New Xtreme Wears, Fall 2010

Man I love Xtreme Wears. I get very excited for new displays. I love the colors, I love the brush, I love the colors.... just all good.

Purple Gala - Man I love this. I wore it for 5 days which for me is a loooong time. It is a purple base that is foily in finish with metallic gold flakes adding to the depth, and foil look. I love it. It looks very similar to Hard Candy - Mr. Wrong, but they are not dupes. I did a comparison:

Index and Ring: Mr. Wrong and Middle and Pinky: Purple Gala
It looks to me like Mr. Wrong is more grayed of a purple. In the swatch it also looks like it has more gold in it. But I like Purple Gala for a few reasons:
- I like the base color better
- I like the formula better. Purple Gala is 2 coats and Mr. Wrong is 3.
- Purple Gala is cheaper and has a bigger bottle
- Purple Gala is more accessible: Hard Candy is only at Wal-Mart.

Purple Fiesta - At first glance I thought there was more of a fiesta happening here. In the bottle it sure looks more exciting. All the holo glitter and holo bar glitter. But on the nail it got lost. Until I came up with an idea. I did three thin, thin coats instead of two coats. Then the glitter comes through more, and more layers gives you more glitter! I love the base color of this. This swatch is top coat-less so it would look a lot cooler with a smooth finish.

Concrete - This doesn't look much like concrete, unless concrete is purple? This is a grayed out purple creme. A "gravender", if you will. I love this. This is two coats.

Plum Burst - Oooh! How pretty. This is a bold, magenta-purple creme. It is very pretty and exciting! It may not be terribly unique, but I like it. This is 2 coats.

Mystic Lilac - This is a recent nail junkie favorite. I like it myself! It is a very gray lavender that has lots of super shiny, emerald green shimmer. The formula is thin on this, but it's a good thing because it lets the shimmer shine through. This is 3 coats.

These new Xtremes are on a new display in drugstores now and they retail for $2.99

What do you think?
:c)
-Elaine

Gold and Diamonds

Hello!

So I think I am just too cute. Look what I came up with using an Orly Foil FX shade, Rage:

So what I did: I started with Rage which is this incredible, shimmery, molten metal, foil, rose gold. Then I stamped "twinkles" and diamonds with black polish and Konad plate M14. "Big deal, Laine. What is so damn cute about that?" WELL!! This is what. I added prismatic glitter to the diamonds with Cover Girl - City Lights top coat and that made the diamonds look like they are twinkling! CUTE!

(Blurred to show the holographicness)

What do you think?

:cD
-Elaine

Black Label OPIs

I'm back with more. Told you I would be!

I got a hold of a few black label OPI nail polishes from a friend. What does "black label" mean? I will tell you:

Nowadays most new nail polishes are free of the 3 big "bad" chemicals: toulene, formaldehyde, and dibutyl phthalate (DBP). You will often polish-heads refer to them as "the big three" and polishes without them as "big three free" or "B3F".

You can quickly spot bottles that have had their chemical formulations changed among some of our favorite brands, such as OPI, Essie and China Glaze by their labels. Newer China Glaze bottles have black labels with white writing, indicating they are B3F, where as older bottles have white labels with black writing, meaning they were made before the formulation change.

The same is true of OPI, but a little different. Newer polishes released by OPI have white labels with green text, and older bottles before the formulation change have white labels with black text, deeming them "black label OPIs".

Black label on left, green label (B3F) on right

I recently explained this to a friend and she was intrigued. While visiting family she snagged a few OPIs from her sister for me to play with since they were black label, meaning they may be pretty old. I suspect some may be extremely old. I have never even heard of any of these shades. Want to see? Sure!

Royal Flush Blush - This is a blush pink metallic. Has some brush strokes but I could live with it. I don't know that I would actually ever wear it though.

Pink-Ing of You - Now this one I have heard of. Unfortunately this one broke on my friend. I really don't trust OPI bottles. She managed to save most of it and put it in a Cover Girl bottle. The application was rather horrible. I needed to do 4 coats and it still isn't even but it may be because of the Cover Girl brush. I don't know.

God Save The Queen's Nails - I love this one for the name. And that is about it. The application was rather uneven and needed three coats. And the color rather bores me. Burgundy shimmer...whatever. Next.

Gala Gold - This I can get on board with. This is a gold shimmer. I did three coats for this swatch. What I love about it is that it is not like any other gold I have seen. It isn't a warm yellow gold, but it isn't a neutral or rose gold either. It is like a peach gold? Does that make sense? Whatever it is I like it a lot.

Japanese Rose Garden - Oooh. Another winner. I know it is pink, but it is a pink I really like! It is a creamy, cool pink with a bit of silver shimmer. This swatch is two coats.

Prince George's Passion - Another great name! This is a dusty brick red creme. I am sure OPI has a million of them but this one is nice. This swatch is two coats for the camera, but I wore it as a mani a couple weekends ago and I was able to do just one coat! And it looked great! I wore it for a few days.

Hawaiian Orchid - Another winner! This is a sheer which I wouldn't normally get excited about, but I want to use it for a french mani real bad. It is super smooth and streak free and it has a bit of a blueish flashy shimmer.

Mother Road Rose - I found this rather similar to God Save The Queen's Nails so another snooze fest really, but the application was better than GSTQN. This was two coats.

So overall I like these a lot. Mostly I was excited to try some older shades I may have had a hard time finding if I really wanted to get a hold of them. I would have loved to get like, Rainforest, or some other highly sought after black label but these are nice too!

What do you think? Are you going to go inspect your bottle labels now?!
: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.

Grammy-Gaga Inspired Nails

Hello all! How are all my lovely readers?! :c)

Photo Credit: Us Magazine.com

Today's mani is one I thought up after seeing Lady Gaga's red carpet dress for the Grammy's last Sunday. I wanted to emulate the un-parallel lines and the soft purple hues (as well as the crazy pointed accessory).

What the mani consists of:
China Glaze - Light As Air (like the dress. Doesn't look like if a gust of wind got caught under there she would just blow away?)
Milani - Cloud 9
China Glaze - Devotion
LA Colors Art Deco - Silver Glitter
China Glaze - Harmony
Not Pictured: Rhinestones, Seche Vite and striper brush

I started with a base of Milani - Cloud 9.
Next, I took the striper brush and used it with China Glaze - Light As Air to make several horizontal lines on each nail covering the entire nail, but making them un-parallel to each other, so some are straight and some are not and some intersect.
Then, I took China Glaze - Harmony and did the same thing over the first stripes.
After that, I did the same with China Glaze - Devotion.
Lastly, I did the same striping with LA Colors Art Deco - Silver Glitter.

I decided to throw in the starbust accessory on the thumbs. I took a drop of Devotion and added a bit of Harmony to it on a paper plate. I mixed them with a toothpick and using the striper brush I painted the starburst on my thumbs with the mixture. I added a lavender rhinestone to the center.
Finally I topped all the nails with a coat of Seche Vite top coat and viola! Nails to go "gaga" for!!


Aren't you glad I didn't use this for inspiration?! :cD >>>

Photo Credit: The Washington Post

Have a great day!
-Elaine

Blue Blue Blue

Happy Monday all! Hope yours is good! I can't say mine isn't but it wasn't the greatest start to the day. It's all good though. I'm staying positive!

I finally saw Avatar over the weekend and all that blue got me thinking of a Avatar-inspired, blue manicure. So I did one!

I used BB Couture - Kyona Beach as a base, stamped with China Glaze - Adore from the Romantiques Collection (my favorite Konad polish) and Konad plate M57.

I took it a step further with a little blue glitter accenting some of the stripes with LA Colors Art Deco - Blue Glitter. I don't know if I like it as much with the glitter, but it's still nice.


Did you like Avatar? Have you seen it? Did you see it in 3D? I did! It was awesome! I haven't been to a 3D movie in years. Like, maybe 10 years? I plan to go to more now though.

A Very Merry Un-Birthday

Here is a little something I rocked over the weekend. I started with a base of NYX - Dancing Queen, then I did a glitter gradient of OPI - Mad As A Hatter and a gradient of Lippmann Collection - Happy Birthday. I call it "A Very Merry Un-Birthday"!

The gradient wasn't very difficult to do. I started at the base, and with less polish on the brush than I would need for the whole nail, I made a couple of swipes only on the bottom third of the nail. Then I pushed a little bit toward the tip to get those few loose looking pieces. I did this with both glitters. Once the glitter was where I wanted it, I added a top coat and viola!

NYX - Dancing Queen, OPI - Mad As A Hatter, Lippmann Collection - Happy Birthday

Have a great Monday!
-Elaine

BB Couture For Nails Disco Ball Collection Swatches

As promised : BB Couture - Disco Ball Swatches! I love these polishes!

Hustle - OMG! This is my absolute favorite from this collection. Save the best for last? Not this time! This is sooooo pretty! It is a cement gray with a warm silver shimmer...if that makes sense. Maybe a pale gold? It's warmer than silver, but it's not yellow gold. Maybe a soft, neutral gold? Pewter?! I don't know, but it's friggin great.

Dancing Queen - This is a soft bronze metallic with shimmer. Very minimal brushstrokes, and very very pretty.

Studio 54 - Green lovers, get this! This is a gorgeous jewel green with sparse green micro glitter. My camera always takes away the magic in greens this shade. It is a bit prettier in real life.

Disco Ball - Silver mettalic with silver glitter and holographic bar glitter. It looks weird and lumpy in my swatch, dispite using top coat, but it doesn't look so bad in real life. I think looking at it zoomed in all big is a bad idea.

Disco Lady - Vivid medium blue with sparse blue micro glitter. I love this! I love a vivid blue. It looks much more electric in the swatch than in real life though.

The formula of these is the usual smooth, 2-coater that I love from BB Couture and all swatches were 2 coats, except for Disco Ball which needed 3. Nothing unusual to report.

BB Couture has decreased their bottle size, however, from 0.6 oz to 0.5 oz. With that change I was crossing my fingers for a change in brush, but it is still the same skinny little brush.

Overall: Bomb collection! Gray, blue, green! Bar glitter, holo, non-brustrokey metallic?! Awesome.