Zoya Dannii, Faye & Fern

I am so behind on posting stuff - part of me is tempted just to skip it all, but no, I'm determined to get the bulk of this posted here, if nothing else just so *I* have an easier time keeping track of what I bought when later on.

So, I ordered these Zoyas from a promo... I don't know how long ago, maybe last summer? I've completely lost track. It might even have been for Earth Day. But I do remember poking around and looking for colors I'd like to have, and I came up with Dannii, Faye, and Fern. Looking at Zoya's "ZP" numbers, which are sequential, the first two are older polishes but Fern is much more recent.

I'm not sure I've even worn any of these yet.

I looked it up, and Dannii is from spring 2011 - the Intimate collection. Zoya calls it a "metallic shimmer" in medium purple.

Faye is also from 2011, but from the summer Sunshine collection, which one of the ones with all the glass-flecks, I believe. Zoya calls it a "bronzed mauve metallic" - it's sort of in grandma-color territory, but that's not always a bad thing.

And then Fern is from last spring's Innocence collection, "a balanced sage with a beautiful warm pearl accent."

Rachel Zoe Box of Style

I used to be on Rachel Zoe's mailing list (I unsubscribed from it in one of my periodic fits of cutting my e-mail list) so I was already aware of the existence of the Box of Style, which is a quarterly box that she offers. It's $100 so I never really considered buying one before, but in the fall Covet Fashion had a promo with RZ that reduced the price to $70, and you got game money to boot, and I looked at the purse in this box and was tempted into buying one of these for the first time. It was totally worth the money.

(Note that what looks like a dark spot on the flap of the bag is something in the camera, not on the actual bag.) I usually carry a larger bag, but I have been wanting something smaller to carry on the weekends, and this turned out to be exactly right. I believe they said that the retail value of this bag was something like $139 (added: the website says $148), and I like that it's a nice, well-made leather bag - but that's really not why I love this so much. It's really cute and neutral, and it's just the right size for my wallet, phone, keys and a few very small things like a mini-lipstick in the zippered compartment. (Actually I had bought a Vera Bradley wallet from the online outlet last summer - for, like, $12! - I love a bargain - and it's a little larger than some so I thought there was no way it would fit inside this, but it does, barely. Originally I was intending to use the little card case which you can see in the top picture, but I didn't have to. It's much easier to just grab the wallet and move it from one bag to the other.)

The white item visible in the picture above is Shani Darden Texture Reform, which retails for $95. It's a gentle retinol creme meant for sensitive skin, which is exactly what I need. Most retinol/resurfacing-type cremes are way too strong for me.

And then this statement necklace is not something I would normally wear (because it's really heavy, not because it's not cute), but I took it as a given that I could find somebody to take it off my hands, and in the end I gave it to my sister for Christmas and she really loved it. It's from Dannijo, and it retailed for over $200.

There were a couple more items that you can see in the picture up top - and there was a bonus item, a little gold necklace with a star and a moon, which is very much more to my taste in necklaces.

China Glaze holiday polishes

I got hold of a few of these from Polish Pick really early, and I thought, oh, I can post these and be ahead of the crowd for once, and well, somehow that didn't happen.

China Glaze's holiday collection was a second Sesame Street collection (after You Do Hue, last summer). The picture above was about all I had when I picked my colors but I did pretty well, I feel like.

I showed one of these in my favorites post yesterday but here's the swatch of it that I did - this is Since 1969:

Next up is Fa-la-ah-ah-ah!

I liked this a lot but it's really sheer. I could still see enough nail-line to bug me a little bit at three coats. I might try it with some very neutral base the next time.

I haven't worn this one yet - it's Gift Fur You:

Note that there are swatches of it on both sides of Fa-la-ah-ah-ah - above it's by itself, and below it's over black. It gets fairly opaque on its own so it's personal preference on this one, I'd say.

The last one I bought from this collection was #thisismystreet:

There's two swatches here, too, but I managed to get them next to each other this time. I don't really feel like this one works too well on its own, but I haven't gotten around to trying it yet.

Favorites!! for 2019

I went through the polish I wore last year - the first half of the year I was doing really good at keeping a list, and the second half of the year I fell off on the list-keeping but I started posting everything on Instagram instead - and I cut really severely and came up with a shortlist of only eight polishes. That's a very low number, for me. I usually have trouble getting down past twenty.

So here's what I've got - it's three purples, three fuchsias, a steel-gray and a blue-green. (I haven't been this much into fuchsia in a long time! I've always liked it, but I over-did it on fuchsia polish for a couple of years and then didn't have the urge to wear it much for several years after that.)

I put these in order by brand, since so far I haven't settled on one particular favorite:

• China Glaze Since 1969 (from the Sesame Street holiday collection)
• China Glaze Who Wonder (from the Grinch collection last year) 
• Heather's Hues Think Pink (the only indie here, surprisingly)
• Morgan Taylor Sarong But So Right
• Nails Inc Holler-Graphic Get Out Of My Space
• SH Insta-Dri Metallic Seaweed (one of the Crayola Colors)
• SH Insta-Dri Matte Violet Velvet
• SH Mega Strength Sorry Not Sorry

The Grinch polish reminds me to say that my rule has always been that anything that I first wore in a particular year is eligible - it doesn't matter to me if it's actually a new polish or not. The Nails Inc Holler-Graphics must go back to late 2018 as well, and I don't have any idea when Sarong But So Right came out.

Let's see if I can produce pictures for all of them.

This is Since 1969, probably with matte top-coat:

 I've seen people say they hated this one, but I loved it. Particularly with matte top-coat, but really I enjoyed it both ways!

This is Who Wonder after I'd had it on for a week - pretty good!

There are more NOTD pictures and a swatch picture here. It's interesting to see there that at the time, I was just kind of, "meh, another pretty bright pink" - I guess it's grown on me!

Here's Think Pink:

The wheel swatch is here. This has a pink base but it leans more lilac to look at, to my mind.

I think I had had Sarong But So Right on for several days before this picture was taken:

It's tempting to lump it in with that "oh, another fuchsia" thing that I was talking about above, but this one is noticeably more purple - more on the raspberry side, really. (Swatch here.)

Here's Get Out Of My Space, which as you can see is a medium-purple holo:

I like these - they seem to be an interesting mix of linear and scattered holo. The polishes labeled "Holler-graphic" come in a variety of colors, but they all seem to have this same formula, as far as I can tell. (I looked on NailsInc's website and these are mostly gone from there, but that doesn't mean you can't find them around if you're so inclined.)

This is Violet Velvet, from the Insta-Dri Matte collection:

I really liked all of these I've tried, but this one stood out to me the most. (I can't find a picture of the other Insta-Dri on this list, which was Metallic Seaweed from the Crayola Metallic collection. I may have to do something to rectify that!)

And last we have Sorry Not Sorry, from the new-ish Mega Strength line:

So far I haven't decided on one single favorite, which I've done the last several years - if I manage to pick one I'll let y'all know!!

2019 empties (or discards)

I haven't posted much the second half of this past year, so I have all kinds of pictures backed up. I found a lot of makeup buried at the bottom of various storage places. These are not even empties, really - this is the stuff I just tossed out because it's so old I'd never be comfortable using it!

A couple of tinted lip balms (I think these were in my car!):

The top one is Wet n Wild, the other one is Alba.

A box of Feria haircolor which I bought back I-don't-know-when:

(In fact I haven't been coloring my hair at all for the last year or more, so there's some semipermanent gloss-type stuff from Sally's that I also need to throw out in a drawer somewhere.)

A couple of Clinique things that I'm sure came from Clinique Bonus sets, and a stray Revlon eyeshadow. I even have close-ups of these:

These were never very interesting colors. (Also, ugh, these applicators.)

The Revlon one was the only interesting color - but then, y'know, the Clinique bonus sets have to make an attempt to appeal to everybody, so they're always totally middle-of-the-road.

I do like this color, but I'm sure I never wore it much.

Real Things - first mani of 2020

Just so y'all know I'm not gone entirely, here's what I'm wearing now:

This was Lollipop Posse's doorbuster for Black Friday - it was $7 and it was an extra-special bargain because it's a one-coater, and it's super-pretty to boot. It didn't come until shortly before Christmas, being a pre-order, so I put it in with my gifts, and I just now got around to wearing it and I really love it. I've always been a sucker for these kind of darker greens.

I'm working on a "best of 2019" list but this won't be on it since I didn't put it on til after midnight Wednesday - so it's my first manicure of the decade, no less.

I have a list of candidates for 2019 favorites but I haven't gotten as far as ranking them at all yet, but I'll show you a couple of things from that list:

This is Fa-la-ah-ah-ah, from the Sesame Street holiday collection. (Which I never even got around to showing swatches of, I've been highly sidetracked lately.)

Here's another one from that set that I really liked and that's Since 1969. It's a packed gunmetal-ish glitter - I wore it matte.

(I'll try to actually get the favorites figured out this weekend, or it'll be so late nobody will care any more!)