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!

Nubar Sparkles Collection Coming Soon!

As if the holo collection, Prisms, didn't get us all hot and bothered, before we can even have a chance to cool down Nubar is bringing us more! An ENTIRE COLLECTION OF GLITTERS! 8 Glitters! I definitely love glitter more than holo (unless of course it's holo glitter! ) so this is going to really knock my socks off!

nubar, the healthy alternative for beautiful nails, adds some glamour and glitz to your nails with the Sparkles Collection. The fine texture provides smooth, even coverage in two coats, and the variety of shades is dazzling. Like all nubar products, the Sparkles Nail Lacquers are free of formaldehyde, DBP(phthalate), and toluene, and are vegan and cruelty free.

Available January 30, 2010, they will retail for $7.49 each

Weee!

Ride The Khrome Wave

I had a vision for my new China Glaze-Millennium from the Khrome collection. I wanted to use it for metallic tips on a funky french. I was then planning to swirl out the color into a little wave design. I just had to pick something for the base. I was sure I didn't want one solid color. But then what would I use? Two shades? Three? Water marble? Regular marble? Konad? Shimmer? Creme? I didn't know.

I ended up doing a regular marble design. I chose two thick, very opaque cremes to get the job done: Rescue Beauty Lounge - Underwear and Zoya - Pinta. I did a thick stripe of each on half of the nail and while still wet, I took a tooth pick and pulled the colors back and forth between them over the line that separated them. It reminded me of when I used to work in a cake bakery and I swirled yellow and chocolate cake to make marble. That was one of my favorite things to do. It never got old! It was always pretty and amusing. I find joy in simple things I guess!

Anywho, after that I free-handed the tips with China Glaze - Millennium. Then I took a thin paintbrush and carefully made the little wave following the shape of the "smile line", but circling it around. Although I was very pleased, I didn't think the wave had enough emphasis so I outlined it and the tips with a black nail art striper: LA Colors Art Deco in black. And viola! This is my creation!

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

Naught-y-cal Funky French

Good evening! It's late but I was in a posting mood! I just have a quick funky french to show you. I like it, but I think it was better in my head than on the nail. I actually think the best thing about this is the title for this post! :c)

For this mani I started with a base of Naughty Nails - The Big "O". Then I free-handed the tips with Rescue Beauty Lounge - Dead Calm. That worked well since it is a very opaque, one-coater polish, so doing tips with it was nice and easy. No streaking, and I didn't have to go back and do a second coat. Then I used LA Colors Art Deco striper in red glitter to go over the "smile line" of my french to sort of hide any wavering in my line.

Have a good night and I will have something new for you in the morning!

-Elaine

Zoya Ultra Glitters Swatches

Astra, Nova, Luna

Good afternoon everybody! How are we!? I'm okay. I have to go to the doc in a bit. Nothing major, but I hate to be reminded that there is always something wrong with me! Can't a girl just be healthy? :c)

So. Zoya Ultra Glitters. I know these aren't new, and you've probably seen them a hundred times, but it took me a while to get them and I love them all sooo much I had to post them!

Astra - Wicked hot. This is a combo of light pink and red glitter in a hot pink jelly base giving an overall awesome, warm, hott pink color. This swatch is two coats, but I probably could have done three. Up close you can see all the details, but from a distance it looks like a bad ass pink foil or something. Observe:

My hands playing quarters. Yes I like drinking games! :cD

Nova - Also hott! This is a cool magenta. I thought it would be the same concept as Astra with the light pink glitter and magenta glitter, but when you look at it up close it appears as though it is just the light pink in a bold, magenta, jelly base. At first when these came out and I saw that there were two pinks I thought, "I certainly don't need both." I was wrong. This swatch is 3 coats.

Luna - This is a silver glitter in a pale silver, shimmery base. I really love this. I love how much depth it has thanks to the shimmer, and the glitter. Even though the glitter is only one color, it appears to be many and it looks really interesting. This swatch is 4 coats, just to be sure I couldn't see my yellow nails through it! I wore this as my New Years Eve mani and kept it on for days, all the way through to 80s Night, and it worked for all occasions.

My 80s hand.

Have a great day!
-Elaine

Some Nfu-Oh Flakie Swatches

The very first time I saw Nfu-Oh polish my jaw dropped. I needed them. The unique colors, those crazy flakies, that corset and dress bottle with bosoms! They had to be mine. I waited for a long time to give in to the temptation since they are a bit pricey. But a couple months ago I finally caved and purchased some of their "flakie" colors from the Victorian Series; the ones that have opalescent flakes that shine all different colors. I already showed you #40 over black here, but I have some more to share!

#45 - Sunlight/shade/close-up - I have seen a lot of excitement over several of Nfu-Oh's colors, especially flakie polishes like #51 and #60, and no one ever mentions #45. Well I am going to! This is outrageous!!! It is ablaze on the nails! This is a bright orange jelly with flakies that flash orange and yellow and a bit of green at an angle. This is in the Top 20. This swatch is 3 coats, but could definitely have been worn as 2.

#51 - Sunlight/shade/close-up - This is a violet jelly base with flakies that show red and orange straight on, but flash gold, green and blue at an angle. This is just incredible. It was out of stock on fabulousstreet.com (the only place that sells Nfu-Oh to the states) for quite some time and just recently came back. It was (one of) my NP Christmas present to myself! This swatch is 3 coats.

#52 - Sunlight/shade/close-up - This is a violet jelly base with flakies that flash colors between green and blue. The blue is mostly straight on and the green at an angle. This is so icy and cool. I love it. Unfortunately it looks like it is out of stock on fabulousstreet.com at the moment. This swatch is 4 coats.

And of course, we wouldn't be doing them any real justice if we didn't see flakies matte!!

#45 + China Glaze - Matte Magic - This is always how this polish should be worn! This is just too hott!

#51 + China Glaze - Matte Magic - So cool.

#52 + China Glaze - Matte Magic - This is so icy and frozen looking! Perfect winter mani.

Hope you like them and have a happy hump day!

-Elaine

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

Nubar Prisms Swatches and Review

Hello all! I know I already posted these, but something was wrong with the coding that caused the post to disappear. Well, just the pics and pretty much my entire review. It must have been fine for at least a little while since you guys were able to see it and leave comments. I don't know. I am just going to post everything again. The original is still there so that I didn't delete the comments.

Prisms Collection

Inspired by the colorful play of light through a prism, those bands of light and color are embodied in nubar’s Prisms Collection. Each shade in the Prism Collection is filled with holographic glitter reflecting every color of the rainbow, with base colors just as varied, ranging from subtle neutrals to vivid pink to pale blue. Going a step beyond holographic nail lacquers, nubar’s Prism Collection is a celebration of color and light. As all nubar products, they are free of formaldehyde, phthalates, and toluene, as well as vegan and cruelty free.

Half of Nubar Prisms have a shimmer type holographic effect making them very smooth and half have holo glitter which means they dry a bit gritty, but have a very prismatic effect.

Prize, Essence, Gem, Jewel - These are the holo glitter type colors. Obviously very glittery and prismatic.

Spark, Brilliant, Treasure, Absolute - The holo shimmer type colors. The prismatic effect of these is more subtle.

Prize - Pinkish red holo. This one is very prismatic and looks great with just two coats.

Essence - Rose pink with holo gliitter. Essence looks sweet and innocent, but has a hot, sexy side thanks to the prismatic glitter! I used it on my mom for a pedicure. This swatch is three coats.

Gem - This is a mauvy-gray base with a bright purple, duochrome flash and holographic glitter. Sorry the purple flash didn't get picked up by my camera. The promo pics did not do this polish justice. I expected a lot less. This was a surprise favorite. Gem is stunning thanks to being a holo and a duochrome. Must have! This swatch is three coats.

Jewel - This is a brown holo. Brown holo!! This brown is very flattering and deep like chocolate, and the glitter is very, very prismatic. I adore this and it only needs 2 coats.

Spark - Taupe with prismatic shimmer. Neutral and classy but made more more interesting by the prismatic shimmer. This swatch is three coats.

Brilliant - This purplish pink has a strong prismatic effect and it is so pretty and dainty when I wore it I felt like I shouldn't be using my hands for anything! This swatch is three coats.

Treasure - Royal purple with strong holo. I think this was the most holographic of the "shimmer type" colors. And the purple is to die for! This swatch is three coats.

Absolute - I said it before and I will say it again, this one dissapointed me. I just didn't feel the prismatic effect from it. Although my sister wore it and loved it. To each his own! This swatch is three coats.

Sorry for being repetative, I just don't really know at what point my post vanished, so there may be several of you that didn't see the pictures and review.

Final verdict: Gorgeous collection. I think all of the glitter colors are must haves. They are very prismatic even in low light and I love the base colors of them all as well. We have a brown holo (awesome) a red holo (what we all wanted!) a duochrome holo (are you serious?!) and a delicate "safe" color if you need something more low key.
The shimmer type colors are beautiful and delicate; Soft but interesting. They all need three coats, in my opinion so if you only like 2 coaters, they probably aren't for you.
I slightly wish that the holographic effect was similar to that of Nubar - Reclaim which was also very deep and pigmented. But these are unique and beautiful and I won't complain!

Nubar Prisms are currently available at bynubar.com and retail for $9.49 a piece or $59.95 for the entire set, which breaks down to $7.49 each.

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.