Claire's Mood Polish Swatches

Hello again! I have the coolest s*** to show you today! I have had so much fun with these new polishes that since Saturday, I have already worn all of them. I can't get enough. They are mood changing polishes from Claire's which are essentially just polishes that change with temperature. They have a "hot" color and a "cold" color.

Claire's Mood - Daring/Innocent, Happy/Earthy, Calm/Wild

Daring/Innocent - This is gray when cool and turns to a yellowish, beige cream when warm. I can imagine the hot color would be difficult to pull off and isn't necessarily "pretty" but I do still like it!

Happy/Earthy - This is a bright, grass green when cool and super bright, nearly neon, slightly green-yellow when hot. The times it was green were strange sometimes. In some lights it looked like a dusty green, like RBL - Diddy Mow. It wasn't like it looked darker in some lights because there wasn't the same amount of light; it was seriously like it was a completely different color all together. Weird. I don't think I have experienced anything like that before. I got these in the mail and when I opened them up in regular incandescent lighting I thought it was a dusty, gray green. Until I put it on and saw it in good light! Then it was like, "BAM! IN YO FACE!

Calm/Wild - This is a medium purple with silver shimmer when cold and bright pink with silver shimmer when hot. Very pretty either way! This baby is packed with shimmer!

The formula on these was very good. I did 2 coats with Daring/Innocent and Calm/Wild but had to pull out three for Happy/Earthy.

EDIT: I forgot to mention: these do not dry shiny. They dry rather flat/matte. All of my swatches have topcoat.

Before I tried these I was under the assumption that they would always look two-toned where the nail bed would be the warm color and the tips would be the cold color but I was wrong. They did look like that a lot, but they also just stayed the cold color a lot, probably because I generally have cold hands. And the weather is still on the cool side. I'm sure in the summer when it's sweltering, I will see the hot color more often. They change very easily regardless. It's a lot of fun. You're sitting on the couch will some wine all cuddled up with the dog and your man so they are warm. Then you go to the fridge to get a snack and then they are cold. You reach into the oven to get your chicken nuggets, they get warm. Then you wash a dish, they go to cold. Then you wash another dish now that the water warmed up, they are warm. You let the dog out, they are cold. You take a shower, they are warm. You run around doing your post shower activities, they get cold. You blow dry your hair, they get warm (you intentionally shoot the dryer at your nails for fun and let your man do it too!) There is no end with these things!! They are sooooo fun!

I like these so much better than the solar changers. The solar changers are fun too, don't get me wrong, but they're only fun if you have sun. You don't need sun to play with these and there are so many changes from moment to moment. I especially like washing my hands in public and then using the hand dryers and seeing people doing double takes of my nails. "Wait! They were just a different color...weren't they?" So much fun.

I must say that I don't think the wear on this is too impressive. I only wore Daring/Innocent for about half a day before I wanted to try out the next one so I didn't notice any wear with that one but I wore Happy/Earthy from Saturday night to last night (Monday) so that was about 48 hours, but I started to see some major chippage by the middle of the day yesterday. Not all the chips actually even chipped. Some spots were just lifting and getting ready to chip. But regardless, it should be said because I don't usually find any polish chippy, ever. It did make it over 24 hours though and I am currently wearing Calm/Wild and did it last night and it's flawless. We shall see. I don't really care because it is worth it!!

At one point I was gawking at them to the BF and I said "I wish all polish did this". Can you imagine it? Even he found them amusing. We were sitting on the couch together and I was holding a mug of tea. He looked at my hand and was like "Look at your nails! Now look at the level in your cup!" The mug was filled about half way and the fingers on the lower half of the mug where there was still hot tea were the warm color and the fingers higher up were the cool color. Everyone loves these!

What do you think? Have them? Want them? Love them? Hate them?
:c)

PS - These are available at Claire's stores now!

New Color from Claire's

Hello lovelies! Back to regularly scheduled programming! I am back from New York and back to work! You may have noticed earlier I re-posted my Nubar Prisms because something was screwy with the first post. I felt that I couldn't just leave you with that for today since we already saw it, so I bring you a new color from Claire's that I picked up.

Dream Catcher - Very pretty jade green with a subtle bright green shimmer. Word on the street is that this is very similar to Chanel - Jade, which I don't have to compare because I just can't spring for that pricey stuff. I really love this color but I felt that the formula was a bit tricky. It was streaky leaving me to do 4 coats for this swatch.

And this is what happens when I think of adding polka dots to be cute. I used Migi Nail Art Pen in pink, but I think I may have overdone it a bit!! It reminds me of some sort of armored animal like a turtle or armadillo!

Have a great day!
-Elaine

Hard-to-Find Finds that Have Been Found!

In the last few weeks I have managed to acquire some polishes that I have been wanting that are semi-hard to very hard to find. It is very exciting, I think, to see pictures of hard to find polishes online and then plot to get them! It just adds yet another element of awesomeness to this already awesome hobby.

The following polishes are all only slightly hard to find to wildly hard to find. Maybe it will inspire you to hunt for some yourself!


Claire's - Goldmine ... Opaque gold with small silver holographic glitter and large hexagonal holographic glitter. This one is at the not-really-hard-to-find end of the spectrum. It was a bit difficult for me because the Claire's by me in Chicago never has anything good so I bought this when I was in NY, so I guess you could say I had to travel 800 miles for this polish!! But really it makes the list because it fulfilled a need for a gorgeous, discontinued, HTF CND polish: VIP Status. It's been on my wishlist, with no chance of finding it in sight, and when I asked the wonderful Scrangie about the new LA Girls Rockstar polish: Live On Stage and if it looks like VIP Status, she said to try Claire's - Goldmine. And of course, she did not let me down! It is perfect!!! You know what it reminds me of (besides having my fingers dipped in gold and diamonds) is my birthday! Last year I wanted really over-the-top gold nails for my birthday to go with some hot new gold pumps I had gotten and I didn't really find anything to fit the bill. Well this is it, and my next birthday is right around the corner! (September!) So, guess what I'll be wearing...

Lippmann Collection - Superstar ... You really feel like a superstar wearing this! It always gets noticed. It is so yummy and unique! We need more glitters like this! This is a polish I really wanted once I discovered it, and I discovered it after the holidays when it could no longer be found. But thank the polish gods above because they brought it back!! It's so wonderful when that happens. The only problem that makes this a hard-to-find is that it is only available in the Anniversary Collection that I posted here. So if you want it, you have to want them all! But at least it is available. Whew!



Massini - Purple Medallion ... This is one of the most gorgeous polishes (if not the most) I have ever put on my nails. The color is incredible and the sparkle is insane. This gets the award for most distracting polish ever. The color is this gorgeous magenta-purple-berry and I just love it. And the glitter appears to be purple glitter AND holo glitter. This is readily available at Meijer's stores. The only problem with that is that Meijer is only in 6 midwest states, making this a hard-to-get-your-hands-on.


China Glaze - Emerald Sparkle ... This is another fabulous limited edition holiday polish that is being re-released for this holiday season! So if you haven't been able to find it, don't worry! It is coming back! And if you don't have it, you should really jump after this one! It is very beautiful. I think that the picture above shows the glitter decently, but doesn't really exemplify how gorgeous the green is. It is even greener than this pic shows. It is just more emerald and glowy. I saw China Glaze tweet on Twitter yesterday "What is your favorite China Glaze polish?" and I said this one.


Essie - Raspberry Goji ... This makes the HTF cut because you can't buy it at all. I had to win this one in a JELL-O/Essie nail polish giveaway! I had entered it months ago online and you had to answer a question like "If you were JELL-O what would be your name?" And then about a week and half ago I received this in my mailbox! Pretty cool!


L'Oreal Star Magnets - Prune ... This one I had to go to Ebay for. I had to try one of these crazy magnetic polishes. you paint your nail, and while it is still wet, you hold it up to the magnet that is attached to the bottle, and it makes a star pattern! And then it dries like that! What?
That is amazing! I bought it from a seller in England. This polish had to cross the pond to get to me! That is not cool, L'Oreal! Why, OH WHY?!! would you not release these in the US? I can't take it. I am going to go write a letter to L'Oreal right now to demand the release of these in the States, and I suggest if you want to see these you do too. I just lent mine to a friend and we were discussing it yesterday that if they showed up in stores, we would buy every single color. I wouldn't even look and ponder "oh that one is okay, I like that one..." no. I would BUY THEM ALL! Even our boyfriends like them! They immediately noticed them on our nails and said "That is REALLY cool." Fun for all!


China Glaze - Groovy Green ... I saw this one posted recently on All Lacquered Up in the ALU archives segment. In her post, Michelle mentions that although it is an older color it can still be found online. Well, after her post if they were available, they aren't anymore! It made me want it even more. In almost no time at all though, I was lucky enough to find a lovely lady trying to unload some polishes and was able to purchase it. It is a beautiful pastel, mint green that is thin (I had to use 3 coats) but also has this jelly-ish finish to it too. Very cool.


Essie - Ruby Slippers ... My pride and joy. I wanted and wanted and wished and wished. No polish has ever made me so crazy. I tried to avoid buying this one on Ebay for a while. I tried desperately to swap for it to no avail though, and finally had to give in to the ways of Ebay. I did get if for a reasonable price (I think) considering how hard to find it is and how badly I wanted it. I used three coats to get good glitter coverage. The reason I wanted it so badly is because this is not a typical red-with-red-glitter polish. It is red with a gold, orange, yellow, red glitter. It is not like any other I have seen, and it made me go absolutley crazy! But it's okay because I have her now.


OPI- What's Dune ... This one I bought from another lovely lady trying to unload some polishes. I had originally only purchased it for the purpose of swapping if for Ruby Slipppers. But, I didn't know what I was getting, and before it got to me I saw Steph's swatches of this color, along with the rest of this collection, and realized I was going to have to keep it for myself! It is a delicate silvery color with a slight hint of pink. I really like it just like that, but what put's it over the top is that it is a very fine holo. B-E-A-UTIFUL! This was released in OPI's 2003 summer collection, so it is pretty hard to find.


Hard Candy - Tantrum ... Hard Candy no longer makes nail polish. I think they may have gone out of business. And that just made me want a Hard Candy polish! I really would have probably taken any, but I did have my eye on this one on Ebay, and before I caved and bought it, I was able to get it from the same person who sold me What's Dune. It's is a lovely, shimmery, iridescent green, that reminds me of dragonflies. Check out the manicure I did with it layered over black:

(close -up)


China Glaze - Cat's Eye ... Or the cat's me-ow! This one was on my wishlist for a while, and definitely not in my sights. Until the nicest gift ever came in my mailbox: this baby, from the best fellow blogger on earth, Brooke. Brooke posted this one on her site and I commented that I loved it and was looking for it, and she decided that it would have a better home here in Chicago. I couldn't believe it. This was the best of the hard-to-finds to receive, hands down. I love it. It is this amazing metallic, olive-gold (you know I love gold!) and it just looks so classy and antique. It really is an antique! Check out this bottle:
It amazes me. I don't have any China Glaze polishes that have this old style writing on the bottle. And the top has "CG" instead of the more modern China Glaze oval thing logo. Incredible. I love to look back at Brooke's pictures of this one now and think that the very same bottle that was on her nails, is now on my nails! Jeez polish is great. I can't believe I have this! Thank you again, Brooke. :c)

Now if I could just find Starry Starry Night....

Last Minute NY Buys

Hello! Before I left from my parents on Sunday I decided to do a little last minute shopping. I checked CVS for any interesting stuff, and Claire's because my Claire's here never seems to have anything good. Take a look at what I found:
Milani - Antique, Claire's - Green Confetti, Goldmine, Rockstar and Orange Neon

(Make sure to click on the pics for the enlarged size! :c) )
Sun


Shade

Goldmine is definitely my favorite. I have had CND-VIP Status on my wishlist but it is hard to find, and this looks just the same. Check out this close up:Huh?! Awesome right!?