Flash, Flash
Funnily enough, it looks like a peachy orange on me.

Flyin’ High – Flash, No Flash
Not quite kickin’ green, but it reminded me of turquoise.
The flash distorted the color in the bottle and on me. It’s actually a great color…and I’ll be wearing it!
Four Leaf Clover – Flash, No Flash
This color was so difficult to capture. To be honest, I was a bit thrown off because they look almost completely different. Maybe it’s me, but this color is one you have to see in person – absofreakingly gorgeous. Flash distortion played a big part in this, but … WOW do I love this color! Maybe I can start to finally stray from dark/black nail polish…
Happy Go Lucky – Flash, No Flash
Yellow. Yikes. I was tempted to paint smiley faces when I put this on.
Heli-Yum – Flash, No Flash
This is just like seeing an electric raspberry on my nails – completely enjoyable!
High Hopes – Flash, No Flash
I was baffled with this color. I ended up scratching  my head a few times, too. I took the pictures then thought I hadn’t cleared off the memory card because there was some strange orange/pink swatch, then an orange swatch where the no flash ones had been taken. It finally sunk in that the color changed a bit (more like a lot) in the flash. I don’t know what to say – you be the judge.
Sugar High – No Flash, Flash
Yowzers. The flash made this color even more bright than I thought possible!
Grape Pop – Flash, No Flash
I really like this purple. I was wanting a gorgeous royal purple creme without any shimmer or glitter. It was totally nailed here – love it <———— this much ————–> ! Thanks, China Glaze.
fall 2009 spring 2010 the wizard of oh ahz returns

China Glaze – Fall 2009/Spring 2010 – The Wizard of Oh Ahz Returns

Wednesday, 13 January, 2010

How funny that I am listening to the soundtrack for Wicked as I post swatches and a small write up of this collection…I slack. I swatched these last month, but am only getting round to putting them up.

C-C-Courage
Indoors, luminescent lighting (L);outdoors, gorgeous sunlight (R)
This is a royal purple with a twist – glitter. I’d love to see this color without the glitter because I think it would be able to stand alone. It’s beautiful.
Cowardly Lyin’
Indoors, luminescent lighting (L) Outdoors (R)
Very interesting with a jelly yellow base. It’s a very odd cross for me because it’s almost like it was a primary yellow base with gold glitter thrown in to jazz it up and then they made it sheer when I thought it should be opaque.

Dorothy Who? Indoors, luminescent light (L) Outdoors, overcast day (R)

Wow. It’s all I can say. I put this color on and I was absolutely speechless. I have never been a fan of glitter nail polishes. NEVER. But this. This…made me stare at my nails for a little bit. I mean…fascinated me while I took pictures. It’s a bit Dallas Cowboys blue for me, but it’s so damn beautiful. The pictures indoors and outdoors haven’t done this any type of justice.
Good Witch?
Indoors, flash (L) outdoors (R)
It didn’t go too well with my skin tone, but it’s definitely very pretty!
Ten Man
Indoors, luminescent lighting (L) outdoors (R)
Sheer and pretty. I thought it was similar to Tinsel from the Holiday collection, but it’s not. It’s also got a hint of white in it, but just enough to keep this silver. Diggin’ it!
Ruby Pumps
Indoors, luminescent lighting with flash (L); Outdoors, natural light (R)

Overall I liked this collection, but I had issues, massive issues with C-C-Courage…it tended to bubble up far too quickly, even when I put on the thinnest of coats. Maybe it was just me and the formula I got. I even waited 15 minutes in between the first and second coat. To no avail, it still bubbled. Urgh. It also took a while to dry, but the results were still spectacular.

I am not a fan of frosty colors or glitters…so this comes as a surprise for me to like them. Pity Good Witch? and Cowardly Lyin’ didn’t go too well with my skin tone, but face it…I was never meant to wear yellow…and ya know what? I’m perfectly fine with that.

Anyway, I wanted to address this – why did they call it Ten Man instead of Tin Man? Did someone hit the wrong vowel when typing it up and it just went out like that without anyone doing last minute checking?!

My favorite colors? Ruby Pumps, Dorothy Who? and C-C-Courage.