Monday, May 18, 2009

More from BB Couture For Nails!

BB Couture is another brand that is new to me but has been consistently shocking me with their unique and creative shades.

I remember that when I reviewed my first BB Couture Polishes, I was under the impression that the line was 'boring pinks and reds with a few awesome colors' tossed in. I was totally wrong. After viewing an actual color chart of all the BB Shades, it's clear that the awesome colors strongly outnumber the boring pinks and reds.

Here are a few of their amazing new shades (and a couple older but still new to me ones!)


Hermosa Surfer Girl. A deep pink jelly with multicolored glitter. This is a berry-pink, maybe a fuchsia? It's fairly bright bright but also mellow and rich. The glitter in this is hard to describe- it seems multicolored or at least iridescent as I can see gold silver and green clearly. I'm not sure if it's one type of glitter flashing different colors or a bunch of different colors of glitter.

Laguna Lagoon. Light mint green creme. This color reminds me a little bit of mint chocolate chip ice cream, but maybe a little lighter. Very pretty. This shade also had a particularly smooth formula, which is very rare for opaque milky pastels.


Midnight Malibu. Deep ink blue with multicolored glitter. This looks a lot more purple to me in the bottle, but when I apply it it's definitely a deep blue. Maybe a touch of purple. This has the same multicolored glitter as Hermosa Surfer Girl, but it has a touch of bar glitter thrown in as well. The bar glitter, although I love it, doesn't do much in this polish as it rarely makes it from the bottle onto your nail.

Moon Over Manhattan. Faded blue with subtle glitter. This is a really unique shade. I don't think I've seen anything like it. The shade of blue is really soft and faded looking, almost like it has a grey haze. It's more of a medium blue bordering on dark. The glitter in this is really subtle. It doesn't really sparkle much and it's not immediately noticeable but it adds a little depth and interest to the blue creme base.


Pink Champagne. Light pink shimmer with slight green flash. This has a shimmery, frosty almost metallic finish. It's a delicate light pink but to keep it from being too plain it has a touch of green flash that's noticeable at extreme angles. The green flash is more prominent in the bottle than on the nails.


Raspberry Cosmo. Hot pink with blue flash. Ooh, this picture didn't turn out so good. Anyway, this is another almost-metallic finish, and the hot pink base is accented with a subtle blue/purple flash.

Venice Party. Cornflower blue shimmer with silver glitter. This is another faded-looking blue. Quite pretty. This one is also very subtly duochrome, but only if you're looking closely. It is sprinkled with silver glitter. I have to be honest with you, I don't think this particular formula works. I've mentioned before the issue that arises when you add glitter to a thin metallic base. Instead of seeing a lot of sparkles on top of the polish, you get a weird bumpy texture that looks a little like bubbles. I like the color and that it has glitter, but I think the glitter needs to be bigger in order to break through the base color.

Venom. Frosty green. Venom is a medium green shade with silvery frost. I like the base color but I can't say I'm wild about the frosty finish. It tends to show brushtrokes so you must be very careful to apply it evenly. You can see in the picture where some of my strokes are more diagonal and some are vertical... Be mindful of your strokes when applying so you don't end up with that.


Balboa Beach Bunny. Rich purple with glitter. This one, like Midnight Malibu, contains bar glitter in addition to regular glitter. I love bar glitter. Unfortunately, this one does the same as Midnight Malibu- it has pretty bar glitter in the bottle but only one or two pieces actually end up on your nail. I'd love it even more if it had more bar glitter!

Blind Love. Green-gold metallic shimmer. This one is spectacular. It's bright and reflective but also has a fiery sparkle to it. It's an almost dead-on duplicate of Chanel Kaleidoscope. The difference between this and Kaleidoscope is one of them is a touch more green, but it's not noticable.


Dark Knight. Black with heavy gold shimmer. Oooh, this one is cool. It's a little bit like some of the other black-with-gold polishes that give the illusion of being a rich olive green. Dark Knight is extremely hot, very interesting to look at and I love the name as well.


Green Goblin. Forest green creme. I know I've posted this already, but it's so good I need to post it again. This time we get a rich, foresty, mossy dark green instead of all of the nearly-impossible to pull off and quite unappealing light yellow-greens we always see. I love this color so much, I might need twenty-seven backups.

Iced Olive. Shimmery olive. Another unique green! This one is a medium olive green, more on the deep green side than the yellow-green side with lots of gold shimmer. It's like the gold shimmer in Dark Knight. The cool thing about this kind of gold shimmer is that it gives it that bright in the middle/dark on the edges sort of look indoors. Like the center of the polish is glowing. Super cool.


Aren't those colors fantastic?! BB Couture For Nails is really surprising me lately. Almost every single color they've released since the first time I tried them as been edgy, unique and fun. Rock on!!

The formula on this is good, but inconsistent. Some are thick, some are thin, some are somewhere in between. The formula of these is much better than the first BB Coutures I tried, which had Three-Free Syndrome. These are a lot more smooth and less drippy/runny/gooey. I had trouble applying the frosty ones, but the cremes and glitters were perfect. Drying time is average.

I'm really happy that BB Couture is doing all of these unconventional colors. This is definitely a brand to keep your eye on. Lots of fun surprises. I'm really looking forward to seeing what comes next. So much potential! Potential and also proof that they're willing to do exciting colors!

BB Couture retails for $8.00 and can be purchased from Overall Beauty (I highly recommend and I can personally vouch for their great customer service) or directly from the manufacturer's website (but it doesn't appear to have all the shades).

26 comments:

  1. I adore these colors. You have my favorite Green Goblin on those gorgeous nails of yours. All those polishes looks pretty on you. They do have the best customer service. I love their polish and will have to buy more.

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  2. Laguna Lagoon is lovely. Especially since i'm really into mint greens right now.

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  3. Lucy, thank you!! :) Kim at Overall Beauty is a real sweetheart!

    Emelie, it is really nice and smooth, too! Not like the old OPI light greens that took 3048579 coats to be even, haha :)

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  4. the colors are all very nice. I wouldn't know which one to choose. I guess that brand isn't available in germany either. I absolutely have to visit the states soon.

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  5. As always, thank you for the great swatches and reviews. You've helped me fine-tune my lemming list and I really appreciate it! Venice Party is officially no longer desired and Moon Over Manhattan shall be mine!!

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  6. I ordered some of those recently! Moon Over Manhattan is really unique and gorgeous and Hermosa Surfer Girl is such a good summer color. I did notice that the Overall page noted that Hermosa Surfer Girl was both new and being discontinued, though--so to anyone wanting it, get it now!

    I tried out Sea of Cortez for an entire week without any chipping--that stuff wears like iron.

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  7. Raspberry Cosmo & Venice Party are sexy! I think I'm obsessed with pinks with a blue flash now.

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  8. This is completely off the subject, but I was wondering if you could tell me where I can buy some of the OPI Colorcopia collection. I've looked in local nail salons - nada. I've also checked 8ty8 and head2toe; the latter hasn't gotten a fresh OPI collection since France! Any ideas?

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  9. Wuschel, I hope you can get some :)

    Fauxfun, thank you! :)

    Pawssies, thank you! I do too :)

    Kate, I got really good wear from Sea of Cortez, too :) Is Hermosa being discontinued already?! I know it replaced Sunset Surfer Girl which was discontinued too, yeesh!

    Phyrra, I love blue-flash pinks, especially Zoya Kiki and Vivi :)

    Mari, thank you :)

    Melanie, confusing, isn't it? I don't think Head2Toe will be getting any new OPIs :( 8ty8 has them but they're not up on the website, you have to email them and ask for them. Transdesign has them all though :)

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  10. Hi Scrangie!
    Just to let you know Hermosa Surfer Girl is NOT being discontinued! Looks I need to check the words and be sure it says that. :)
    Surfer Girl is the only one lately that has been discontinued.
    Thanks most of all for all your kind words. I try..
    Just to let you know my new fav is Obsession! I never thought I would wear dark nail polish or greens by the way. And my fav green has to be Green Goblin! And yes I do have backups for that one!
    Have a lovely nail polish dreamy day!

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  11. Moon Over Manhatten is my favorite, I love a faded teal. They're all just lovely!

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  12. Oh yay, HSG isn't d/c! I checked the item page before I posted and it did say that, but it's gone now so it must have been left in from something else. Maybe I'll go put it on now, just to squander it a little!

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  13. I love your blog! It is amazing. I'm a nail polish lover too but some of these brands and shades you have on here, I have never even heard of and now am trying to find them online to purchase them. Once again, you've done an amazing job!!

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  14. If you haven't tried it already, I highly recommend their polish in diamond dust. The site description makes it sound boring but it's a polish of just the green/gold glitter that's in sea of cortez, frosty meadow, and from what you've described, I think hermosa surfer girl as well.

    It's awesome over purples like China glaze's grape juice. That's been my pedi for the past week, it reminds me of Mardi Gras :)

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  15. Love these colors. Also have a request, but to lazy to email. I wanna see Opi That's All Bright with Me. Please and thank you.

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  16. I NEED Hermosa Surfer Girl! Gorgeous! Thanks for swatching!

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  17. Are dark knight and wagon trail different enough to own both? Which has more visible gold to it?

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  18. Thanks for the great swatches, Scrangie! Amazing colors! I totally need the greens!
    I checked Overall Beauty but the page wouldn't show any product names or details, just the image of the polish... also, the page switched to German language which doesn't make the whole thing better (don't get me wrong, I am German, but it is unneccessary and obviously incorrect displaying). I guess that's why it's lacking the product info.
    Does anyone else have these problems?
    You were right, Scrangie, the BB homepage doesn't have any of the new colors.

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  19. Quick question about Illamasqua - when you ordered, how long did it take for you to receive your shipment?

    I want to order but am afraid of it being seized by customs or something.

    Just wondering how long I can expect it to take. Thanks!

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  20. You're totally right about the glitter in Venice Party. Before I read the paragraph below the pic, I thought those were bubbles.

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  21. Scrangie dear, you are a very dangerous woman! I just ordered six polishes from Overall beauty. Did you see the grey glitter, Opposites Attract (i think that is the name)? I had to order that because it was so stunning!

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  22. HI again!
    I got the problem fixed and it shouldn't change over to German.
    I love reading your blog and the comments are really helping me better word things and your amazing readers find issues that I didn't know are happening!
    BTW watch the mail.. got something special coming your way! ;)

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  23. Scrangie, you hit the target dead-center with Dark Knight! That is truly a sensational color, and unfortunatley, the pic does not capture all the shimmery gold sparkle in it in real life.
    Iced Olive is another that is just amazing in real life. Teh gold shimmer makes it "pop" with gleam!
    These both make fantastic toe colors too!

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  24. Love these summer shades, even if they are from 2009...they work for me now!

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