Gray Creme Comparisons Featuring Nubar Fortress

Happy Saturday all! I should be out drinking and celebrating St. Patrick's Day, but my partner in crime had a surprise visitor in Michigan to go see. She got a new nephew! Very exciting, but sux for me! So instead I bring you a new blog post and I hope it is a helpful one. I guess it is for the best. It's a gloomy, rainy day anyway.

(*Please note, I am uploading these using Internet Explorer and that means that the pics aren't "clickable" for their full size. Usually I upload from work where I have Mozilla Firefox. PS - If anyone knows how to upload with IE and still have them clickable, please email me! I am not computer savvy and have been trying to find the answer to no avail!)

I did some comparison pics of the new Nubar Fortress gray cremes against some other popular gray cremes out there. For my original swatches of Nubar Fortress you can look here.

First up, China Glaze Recycle.

From left to right:

Nubar - Stronghold

Nubar - Palisade

China Glaze - Recycle

Nubar - Barricade

Once I got them on the nails I realized Recycle would have fit better next to Stronghold. I didn't realize how dark it was! But Stronghold is still darker.

Next up: Sally Hansen - Wet Cement

From left to right:

Nubar - Barricade

Sally Hansen - Wet Cement

Nubar - Citadel

Nubar - Marble Tower

No dupes, but Wet Cement seems very close to Barricade, just a smidgen lighter.

And lastly: Rescue Beauty Lounge - Concrete Jungle

From left to right:

Nubar - Palisade

RBL - Concrete Jungle

Nubar - Barricade

Nubar - Citadel

Again, not a dupe but Concrete Jungle is close to Palisade, having the same blue tones, but is lighter.

Here are a couple shots just of the Nubars against each other:

From left to right:

Stonghold, Palisade, Barricade, Citadel

Palisade, Barriade, Citadel, Marble Tower (bottle is Stronghold)

Hope this helps you with your gray purchases!

-Elaine

Slate Blues

Hello everyone! How are we?! :c)

I have a new love. Slate blue. We have had several releases lately and I have been attracted to them all. My most recent purchase was MAC - Blue India yesterday. I thought I could resist. But I thought that with Peppermint Patti and when I decided I wanted it I couldn't find it. MAC sure knows how to get us with their limited edition shades. Ugh!

I thought it would be nice to do a comparison of all these slate blues for our reference. Here it is!

edit: make sure to click for the enlarged view! :c)

From left to right:

BB Couture - Moon Over Manhattan
Rescue Beauty Lounge - 360
Sally Hansen - Gray By Gray
MAC - Blue India

BB Couture has a ton of shimmer that the others do not, so it is pretty unique.
360 has a slight green tinge to it and a secret shimmer. It is very secret. I would feel more comfortable calling it creme.
Gray By Gray is pretty and pale.
And Blue India is the darkest of the bunch but pretty and perfect and surprisingly the formula was great. I was preparing myself for crappy application.

What do you think?
HAPPY FRIDAY!

New Konad Plate M78 Swatches

Happy Monday all! Hope you're doing well! I just went to the dentist and am not doing too great. My teeth are killing me! But I have some things to show you so hopefully by the time I am done with this post I will feel better!

I have some swatches using all of the designs of one of the newest Konad plates: M78. I like M78 because it is a plate of full-nail designs. I find those to be much easier to work with. When I try to do small stuff I always mis-align them.

plate M78 - Clockwise starting with butterflies, leopard/tiger, weird abstract circles and stuff with a fan/marble thing, marble print and hearts with semi-circle and dots.

Butterflies. Pretty Standard. Great example of my lack of centering skills.

This is a combo animal print stamp. Very interesting. It is a full nail design with leopard spots and tiger stripes. I was unsure about this one but I liked it with this color combo. The base is Nubar - Reclaim and the stamps are China Glaze - Awaken and Millennium used at the same time.

This is the fan looking thing stamped with China Glaze - Passion and Harmony over BB Couture - Green Goblin. (We've seen this before)

This is the marble stamp used over my gray ombre manicure with the Nubar Fortress Collection. I love this! Are the stamps light on dark, or dark on light?! It's like an optical illusion! The base colors from left to right are Nubar - Stronghold, Palisade, Barricade, Citadel and the stamp colors from left to right are a white creme, Nubar - Marble Tower, Citadel and Stronghold.

The last full nail design I actually broke up into two:

This is the semi-circle and dots stamped with China Glaze - 2030 over China Glaze - Sexy In The City.

And this is the hearts stamped with China Glaze - Millennium over Sinful Colors - Let's Talk. (Please note that this isn't really color accurate. It's not bad but it is pulling too blue. Let's Talk is a royal purple)

What do you think?!
:c)
-Elaine

Nubar Fortress Collection Swatches and Review

The latest collection from Nubar is a set of 8 black and gray polishes in various finishes. I am thrilled to show you swatches of them! The concept of the collection is wonderfully unique and the formula of them is OUTSTANDING. Let 's get into the swatch fun>>>

Knight's Armor - I am quite sure that I don't have to tell you this is the polish from this set. I'm telling you right now if you were to only buy one color from this collection this is it! This is one of my polishes wishes coming true. I really haven't felt that any black/silver glitter combos were glittery enough. Well this is definitely glittery enough plus some! The glitter is so dense it nearly gave full coverage in one coat. (This swatch is 2 coats) And the glitter particles are very large and square reflecting a ton of sparkle. This is a stunner! I wore this one immediately. At the end of the year when I'm coming up with my "Best Polish of 2010" this will absolutely be on the list. Wow.

Dark Castle - Ooooh. How awesome! This is a very rich black with dark silver shimmer. This is super pigmented allowing me to do one coat. I don't usually like black polishes very much unless they have a ton of shimmer or glitter but this is hott. I really love this.

Silver Sword - This is a charcoal shimmer. This is very pretty and nice but has that metallic/brush stroke syndrome. But only a little. I think it looks very nice once on, and it has a smooth formula. This swatch is 2 coats.

Stronghold - I love this polish and I love the name! This is a dark, stormy gray creme. Oooh ooh! And guess what? This is only one coat.

Palisade - This is a medium toned, cool gray creme. And surprise! It is one coat!

Barricade - This is also a medium toned gray creme. It is only a touch lighter than Palisade and it is different from Palisade in that it has yellow undertones.

Citadel - This is a light gray creme with yellow undertones. This swatch is 2 coats. It could have been 1. More on that later.

Marble Tower - This is the lightest gray of the bunch and the last one to see! It is close to Citadel but a smidge lighter and cooler.

I assumed that a comparison swatch was in order to help distinguish between all the similar gray cremes:

From left to right: Palisade, Barricade, Citadel, Marble Tower (The bottle is Stronghold)

So Palisade and Barricade are close but Palisade is cool/slightly blue and Barricade is a bit yellow.

Citadel and Marble Tower are similar but Marble Tower is the slighty blue/cool tone and Citadel is a bit yellow.

Now my reaction to this collection was all over the place. At first I was pumped because I love gray polish and OMG Knight's Armor. I knew I would love it before it even showed up. I was unsure about the shimmers. I wasn't excited for them but when I swatched them I felt differently. I really love Dark Castle. I think Silver Sword is nice, but I don't like it near as much as Dark Castle.

And what about 5 gray cremes? Hmmm. On the one hand, I love cremes. But when I thought about it... 5? Why does more than half of the collection need to be creme? I would think having the opportunity to do a variety of finishes in gray, you would do, well, a variety? Am I wrong? We could have had a foil, a duochrome (we know Nubar is master at duochromes) a holo, maybe even a matte.

On the positive side, however, the shades are all different. And once I started painting my nails for the comparison swatch I thought of a brilliant idea for all of these cremes... An ombre manicure!

So once I was done with the swatches that was the mani I did. At least there is that pro to having 5 cremes. And if you don't want all 5, you can pick the shdes you like by their warm or cool undertones.

Another positive to these cremes is that they go on in one coat. It took me two for the lighter ones the first time around, but the next time I just did a bit of a thicker coat and every one of them was flawless in one coat. You know how rare one coat colors are and out of 8 this has 6 one coaters (I think Knight's Armor would be done a disservice is only applied with one coat and Silver Sword is slightly brush stroke-y so it needs two.)

Overall verdict: Great collection. Unique concept, great formula: super pigmented and smooth and come on... Knight's Armor. Let's be serious. That is one hell of a polish. I can't shut up about it!

They all look like a little fortress when they are all standing together.

I do not know the official release date of this collection but it should be soon and will probably retail for $7.49 a piece or $49.95 for the 8 piece set.

Disclosure: The products featured in this post were furnished to me by the manufacturer or PR company for review. For more information please visit my disclosure policy.

Rescue Beauty Lounge Surfer Girl - Spring 2010

360, Bangin', Diddy Mow

Mornin' lovelies! How are we!? Today I am bringing you some yummy swatches of Rescue Beauty Lounge's upcoming Spring Collection. It is called the Surfer Girl Collection and the inspiration for Ji Baek was Proenza Schouler's surfer-influenced Spring 2010 RTW Collection.

Ji Baek: What I loved about the show was the cool, breezy attitude of the models and the clothes. There was a sense that they'd just put down their surfboards and slipped on their runway dresses, with minimal makeup and salt-styled beach hair.

Quotes like that make me love these colors a bit more. They evoke this feeling of the beach and I don't love my hair more than when it is naturally tousled and textured with salt water. I even brought home a big bottle of the Pacific with me from California when I went there in 2006 so I could spray it on my hair!

360 - This is a grayed blue; slate blue, if you will. I am going to call it a creme, but it has a smidgen of silver shimmer in it. It gets its name from a move where the surfer and board spin 360 degrees on the face of a wave. I found this color very flattering against my warm/reddish skin and also very calming and serene. This is very beautiful.

Bangin' - I love the name of this polish. I said in the summer when I posted LA Girl Rockstar colors that "Head Banging" should have been "Head Bangin' ", but what do I know?! Anyway, this is a bright and very bold red creme with a bit of orange/coral tinge to it. I think this color would flatter most and would look incredible with any outfit. At first it reminded me of Sally Hansen - Caribbean Coral, but Bangin' isn't as obnoxiously bright as that one.

Diddy Mow - This is my favorite of the collection. Apparently "diddy mow" is a surf term for a harsh wipe out. Ji Baek describes this as, "the color of sand through sea water, the moment before you eat it!" That is quite the awesome description! This is a greenish-gray and I adore it. I adore it for it's uniqueness and for the way I can't stop looking at it! I am wearing it right now and I keep looking at my nails instead of typing! It has a very slight, hidden shimmer but even less than 360. It actually appears to me, and maybe it's just the topcoat, that it has this all over very slight, shimmery sheen. It's not really like a shimmer, but like my topcoat is cloudy. Maybe that is all it is. HAHA! This color, although having nothing to do with surfing, reminds me of my dad. I think because I am picturing a jacket he has that is the same color. Inspiration can be found in our fathers' closets I guess!

I am not really supposed to comment on the formula since the press release says all press samples are not RBL's formula, only used as color reference. But these were smooth as usual and nearly perfect in one coat. All swatches are two coats.

The Surfer Girl Collection can be found on Rescue Beauty Nail Polish and will be available sometime in March or April 2010.

What do you think? :c)

Disclosure: The products featured in this post were furnished to me by the manufacturer or PR company for review. For more information please visit my disclosure policy.

New Sally Hansen Complete Salon Manicure Swatches

Remember how I said Sally Hansen came out with new polishes and I had some to share? Well today is the day I am sharing! It's the new line that has been popping up: Complete Salon Manicure. First off, I love the bottles. They are 0.5 oz but they feel much bigger. They are huge and have a lot of glass making them pretty heavy. They are awesome! The base of the bottles are square, but going up in gets round. And there is a band of rubber on the top for ease of opening and holding while painting. Genius!

Yellow Kitty - Awww! Isn't this adorable!? That is exactly what I think when I look at this. This is a pale yellow cream. Not as bold and creamy as say BB Couture - Little Deuce Coupe, and not as jelly as Rescue Beauty Lounge - Squarepants. It's right in between. This went on pretty well for a yellow, but I did 3 coats still to make sure it was even. Do you think the name is a play on "Hello Kitty"? I wonder...

Thinking Of Blue - I love this color... SO MUCH! I had it on Friday and while at the dermatologist in the waiting room, I heard one of the ladies at the front desk say to the other "her nails are gorgeous". Aw! Awesome! This is a dark blue creme, but it isn't navy. It has a drop of purple, but I wouldn't call it blurple. I think it's indigo. Yup. That is what I am going with. I hear this is similar or maybe identical to Sephora by OPI - Blue Grotto, but I don't have it to compare. Sorry! This swatch is 2 coats.

Commander in Chic - Hottness. This is in that mushroom, brown-taupe catergory, and I can't believe it, but I think this is my first like this. Except maybe OPI - You Don't Know Jaques Matte. But that is matte. I don't have a regular creme like this. This swatch is three coats, but I did very, very thin coats. You could probably do two.

Gray by Gray - This name kills me! Does this look gray to you? NO! It is blue. A gray-ISH slate, blue. But it's very pretty regardless. It is reminding me of the new Spring release from RBL, 360. We'll have to see how they match up someday. This swatch is 2 coats.

Plum Luck - This is a plum creme. I don't have much more to say than that! Plum. Pretty. 3 coats.

Lavender Cloud - This looks white, I know. It is. Ha Ha! It has the ittiest, bittiest bit of lavender. It's like if you took one big fluffy cloud and added one drop of purple to it for the whole cloud. You can hardly tell. I made a comparison swatch next to a real white so that you can see it isn't pure white:

Lavender Cloud on the left and OPI - Alpine Snow on the right.

And I scanned the brochure I picked up at the drugstore so you can see what new colors there are:

PS - These have the same tapered brush as Sally Hansen - Insta-Dri polishes with the big, flat wand:
Have a lovely and relaxing Sunday!

New Sally Hansen Xtreme Wear

If you haven't been to the drugstore lately, take a look because Sally Hansen has rolled out a slew of new polishes. There is the new Complete Salon Manicure colors (I have a few to share) and there is a new display of Xtreme Wears. I picked up a few the other day>> SWATCHES! >>

Wet Cement - Pretty self explanatory! Definitely what it looks like. Light, very gray, gray. I just mean that it is not blue sided, like RBL - Concrete Jungle. It's gray like a little mousey. 2 coats.

Pacific Blue - Holy shnikey. This is bright. It is almost identical to the Sephora-Myrtille I showed you here. Only this is a better formula, it's cheaper, and the bottle is bigger. Gorgeous, bold, uber bright blue creme. 2 coats.

Caribbean Coral - Mega-bright coral-red with a wee bit of shimmer. This is so awesome I may have to wear it now even though it just feels so season inappropriate! I wish it was summer. This would definitely go on my toes! 2 coats.

Bubblegum Pink - Yet another self-explanatory name! Perfect way to describe it. Bubblegum and Barbie dolls! This also has a wee bit of silver shimmer. 2 coats.

The formula on these is outstanding. They go on smooth, the shape of the brush is nice, square (not like the crazy brush in the Insta-Dris) and allowed me to do a very nice application. They are very, very pigmented, and they dry fast too. Just all around goodness. These retail for about $3.29 (at least that is what I paid. I live in the city so stuff seems to be a bit more) but they were buy one get one half off at Walgreen's. Not too shabby!

Rescue Beauty Lounge Swatches

Is everyone ready for the new week?! I stopped by Walgreen's on my way to work and picked up some new Sally Hansen's to get my week off on the right foot! :c)

It looks like Rescue Beauty Lounge has some new shades for us this spring! I am looking forward to them. In the meantime I thought I would quench our RBL thirst with some swatches of shades I picked up during the RBL sale last month.

Concrete Jungle - This is perfect! When my bottles came I thought this looked darker than I had wanted. I wanted a light gray creme. But once I put it on I was happy again! It is just as I expected and the application was a dream. 2 thin, easy coats.

Cherry Love - This is a pink sided red creme. It reminds me of cherry pie filling! I love it, despite being a bit of a red hater. It is hot! Although the formula surprised me. It wasn't as smooth and dreamy as I know RBLs to be.

Dead Calm - I love this color and I love this name. This deep cobalt is perfect. It never looks black. I love the shade but maybe even better is the formula. This swatch is one coat. It is a very calming shade. If I ever have a hectic day and need to chill, I am putting this on. I would expect it to melt away my stress.

Purple Haze - Seeing pictures of this online before I ordered it, I expected it to be different. I pictured it as a light to medium, blue-hued lilac. It is actually a very not blue, medium hued, lilac with a dusty quality. It reminds me a lot of Zoya - Malia, although I didn't compare them. This is gorgeous though, and in true RBL fashion, has a fantastic two coat formula. I love the "dusty" quality of this one.

Have a happy Monday!
-Elaine