China Glaze 'Tis The Season to be naughty and nice

For the holiday collection this year China Glaze has released a beautiful set of 16 SHADES! I am stunned. This is not only amazing because it is 16 polishes, but it is amazing because they are gorgeous colors. I have swatched all of the shades and did a couple comparison swatches. Swatches and reviews first and comparison s second. Let's take a look!>>>

Ruby Deer - Bright, bright tomato red. Sort of jelly in finish and has a fantastic smooth formula. So, so smooth. Amazingly smooth.

Phat Santa - Another bold red creme but darker than Ruby Deer.

Mrs. Claus - This is very interesting! This is a sheer red with silver glitter. I am so intrigued by this because it seems soooo sheer but with three coats, the color and the glitter still hide any VNL. Very impressive. This reminds me of candy canes. It also reminds me of Zoya - Astra, although it is absolutely not a dupe.

Mommy Kissing Santa - Deep, burgundy red shimmer. This is velvety and smooth and delicious. I love this! I had a client comment that it was gorgeous and very Christmas-y. I said that it was funny she should say that because it was from a Holiday set!

Sugar Plums -Wine shimmer with sparse, tiny holo specks. Similar to a discontinued China Glaze fave, Crystal Ball, but not a dupe.

Naughty and Nice - Deep, deep, almost black, burgundy creme with a jelly finish. I loooooved wearing this. This is three coats, although when I did a mani I did two. When I did this swatch I guess I forgot how to paint my nails and needed to do a third coat to even things out.

Little Drummer Boy - Navy/denim shimmer. Very nice. I wanted to say that this isn't terribly unique/exciting, but I also don't have anything close to it. What did excite me about it, though, is that it has an out of this world formula. Super pigmented and smooth. You can get away with one coat with this one.

Jolly Holly - Wow! This blew me away. This is a rich green with golden shimmer. So beautiful. Just like Little Drummer Boy this is an amazing, smooth, super-pigmented one coat dream.

Mistletoe Kisses - What a cool polish! It makes me smile when I look at it! This is a mix of a really neat, soft green that is sort of between emerald and jade, completely packed with super small silver glitter. Very pretty. I couldn't decide if this is a two or three coater. I guess it's two but I did a third to be sure. I probably could have just stayed at two. This swatch is with top coat and one coat makes this polish smooth. It's not too grainy.

Peace On Earth - Wow! Striking, olive shimmer. This is one of my faves of this collection. I did a comparison with a few other olive shimmers below.

Jingle Bells - Classy gold. This isn't a very yellow gold. It's more or a neutral gold. Very pretty. The finish is hard to describe. It isn't quite a foil. It's sort of a chrome, but not as chrome as a chrome... if that makes sense! It's like a pearlish chrome.

Midnight Kiss - Partying yellow gold foil! There is no ambiguity here. This is definitely a gold foil. This is two coats.

Party Hearty (over white) - Fun! This is a clear base with large red hexagon glitter, smaller green hexagon glitter and even smaller gold and silver glitter. This is two coats over white.

Snow - White Cream. Nothing noteworthy. I am always interested to try a new staple like white creme to see if it may be like, the best white cream ever. But this one isn't . It a standard three coat, sort of difficult to apply, white creme. This is three coats with top coat.

Frosty - Pretty, delicate, snowy, pearly shimmer. It's not like a typical shimmer. The particles are sort of like small pearly pieces. I really, really like this on. It is sort of sheer so it needs at least 3 coats unless you want to layer it over something. This is actually 5 coats but that is because I kept getting my middle finger uneven and had to add more to fix it, but then it was way off then the rest. I do like the look of 5 coats though.

Cheers to You - Silver fun foil. Very pretty and flashy and awesome, but not unique.

And as promised here are a couple comparison swatches:

Sugar Plums on index and ring and China Glaze - Crystal Ball on middle and pinky. Crystal Ball is thinner and has more holo glitter. Sugar Plums only needed two coats, but Crystal Ball needed three.

Peace On Earth comparison. From left to right:

• Peace On Earth
• China Glaze - Cat's Eye
• OPI - At Your Quebec & Call
• Peace On Earth

I was hoping that Peace On Earth would be close to an amazing discontinued olive from China Glaze: Cat's Eye. Cat's Eye is more metallic and not as green.

Midnight Kiss on index and ring. Orly - Luxe on middle and pinky. Close, but not dupes. Luxe has more silver particles giving it a less yellow gold look then Midnight Kiss.

'Tis The Season is available now online and at retailers. 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.

NARS - Zulu and More

I finally got my NARS - Zulu on my nails and although it is beautiful alone, I couldn't help but layer over that dark, dreamy base. It was too inviting.

This is what I did: I started with a base of NARS - Zulu. Then I added Nfu-Oh - #56, a green/blue flakie in a green base. Then I added Sally Hansen - Hidden Treasure, a mostly red flakie with gold and green at the angles. Lastly I added Pure Ice - Busted, a purple shimmer that has a bit of a gold/green duochrome. This rocks!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

What do you think?
-Elaine
:c)

Today Was A Fairy Tale - Swatch, Review, Layering and Gradient

For The Holidays this year one of the glittery shades that Deborah Lippmann has created for us is Today Was A Fairy Tale. It says it's infused with Virgin Diamond Powder and I do not know what that does, but it is a shimmery, shiny, sparkly glitter bomb.

Deborah Lippmann - Today Was A Fairy Tale - This is a mix of large, extremely reflective silver hexagon sequins and smaller silver glitter in a clear, but slightly blue tinted, base. The glitter in this is amazing. I don't know if it is certain, but it appears that the hex glitter is cut to reflect more light, just like facets in a diamond. It is extremely shiny. I would normally be upset that the base doesn't have enough pigment to build a opaque enough base, but with this I am fine because I wouldn't want to take away the shine of the glitter. This is three coats.

This is some layering experiments I tried with TWAFT. (hehe) This is two coats over, blue, black, silver and white. I think over white is kind of cool because then it brings out the blue base.

This is the mani I did with it. I started with NARS - Midnight Express as a base, then I did a gradient with TWAFT. I started with one coat way down by the cuticle, then the second coat further up and the third even further up and the 4th was pretty much just the tip. This was very flashy and fun! Everyone loved this. I got lots of compliments.

And I thought this was too hot to not share! It's Kim Kardashian wearing nothing but Today Was A Fairy Tale for a shoot for W Magazine to match the silver body paint. WOW.

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.

Nubar Finest Silks

Nubar Finest Silks is a collection of eight feminine, "work appropriate" shades. Mostly creme finishes with the exception of one shimmer.

Taffata - Brownish pink creme. When I was wearing this it made me think that this would be what it would look like if you mixed chocolate milk and strawberry milk.

Marabout - This is a dark gray-brown creme. Really interesting and stylish. It reminds me of mud which I know doesn't sound stylish but that is the kind of colors I like.

Chiffon - This is just like Marabout but lighter. Lighter mud. Nice, but I wore this right after Marabout and really didn't feel like I changed my polish.

Organza - This is a shimmery, sheer white. Not bad alone, but if you don't like sheers I'd say to layer this. This is three coats.

Moire - Light, soft tan creme with a hint of pink. Delicate and pretty.

Charmeuse - Mauve creme. Not a boring mauve; it's bright and bold. I like this. And the formula! All of these have a nice formula but this one was especially nice.

Pekin - Bright red creme. Nice, bold, smooth and sexy.

Sateen - Dark red, blood creme.

These are beautiful shades and I greatly appreciate colors like this being a working professional for when I can't wear my usual blues, greens and glitters. I really enjoy adding shades like this to my collection because I am so used to unusual shades being my norm, that these feel outrageous! But my gripe with this collection is that I feel like there are too many repeats! I like these shades for their sophistication but I don't want the same ones over and over. For example, Marabout and Chiffon really seemed like the same color to me. But anyway, they are nice and beautiful and have a fantastic formula.

Nubar Finest Silks is available now on bynubar.com and retail for $7.49 per bottle or $49.95 for the entire collection.

What do you think?
-Elaine
: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.

Happy Halloween!

Happy Halloween! I have some Halloween manis for you!

Sally Hansen - Plum Burst with Kiss Halloween decals

Sephora by OPI - If You've Got It, Haunt It - I really love this! This is black and silver glitter in a sheer black base with little iridescent blue/green/red glitter pieces. Super cool!

Zoya - Paz + Nicole by OPI - Pitch Black Glimmer with decals. I really wished I took a pic of the left hand before I started removing the polish. Because then I had to take the right hand and I unfortunately suffered a break a couple hours before!

OPI Burlesque Shimmers (Part II)

The second part of the OPI Burlesque collection is made up of various shimmers from foily shimmers, to glass-flecked shimmers and more. Take a look >>>

Ali's Big Break - This is a bright, candy apple red with irregular shaped shimmer. This is bold and spicy and I loved wearing this.

Tease-y Does It - This is a brownish purple with a glowy shimmer. It's vampy but not so dark it doesn't have it's own color and character. I love this.

Rising Star - Bold, slightly foily, shimmery yellow gold. It looks like what you would get if you crossed Nubar - Caramello and Nubar - Oro from the Venetian Glass collection.

Take The Stage - Burnt orange, slightly foily shimmer. Also similar to the oranges in the Venetian Glass collection.

Let Me Entertain You - Glass-flecked fuchsia. Very pretty and hot! Super similar to Zoya - Allegra. Like, practically dupes. It just seemed to me like Allegra was thinner, or it just took more because it has a smaller brush than the OPI but I got LMEY on in two coats and it took 3 with Allegra.

The Show Must Go On - This is my favorite!! I may even like this one more than all the glitters! :cO This is a hot pink foil with a gold/copper duochrome shimmer. It's much like MAC - Bad Fairy, but better! They are not dupes, but they have similar properties which makes me compare them. For all the days I was wearing this all I could think is "This is so much better than Bad Fairy!" The colors differ because Bad Fairy is deeper and more cranberry and The Show Must Go On is more like a hot strawberry. The similarities are the finish and the gold/copper duochrome, but the base color is much different. They do look similar in the bottle though don't they?!>>
What do you think of Part II of Burlesque?
:c)
-Elaine

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.

Hard Candy - Halloween Polishes 2010

Hard Candy has released three, new, limited Halloween shades this year that you can find at Wal-Mart. They are a nice change of pace from the usual orange, black and white creme shades we usually see for Halloween which seems to be the theme this year. Polish companies have learned that we need new, unique shades for Halloween just like all other releases. The best part about the Hard Candy Halloween shades? They are all glitter!

Wicked - This is a black base with tiny silver glitter. The base is a bit sheer but that is a good thing because it lets the glitter shine through. This is three coats.

Mischief - This is a orange glitter in a murky, green-black base, much like China Glaze - Ick-A-Bod-Y. I really couldn't tell a difference when I put this on. I could have sworn I was wearing Ick-A-Bod-Y. If there is any difference, Mischief may be a smidge more condensed, but they're pretty much the same.

Zombie - This is the star of this collection, in my opinion. It's the most unique, the most fun, and it's a bit of an oddball for a Halloween collection because it's really bright and happy instead of dark and spooky, but that is what makes me like it. This is a mix of purple, pink and blue glitter in a clear base. I love the overall purple glitter look.

These can be found at Wal-Mart and retail for $5.

What do you think?
:c)
-Elaine