Public Service Announcement

Okay, there are a couple things going on in the polish blogging community that I'd like to mention. *taps microphone* Ahem... hello? Hello? Is this thing on? Check... check...



First of all, OC Nail Art has generously increased the value of the 'scrangie' discount code! Instead of 20% off, it's now worth 30% off. And they still honor all competitor's codes, so if you have a code for more than my 30% off, it will apply to your order! How about that. Isn't that awesome?

Edit: Since it's been asked, I do not receive any commission from Kathleen at OC Nail Art. There is no personal benefit for me. It's all for you guys- it's a discount, nothing more!

And on a Konad related note, on to the next announcement...

Sasse's 'Nad Stamping Stampede is doing a Halloween mani contest, where one of the prizes is the Konad Coraline Set A. Head over there to check out the other prizes and submit your entry!

And last but definitely not least...

The lovely Diana at Painted Lady Fingers is having a Painted Halloween Lady giveaway! The prize is a bottle of rare, discontinued Essie St. Martin Mint and an original Halloween painting by Art By Sarada. This painting is amazing- I had a little freak-out when I saw it. It's pretty much the coolest painting EVER.

Color Club Master of Disguise for Halloween 2009

Of course, by now you all know how crazy I am about seasonal-themed things, especially Halloween nail polish... Here's another cute set I love from Color Club!


Here's the little set. Isn't it cute? These are minis. Ghost of Chance, Abracadabra, Taboo!, Master of Disguise.


Ghost of Chance. Pure white creme. This is pretty much your standard white creme. Good formula, fast drying.

Abracadabra. Orange glitter in an orange jelly base. This is awesome! Orange glitter! This is really unique as well, I've never seen another polish quite like this one. Also looks great layered.


Taboo! Deep shimmery blue based purple. This picture lies about the color. It's really purple. You know, cameras and purple, that thing. This is a reminiscent of OPI Ink or Color Club Electronica, to give you an idea. Super, super pretty.

Master of Disguise. Black creme. A basic black creme. This could be a re-named Where's The Soiree? but I find the formula of this one to be better. This wasn't watery or sheer, in fact, it was dense, smooth and opaque. *Almost* a one-coater.


Here's Abracadabra layered:
Abracadabra over Ghost Of Chance.

Abracadabra over Master Of Disguise.

Abracadabra over Taboo! This one looks really cool in person but the photo doesn't really capture it.


Cute cute cute!! I love Color Club.

China Glaze Halloween Glitters plus New Matte Magic topcoat

China Glaze released not one but TWO new Halloween-themed glitters this year. How awesome is that? Halloween... glitter... black... orange... Of course, for me it was love at first sight. Have a look!


Fortune Teller. Black creme base with small round orange glitter and large hexagonal orange glitter. I *believe* this is a Sally Beauty exclusive, but don't quote me on that. Anyway, this is right up my alley. It is just utterly gorgeous and *perfect* for Halloween. The glitter really shows through the dense black base and it has a very smooth finish. It does benefit from a coat of topcoat, but I don't find that it needs more than one.

Spellbound. Large round silver glitter, small round orange glitter and large hexagonal orange glitter. This is designed to be used as a topcoat, but it's dense enough to be used on its own if you prefer. This is three coats- there are a few bald spots but I'm satisfied with the coverage at this stage. The silver glitter is the dominant feature in this polish. It's a unique silver glitter as well- very smooth and shiny, like little metal plates.

Spellbound looks nice enough by itself, but where it really shines is on top of black:

Ugh, this is just impossibly gorgeous. I can't stop looking at it. It's all I want to wear right now! This is one coat over black and one coat of topcoat. And please excuse the tipwear, this was taken after two days of wear.


But China Glaze didn't just give us these awesome unique glitters for Halloween, they gave us another way to wear them. Matte Magic Matte Topcoat.

Matte Magic over Fortune Teller. I can hardly believe how cool this looks. It reminds me right away of a volcanic eruption or large fire. To me it looks like hot embers floating upward through thick black smoke. Or it reminds me of rivers of magma coming up through the ground, streams of lava flowing down the hillside and cooling- turning to black on the surface with hints of molten earth showing through.

Matte Magic over Spellbound over black. This one is just fun and awesome. It looks like a party. Halloween confetti. Candy in colorful metallic wrappers. I am completely in love with this look, it's ridiculous. I think these glitters were great before, but they're even BETTER as mattes. Matte glitter is mesmerizing. Can't get enough.

Matte Magic is also really nice. It gives a very matte finish, comparable to Essie's Matte About You Matte Finisher. And I know this is a very shallow reason, but I kinda like Matte Magic better because of the bottle. This bottle is adorable. I love the font, it reminds me of Bewitched. China Glaze did a really great job.

I know that Spellbound is sold in a set which includes Liquid Leather, White Out and Ghoulish Glow Glow In The Dark topcoat, but I already had all of those so I just bought the Spellbound by itself. The set is *really* cute though, it has a green background and a little witch... so adorable. I might go back and get it for the packaging alone!

Oh man... I freakin' love glitter.

These are available now, but Fortune Teller may only be available at Sally Beauty Supply.

OPI Mini Halloween Kit for 2009: Tattoo Ta-Boo!

I love Halloween.... Oh yes. Halloween rocks. HALLOWEEN!!! WOOHOO!

*ahem*

Anyway, OPI usually indulges my Halloween obsession each year by releasing either Halloween-themed polishes or a mini nail art set like this.

Here's the set all together. It comes with four polishes and some temporary tattoos. I can add them to my collection!


Tattoo You Want Candy? Orange creme. This is a medium orange creme, I think they release this color every year for Halloween. I don't remember which OPI Orange this is a duplicate of, but I think they just re-name it every year.


Witch Arm? Black creme. This is almost a one-coat black. Very smooth.

I Love Mummy. White creme. Also very opaque. I did two coats and it looks perfect, that's rare for white. I'm thinking this is Alpine Snow.


Glow-Ink In The Dark. Light blue/purple glow in the dark. The star of the collection. This is a very sheer polish so you can use it as a glow in the dark topcoat without completely covering the color underneath. The glow on this is pretty strong, but not as strong as Wet N Wild Fantasy Makers Night Glow. I tried for about an hour to get a picture of it in the dark, but I was unsuccessful. I think perhaps The Nailphile had a picture of the glow? I know for sure *someone* did, I will have to double check. Anyway... This is a really interesting looking polish. It looks like it has shimmer or glitter particles, but they're really just speckles of the phosphorescent material that makes it glow. View this full size to see what I mean! It's really cool.

The formula on these is great. Pretty much your standard OPI formula. I did two coats of all the opaque polishes and five coats of Glow-Ink In The Dark. They all dried very quickly, even my five coats of Glow-Ink In The Dark. The only application issue with these is that they're mini and therefore have mini brushes. It can be hard to keep enough polish on the brush for a smooth application. Other than that, no problems.

The back of the box gives some instructions and ideas for Halloween nail art. I haven't tried any of the designs, but they all look very easy to do with the included polishes.

This collection is really cute for Halloween. Can you imagine going Trick or Treating and getting one of these? That would be awesome. I'd love to live in a world where they hand out nail polish on Halloween! Nothing wrong with a little fantasy... *sigh* Hahahaha :)

Normally I think OPI's names are witty and cute, but these make me groan. I know I've said this before about something, but these are worse than ordering at Denny's. They're so cheesy, I feel embarrassed typing them out! Tattoo You Want Candy??? Witch Arm?? I hope no one asks me what polish I'm wearing. I might cry.

But, overall, it's Halloween-themed so I automatically love it. This would be an ideal set for someone who wants to experiment with these colors and doesn't want to commit to buying full bottles. Black, white, orange and glow in the dark are 'normal' colors for me, so having them in mini size in a Halloween decorated box is very appealing to me. Would also make a great gift. I wish more companies would do Halloween sets!

Zoya UltraGlitter Preview

Sorry about the lack of posting yesterday... To make up for it, here's some awesome news from Zoya. You might have seen this already, but it never hurts to look at it again!

Edit: Okay guys... I'm a person, not a swatching robot.... I don't even have them yet! (-_-);;

WINTER 2009/2010 - LIMITED EDITION

introducing
ULTRAGLITTER
ZOYA JUST REDEFINED GLAM!

Exclusive ULTRAGLITTER formula provides full coverage in just two coats for ultra-intense, ultra-beautiful, ultra-glitter color!

Luna (ZP501) - Silver ULTRAGLITTER!!!
Astra (ZP502) - Peach/Rose ULTRAGLITTER!!!

Nova(ZP503) - Magenta ULTRAGLITTER!!!

$6.00 per 0.5 oz bottle U.S.

BEAT THE OCT. PRICE INCREASE
(after Oct 1, 2009 $7.00 Sug. Retail)

PRE-ORDER NOW

AVAILABLE 10/01/09

Diamond Cosmetics Fall 2009

This was supposed to be posted weeks ago... But better late than never!

Angelic. Sheer clean white. This is a very sheer shade, a soft squishy-looking white that looks very clean and bright. That is... if your nails aren't stained like mine! (They actually look a lot better since this picture was taken). I did four coats on this to see if I could get it to be opaque. Sheers make me feel naked. As you can see, it's not opaque at four coats so it's best left as a sheer or a base for a french manicure.

Never So Evergreen. Smoky blue-toned green with gold shimmer. Gorgeous. This green fits in with that 'smoky' sub-trend I'm noticing this fall. Lots of dark, cloudy looking shades. This one is a fairly dark shade of green, slightly blue-toned and speckled with golden shimmer particles. This shimmer definitely looks like individual particles rather than an all-over shimmer effect. It looks hazy.

Plum Pie In The Sky. Vampy blue-purple creme. This one was so hard to photograph. It's a very dark 'blurple' (that's such a funny word!)- in real life it's a little more purple and less blue than the photograph shows. This color also strikes me as being smoky. It has that soft, dusty, hazy look.

The Naughty Intern. Glossy wine red creme. This shade is pretty straight forward: wine red. It's dark but I don't know if I'd place it in the vampy category, it's still pretty light as far as wine-reds go. More of a medium red I'd say.

So Berry Sweet. Bright pink berry creme. This was another hard-to-capture shade. It's a nearly-neon shade of berry pink, kind of fuchsia, kind of purple... right in between there somewhere.



Sweet As Sugar. Sheer pinkish-nude crystalline shimmer. This one is really beautiful. My pictures don't really capture the effect, but this is made up of tiny crystal shimmer beads. When the light hits this, it sparkles in all different colors. It's a little bit like OPI Princesses Rule or Hollywood Blonde, same type of shimmer and finish. It's very sheer, but almost too dense for layering.

And here are two other shades from Diamond:
Fuchsia Flash. Bright fuchsia shimmer with a strong blue/violet flash.


Tropical Dream. Smooth light orange with fine gold shimmer.

The formula on these is good. It's a thick formula and it's pretty easy to apply. Opacity is good on all shades but the sheers. Some only need one coat, but I did three just because. Out of habit, I suppose. The drying time on these is a little on the slow side. I'd recommend a good quick-dry topcoat with these. Some shades dried a lot faster than others, it may depend on the pigment.

Overall, some really nice shades, good formula and extremely affordable. In case you've forgotten, Diamond Cosmetics shades are $2 a bottle. They have a pretty good color selection and are always releasing new shades.

And I'm also happy to say that Diamond Cosmetics has a new color chart on their website! I remember when I first heard about Diamond Cosmetics' website, all they had were these teeny-tiny little color dots and you couldn't tell what color the polish was and they went by number so you were basically ordering blind. Not anymore! They have big, accurate color samples and names to go along with the numbers. Check it out! While you're there, you should try out their Super Base basecoat and their Almond Cuticle Oil with Ginseng. The Super Base is a really nice basecoat to use with these, it really grips the polish while you're applying, and the Almond cuticle oil smells really good but also doubles as a speed-dryer (like those drops I love!)

As far as I'm aware, Diamond Cosmetics can only be purchased from their website.

New OPI Designer Series Shades for Fall 2009

A little while ago, OPI released two new gorgeous shades to the Designer Series line. The OPI Designer Series is known for being holographic, so that's what I was expecting. I was surprised to see that these two shades were not holographic, but holo or not, they're beautiful.

Since I couldn't get one good picture of either of them, how about a bunch of crappy pictures of both?

Glow, outdoors, overcast.

Glow, with flash.

Glow, indoors, ambient light.

Glow, dim sunlight. OPI Designer Series Glow is a copper-gold-bronze metallic fusion. It's made up of lots of little metal platelets, all of different shades and they combine to make a super-sparkly warm-to-neutral light gold and copper shade. It can take on some orange tones depending on the light, as seen in these pictures. It can also look more neutral and golden. It all depends on how the light is reflecting off the metallic particles. Even though it's not holo, it's ridiculously beautiful. It sparkles like crazy. As a bonus, it behaves like a glitter but it's not a glitter so there's no difficult removal process.


Mystery, outdoors, overcast.

Mystery, with flash, blurred to enhance shimmer.


Mystery, indoors, ambient light.

Mystery, dim sunlight.

OPI Designer Series Mystery is a deep translucent or jelly-like purple base with tons of gold shimmer flakes. It's not glitter circles- they're tiny, super thin little flecks of gold. Irregular shapes. Smooth, not bumpy. On the first coat you can see that the base is a vibrant blue-toned purple with glistening gold dust. I like the way it looks with one coat, but I hate visible nail line so I do two. With two coats it becomes a deep vampy purple jelly with a large amount of gold flakes. This is unique in my collection and it's beautiful to behold.

The formula on both of these is consistent with previous Designer Series shades. Thin, smooth, very quick drying, easy to apply. These are very opaque, pictured above are two coats of polish. Some of the previous Designer Series shades needed three or more coats depending on the shade. There really don't need more than two but would probably look even better with more. I had zero application issues.

While I am a little disappointed that OPI didn't release two new holographic shades, I still love these. They're unique and sparkly and are both something I would actually wear. I think they would even look good together, either as a mani/pedi combo or with some nail art. In fact, I think I'm going to try that. Maybe a funky french.

Maybe OPI will do some more holos next year. OPI, if you're listening, I want the smooth linear holographic effect of the original Designer Series polishes, and this time I want darker shades. A dark purple, a bright yellow (not gold), a true red (not coral or pink), a dark green and possibly a true orange (also not coral or pink).

What? A little wishful thinking never hurt anyone ;-)

Nubar Royal Gems Collection Fall 2009

The Nubar Royal Gems collection is a set of seven gem-toned polishes with glitter accents plus one semi-sheer glitter for layering (but if you ask me, it looks fine by itself as well!)



24k. Bright yellow gold shimmer with gold microglitter. To be completely honest, I was expecting this polish to be a total disaster, but it wasn't! It's actually great! Usually a shimmer base metallic plus glitter equals lumpy mess, but that isn't the case with this. You can see all of the glitter through the shimmer, it's mostly smooth and it has just enough sparkle. The yellow toned base looks really good with the slightly more golden-brown toned gold glitter.


Amethyst. Vivid dimensional purple shimmer with blue microglitter. These pictures lie about the color. It's really not that blue. Cameras don't like purple. Anyway, this is a really gorgeous shade of purple, slightly blue-toned but with some great red shimmer highlights, lots of sparkle and dimension plus barely-visible blue microglitter. This one looks a little bumpy. I'm not sure what the trick is with this- I've worn twice, once with lumps and once without and I don't know what I did differently.


Emerald. Light blue-toned green shimmer with green microglitter. While the rest of the shades in this collection exceeded my expectations, this one didn't even meet them. I do like the color of the base and the glitter, but they don't seem to get along with each other. The base of Emerald is very dense and shimmery, almost frosty even. The glitter can't break through the dense metallic base, so you end up with little lumps that look like bubbles. I think this would have worked if the glitter was larger or if the base was less metallic and a little thinner.


Platinum. Bright white-silver shimmer with silver microglitter. This is another shade that I didn't think would turn out as well as it did. It's beautiful! A very shimmery, pearly silver punctuated by tiny silver microglitter. The glitter isn't the main feature of this polish, either- it's quite subtle. It adds a little bit of extra sparkle that makes you want to look at it a while longer.

Ruby. Bright pink-toned red shimmer with red microglitter. I was expecting this to be yet another Ruby Pumps clone, but I'm pleased to say that it isn't! (Even though I would have liked that anyway.) This is a nearly magenta red shimmer, maybe in the light end of medium depth with just a splash of tiny red glitter. Like the others, the glitter isn't the prominent feature, it just adds a little extra sparkle.


Sapphire. Medium blue shimmer with blue microglitter. WOW. This one needed two pictures because it's so gorgeous. This is, in my humble opinion, the star of the collection. It looks like sparkling gems! I've been wearing this as a pedicure for almost two weeks now and I don't want to take it off. The blue base is so shimmery on it's own that it doesn't even need the glitter to be eye-catching, but the addition of the glitter puts it over the top. Way to go, Nubar!! Best blue shimmer I've seen in a long time. Reminds me of an old discontinued China Glaze, Eyes Like Sapphires? Drinkin' My Blues Away? Perhaps both.


Tiger's Eye. Rich cherry-brown shimmer. This is the only one in the collection that doesn't have glitter. That's okay, it doesn't need it. It's beautiful on its own. You can't go wrong with reddish brown for fall, it's the color of the changing leaves! It reminds me of the rosewood fretboard on one of my guitars. It's rich and shimmery and the shimmer has a texture to it that reminds me of really pretty wood grain. I don't know what it is... this polish just makes me think of wooden things.

Tiara. Sheer opalescent glitter. See, I think it looks fine by itself! It's that type of fine, sheer, pastel opal glitter that makes me think of snow globes. You can see the glitter take on all kinds of shades- yellow, gold, pastel green, pastel blue, orange, pink... Pastel iridescent. The base is unusual- it seems like it should be sheer, but it looks cloudy. I think there's some smaller crystal shimmer in the base that makes it look milky.

Tiara over black. You can see the tint in the base this way. Little speckles of shimmer.


Since Tiara was made for layering, here are all of the shades in the collection with one coat of Tiara.

Tiara over 24k.

Tiara over Amethyst. Color is not accurate- Amethyst is purple.


Tiara over Emerald.


Tiara over Platinum.

Tiara over Ruby.
Tiara over Sapphire.

Tiara over Tiger's Eye.


The formula on these is very good. A little thick but easy to work with- no streaks, no pooling, no bald spots. They are very opaque. A lot of the shades were completely opaque in one coat, but I did two of each anyway. Some of the polishes do tend to look lumpy because of the glitter. Drying time is a little on the long side even with Diamont, but nothing unbearable. The wear seems great so far on my toes, but something bizarre happened to me with Amethyst. It cracked! I wore it for almost an entire day and something happened where the polish just... shattered... like glass! It all fell off in large shards. That hasn't happened since and I don't know what was going on that caused it to do that. I will have to experiment.

I would love to give this collection a completely perfect review because I think the concept is excellent, but I don't think I can. Some of these polishes have a lumpy/bumpy look because the glitter is too fine to come through the base. That's my one complaint about these. Now, I mentioned above that one of the times I wore Amethyst it was perfectly smooth and once it was lumpy. There has to be some trick with application or topcoat to get it as smooth as it was. It tends to look smoother without topcoat, which is odd, I know, but it seems like the topcoat exaggerates the glitter-bumps. However, one of the times I wore it, it had topcoat and one finger was perfectly glassy smooth and the rest were slightly bumpy. I used Nubar Nu Nail basecoat and Nubar Diamont topcoat just to be sure I was doing everything right. I need to do some more experiments with these to find the secret. Any ideas? I'm open to suggestion!

Overall, I do like this collection. What can I say, you show me some glitter and I'll be happy as a clam. I like almost all the shades and the formula was really nice and smooth. Sapphire is totally backup-worthy. I'd call it a must-have for blue lovers. I can't stop looking at mine.

The Nubar Royal Gems collection goes on sale September 15th at ByNubar.com.