Browsing Tag

yellow

China Glaze – L8R G8R

Wednesday, 16 March, 2011

Several years ago, China Glaze released a line of holographic nail polish that caused quite a stir within us polish lovers. At the time I purchased a few colors that I felt were the ones I needed. Since then I’ve been dying to get the entire collection because they discontinued the Kaleidoscope and both of the OMG collections. You can, if you’re lucky, find some of the original silver capped bottles languishing in some nail polish supply stores.

They started out with the Kaleidoscope collection, then they added the OMG 2B HOT and OMG 2BKEWL. 2BHOT was the warmer toned shades of the holographic collection, gorgeous yet failing thanks to my gimp skin tone. 2BKEWL was the cooler colors and they looked great on me. I have all the colors of 2BHOT and 2BKEWL, but am missing half of the colors for the Kaleidoscope collection – boooooo.

Today’s offering is from the 2B KEWL collection:

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Butter London – Bumster

Tuesday, 15 February, 2011

Named after the iconic pants that put Alexander McQueen on the map…and which ended up coining the phrase Muffin Top, Butter London took inspiration from McQueen’s iconic 1996 collection.

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BB Couture – Daisy Dweller

Wednesday, 11 August, 2010

This shade is prime example of why I should never even attempt to wear yellow…yellow girls and yellow nail polish don’t mix. Let me be more specific, yellow girls who have my skin tone/shade really have no business wearing yellow polish of any kind. That’s my opinion.

I bought this (and I normally would never willingly buy yellow polish, by the way) because it was such a pretty yellow in the bottle. It still is. However, someway, somehow my skin tone has managed to mangle and make this color look so pathetically awful on me.

Formula: a bit on the runny side so I tried to make up for it to get an opaque shade…using 3 very heavy handed coats. It’s why you will see bubbling on the ring finger. Oops. My bad. I love how BB Couture’s polish dries quickly and this was no exception – barring my ring finger, of course. 😉

BB Couture – Peacock

Friday, 30 April, 2010

This yellow reminds me of a school bus. It looked so different in the bottle that I was tempted into buying it…and was horribly let down. It’s not the fault of the polish – it’s me and my yellow/orange skin tone. It looks perfectly fine on Playing With Polish‘s blog . It looks fabulous on her. I saw her swatch on her blog yesterday and remembered I had swatched this color last week, but still had to get around to uploading it.  Here it is.

Notes on the forumula: in better hands it would’ve actually performed much better. I was in a rush because the sun was out and I wanted to get swatches in before cloud cover and rain fell on my polish swatching parade. Haha. It dried quickly and easily which is always a bonus.

Difficult Formulas I've Used – Rescue Beauty Lounge and Sally Hansen

Sunday, 21 March, 2010

These were colors that people said were so cute – you must try them! and I did…much to my horror and chagrin. I actually did 4 coats of each of the polishes below before I called it a day.

Both were a bit like jelly – and it shows in the application for me. I’ve looked at other people’s swatches of these colors and am jealous that they’ve turned out so well. Maybe it was me. 🙁 Anyway, here they are.

How awful can this application have been on me?! To make it worse, I had grabbed the wrong top coat (I have 2 of the same, but I reserve one for dark colors and another for light colors) and now you can see the red from an old cold color I had worn a few days prior. I had so much trouble with this formula. I reached the 4th coat phase and said with much grace and dignity, “F*** it. I’m done.” To make matters worse, the formula took AGES to dry. 4 top coats later – and they weren’t even thick coats, fairly thin – they were barely dry enough to put the top coat on so I could photograph them. The formula was pretty sticky, too. ugh. I like sticky in my base coats, not my nail polish, ok?

This was another color I had issues with, but not as bad as I did with Rescue Beauty Lounge. This is a 3 coater…and it annoyed me, too. This color actually didn’t look bad on me either…despite it being a yellow. I admit to buying it purely for the name – Yellow Kitty. I kept thinking Hello Kitty and giggling to myself.

Orly Spring II 2010

Orly Spring 2010 – Part II – Sweet

Friday, 5 February, 2010



As always, click the thumbnails to see the bad cuticles up close. 😉

I’m not partial to pastels and I guess Orly had to put up some pastels because well, it’s spring and what is that season without pretty happy colors for me to throw up on?

I did have problems on most of them. I tried different base coats and they still had a tendency to be a bit chalky and unpredictable. All were 2 coats aside form Cotton Candy. I think I had a bunk bunch of bottles. Oh well. *shrugs*

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Pixy Stix – Shade (L) and Sunlight (R)
Not quite as bright as some other pinks out there, but…it’s got a pretty darn close neon factor.

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Cotton Candy – Shade (L) and Sun (R)
Dunno why, but I think ‘coral’ when I see this on me.

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Gumdrop – Shade (L) and Sunlight (R)
I thought of China Glaze’s For Audrey when I put this on. Will amend post later to add in a comparison swatch

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Lemonade – Shade (L) and Sunlight (R)
Just reaffirms my belief that I was never meant to wear pastel yellow OR yellow nail polish, period. Ever.

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Lollipop – Shade (L) and Sunlight (R)
This reminds me of a lavender shade that’s been liberally doused with pink…

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Snowcone – Shade (L) and Sunlight (R)
I thought it was a periwinkle color, but it’s more along the lines of a light turquoise.

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Snowcone vs China Glaze’s Secret Peri-wink-le
Pinkie and Index finger – Snowcone
Middle and Ring Finger – Secret Peri-wink-le

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.