Birthday fun

I still have no pictures, but I wanted to post the list of new polishes I now have besides the three Lippmanns that I posted about a couple of days ago! Some of this is the stuff I ordered from Cherry Culture last week - their service was quite prompt, this was the first time ordering from them so I didn't know what to expect - and that was sort of a pre-birthday present, and then my husband bought me some stuff from Walgreen's that I ended up exchanging and getting even more stuff. So basically I am totally awash in polish right now.

One thing that I had ordered from Cherry Culture they had run out of - the China Glaze Cuticle Oil - which I wanted to have just to try, but I am actually awash with cuticle products at the moment so it's not a huge loss. But this is what I actually got:

1. three LASplash colors from the closeout (half-price): Sparkling Wave, Sparkling Fire, Sparkling Seaweed - I'd call them glitter toppers, from what I've seen. But it's fine glitter, not chunky.
2. Nyx Enchanted Forest, which is from the Nyx Salon line. Beautiful shimmery dark green.
3. China Glaze Rendezvous With You, a purple
4. a package of nail remover wipes
5. a Cherry Culture lip balm, grape flavor

And then Rob bought me some Sally Hansen stuff from Walgreen's that I didn't really want to keep, although it was a good guess - one thing was Xtreme Wear Strobe Light, which I already have, the second was one of those LE glitters which looked super-similar to things I already had, and the third thing was a little nail art kit, which contained loose glitter. Apparently I am afraid of loose glitter and the possibilities for polish mayhem involved therein. So we took it all back. And here is what I got, for an additional $3 more than what he originally spent.

1. Xtreme Wear Rockstar Pink, which is one of those colors that some bloggers think everybody in the world needs to have. And it looked like had possibilities, for sure, so I got it.
2. Satin Glam - a line I hadn't tried yet - in Taffeta, a sort of orchid-pink.
3. Then, since it was the last day of the Sinful Colors sale, I got a shimmery green called Kissy. For a dollar.
4. TWO Outlast colors, because there was a sale and a coupon on top of the sale and it was just a deal. Those were both microglittery kind of things, right in my wheelhouse - Violet Flicker and Midnight Magic.

I think I counted thirteen new bottles of nail polish. That's kind of ridiculous, really.

Happy happy joy joy

Birthday presents I have already gotten (and my birthday is not even here yet):

1. Deborah Lippmann Shake Your Money Maker
2. Deborah Lippmann Mermaid's Dream
3. Deborah Lippmann Let's Go Crazy

Yeah. Aren't I lucky to have a sister who works for a... well, I don't feel comfortable saying exactly who she works for, but still, aren't I lucky? It's a major luxury retailer, shall we say. So she asked what I wanted, I (of course) said nail polish, and I sent her a list of possibilities and this is what I got in the mail today. These were inside a little makeup bag and there was another one full of various skincare samples, which I haven't even delved into. She of course did not have to pay retail, although I don't actually know how much of a discount she gets, I didn't ask. Anyway, she really could not have gotten anything I would like more, because before today I owned exactly ONE Lippmann and that was not a glitter. So I was definitely coveting these.

If the sun ever comes out again and stays out for long enough to take pictures, I will have some more pictures. It's almost May, so we are overdue for sunny weather. Other than for picture-taking purposes, I don't really mind. I figure we'll have plenty of sun soon enough. (I actually had a coat on one day last week - that's pretty much unheard of for this time of year in these parts.)

I don't think I've talked about the current manicure, which is Revlon Bold Sangria with Jin Soon Gossamer on top. Bold Sangria is a Colorstay color that I've been eyeing ever since the now-departing Colorstay line was released - what was that, two years ago or more? So I saw it and I figured that I should grab it while I can. I also bought a couple of Sinful Colors at Walgreen's this week, since they were having their annual (?) 99-cent Sinful Colors sale. They seem to have it once or twice a year, I'm not sure, but I know it rolls around periodically. I'm really tempted to go tomorrow and grab a couple more. I also made a super-quick trip into Big Lots (which is actually the only kind I ever make, I check out the cosmetic aisles and I leave again before I can find anything else I "have" to have!) and I found a bottle of Rain Forest in the plastic bins with stray SOPIs and other discontinued stuff, and again, I was like, well, I know Colorstay as we have known it is going away, so I should grab it. I have a bottle of Rain Forest already, but that's the (very rare) color that I don't think buying a backup for is unreasonable, especially for $1.50.

I also bought some more variations of those Epielle makeup-remover wipes, because they come in a couple more scents - green tea, aloe vera, and one that doesn't say anything and so I assume is unscented - and I'm still experimenting with those. I've been using the cucumber ones and I don't have the issues that I had with the citrus scent, so apparently it's mostly that one scent that was the problem. (Which was a shame, because it smelled fabulous. I love citrus scents.)

(I've also ordered a couple more things online, but I will let you be surprised about those. One of them is something that I didn't think was available any more, so we'll see what I get!)

Things I don't love

How do you guys feel about holos? I myself have finally faced the fact that I'm not all that crazy about them. They never quite seem to live up to the pictures, for me. However, Things I Love At the Moment has so many she's thinking about destashing and has done a great comparison post. It's interesting to see, even if I'm (presumably) not going to run out and buy a bunch of them.

However, I do have Dollish Redrum sitting nearby, as it happens, and I also happen to have bare nails at the moment. So I may have holo nails myself shortly, just mostly because I like Redrum and it's easier than going to hunt down something else! (Here's the whole Dollish Halloween collection from last year, if you don't remember what Redrum looks like. It's way down toward the bottom of that post. I'm sort of wishing I'd bought some more of these, now - although I did buy the coveted Walker Bait so I don't guess I can really complain.)

Another thing that everybody else loves and I really don't is neons. I've been thinking this over now that everybody is releasing their summer collections. I think in this case it's because I am very much a cool-colors person and neons are pretty much essentially warm. I can't find the pictures I was looking at earlier - google is not always good at finding entries that are brand-new, I think - but I know they'll be everywhere soon. There was a purple I liked, I seem to recall. (It's hard to make a purple that's really a warm color - I suppose the only way, really, is to make it far on the red-violet end of purple.) Aaaand here are the Essies - Too Taboo is the name of the collection, and I can't really say that the majority of them are warm, quite honestly! (I would own more Essies if they ever had sales. They seem to have a policy of not doing that, though.)

And since the topic seems to have become "things I don't love" I will say that I'm not in love with my computer-repair people right now, because my computer is not yet repaired - we are waiting on a graphics card. I have been very patient, and I'm trying to be patient a little longer, but it's difficult! I am just not a patient person by nature, let's face it.


Oh, and I almost forgot to mention that I did buy several of those LASplash colors that are on clearance at Cherry Culture, and also some other stuff. I think one was China Glaze Cuticle Oil, and there was at least one other thing that I'm forgetting about. If eyeshadow interests you, they also have 25% off all eyeshadow at the moment, which I believe was the link that I followed to get there in the first place - so be sure and check the front page for the coupon code. (I don't like the fact that I have become so hypersensitive to eye makeup that I've given up and quit wearing it, and I guess I can blame the fact that I followed that link at all in the first place on my unwillingness to face facts there!)

Sunday random

(I hit the "publish" button before I meant to - again - if you read this before, you may have only seen the first two paragraphs. I gotta quit doing that.)

Because I have been obsessing about "what color is teal?" way too much, I finally looked it up on Wikipedia and found that the RGB formula is 0,128,128. In other words, equal portions of blue and green. So yay, I have an answer, and I can quit worrying it over in my head. (Yes, I know, totally OCD.)

I said something on Twitter in the last couple of weeks about how I had bought a Colorstay polish on clearance and it looked like Revlon was closing out all the Colorstay polishes, and I was wondering what the deal was. Well, yesterday I was on some random blog that I totally don't remember, and I saw a picture of a redesigned Colorstay bottle. I wish I knew where that was - I poked around in google and didn't find it. But anyway, I imagine that's the answer - they are at least redoing the bottle; whether they've changed the formula again is unclear. It seems possible that they've tinkered around and come up with an updated formula, but I'm just guessing. It is also possible that they are just addressing the fact that the Colorstay and the Brilliant Strength bottles look way too much alike. (I'm pretty sure the picture I saw had the same bottle shape; it just had a different look to the label, with some horizontal stripes.) FOUND IT - ColorStay Gel Envy, probably with a new formula which might or might not be similar to CND Vinylux.

If you haven't seen this already - Zoya's Earth Day promo starts tomorrow. I'm mad at them for discontinuing the Fleck Effects so I may skip this year. Or I may give in and buy something else. We'll see.

One more bargain: I was poking around at Cherry Culture and they have all (apparently all, as far as I can tell) the LA Splash for half-price, $2 instead of $4. For that price I am tempted.

I'm wearing Wet n Wild "Buffy the Violet Slayer" and I tried to take a picture, but it came out looking like this color when it should be more this color - basically, it's a bog-standard glossy royal purple. "Bog-standard" does not mean it's not pretty, though. It is, very much. (The other one - Neve - is too, I'm totally coveting it, in fact. It just doesn't look like what I'm wearing.)

Before that I was wearing a manicure I saw on Pinterest - I'm pretty sure it's the first time that I've replicated a manicure exactly like one I saw somewhere, because it's pretty rare that I have the right colors to do that. But I had these - Sinful Colors Purple Diamond over Zoya Perrie. I didn't take a picture, but it looks exactly like that picture, anyway. I just bought Purple Diamond lately, and I think I googled afterwards and found this. I haven't worn Perrie much because it's a little too pale to be flattering on me, so I'm glad to have a use for it! (Purple Diamond isn't really any darker, but it doesn't bother me like Perrie alone did.)

Stash: copper, brown, tan

I had to do some scrambling to fit everything in here, which is why so many of them are upside down.
top row: Two Cent, Germanicure by OPI (mini), Flagstone Rush, Fall Mood
second row: Rich in Heart, Cinna-man of My Dreams, Cougar Attack, It Rubs the Lotion On Its Skin, Pumpkin Spice
third row: Forbidden Fudge, Hard Candy Crush on Lava, I Knead Sour-Dough, Decades of Shades, Rockin' Renaissance (texture)
bottom row: Tickle-My Franc-y and You Don't Jacques minis, Stone Cold Karma Luxe, Dusty Spring Fields, Grey Area, Rage

Grey Area looks fairly gray in this company, but believe me, it's much more tan than gray - if you put it in with grays you would see that. Which is why I put it here instead.

There are a lot of my very favorite polishes ever in this picture - I adore copper-shot browns. They have a tendency to be seasonal and then get discontinued, though, so grab 'em if you see 'em. Pumpkin Spice, Cougar Attack, and Two Cent are all discontinued, I believe.

Untrieds in this picture: Fall Mood, It Rubs the Lotion On Its Skin, Tickle-My Franc-y & You Don't Jacques minis, Stone Cold Karma Luxe (I am not much of a wearer of nudes. I intend to make myself try these, though. Eventually.)

Stash: gold. bronze, orange

I've got another post for tomorrow with the browns and the coppers, but I have enough golds, bronze-ish things, and oranges to fill my bin up again - in fact I really had to squeeze to get them all in!

(You can't see brand-names on all these bottles so I added them to the names for a few where I thought it was hard to tell)
Top row: Gold Rush, Fairy Dust, Milani Gold Glitz, I Only Shop Vintage (upside down!), Pahlish Pyrite
2nd row (two of which are sideways): Intergalactic Space, Aldo Gold Digger, Falloween
3rd row: R.I.P., Traffic Stopper Copper, Glitz, Chop Chop Copper, Seared Bronze
4th row (the two minis): unlabeled orange, Cajun Shrimp
Bottom row: Retro Red, Hot Cinnamon, Sangria, Crushed, Times Square Tangerine

(There's some stuff missing here - at the very least, I know I have one more orange-ish Gumdrop somewhere. I'll have to check about that.)

I can't believe I've acquired this many golds, in particular - I would have said that they were too yellowy for me. But the Boundless Color one, the old Cover Girl, is the only one that's very yellow, so for the most part, they look fine on me. Copper and bronze tones are generally quite flattering on me, and there are more of those in the next post. Even Orly Glitz, surprisingly, looks pretty good on me - better than Rage, and that's just the opposite of what I would have thought. I also tend to think I can't wear oranges, but what I've found is that they look alright as long as I stay with very reddish ones.

I noticed this week at CVS that Khroma is starting to become Kardassian Beauty, finally; the displays and some of the bottles were so labeled, but a few still say Khroma. (Just as a name, I like Khroma better, but I believe I read that they had had legal trouble with the name.)

Untried in this picture: Falloween, Chop Chop Copper, Cajun Shrimp

In the news...

I happened to run across an item about Julep raising umpteen million dollars in venture capital so that they can try to take on the major beauty brands (that's what the article says, anyway). I would be so much more impressed by this if I hadn't repeatedly heard such terrible things about Julep's customer service that I am reluctant to even let them give me my "FIRST BOX FREE!" (as some banner ad was proclaiming at me just a day or so ago) - I don't know about you, but when I hear horror stories from multiple people about the same company in a short amount of time, it makes me skittish about them. Better to give my money to somebody else, I figure. - Anybody have an opinion about this, on either side? Love them, hate them, somewhere in the middle?

Meanwhile, I was poking around the internet this morning and found pictures of Zoya's summer line, which is called Tickled and Bubbly - apparently Tickled is cremes and Bubbly is... well, something a bit new, possibly - they describe it as a "liquid-metal holographic jelly formula" - apparently you can wear it as a top-coat or on its own. It looks really intriguing to me. They're taking pre-orders but they don't ship for nearly a month - hopefully you guys who get Zoya stuff to review will have swatches long before that, though! I'm dying to see what people think!

Nouveau Cheap is all excited because of the return of an OPI color that I've barely even heard of - I guess because by the time I started getting seriously into this polish thing, it had been and gone - and that's Damone Roberts 1968 - it's a mint green and apparently OPI is re-releasing it for the summer and we should all go grab it immediately. (I'm being a bit flippant, but I probably will buy it if I see it, it looks interesting.)


As far as what I've been wearing... after Santa Red My List, I went with OCC Chimera for a few days, over Jade Stiletto (dark green creme) because it had just arrived and it was handy. (That was a small Llarowe order which I'll get pictures up of when I can get decent ones! I also swatched Chimera/Stiletto along with Rikki/Stiletto to see how alike they were - SPOILER: not dupes. I tried taking a picture of that one today, but it sucked so I'll try again later.) I liked that combination but it did chip a bit more than I'd like, so then I put on Picture Polish Flirt - which was the other half of the small Llarowe order, and I do have pictures of that:

This also has chipping issues, but I patched it up and put 2 coats of Jin Soon Gossamer on top (which is just shimmer) and it seems to be holding on for now. I'm trying to stretch it out until tomorrow, and after that I'm sure I'll go with something pastel.

Stashing the blues away

Yeah, the title is corny, so sue me. In any case, here's my blue stash:

Top row: Black and Blue, Liberty (textured), Sweet Peacock (metallic), Cabo Cruise, also underneath is an unnamed royal blue mini; then back up to Ice Hotel In Hell, Rid of Me, Montana Sky, Playmaker
Middle row: Mesmerize, Blue It, Indigo, Jordana's Skinny Jeans, Midnight Cami, Blackout, Intrigue, Shy
3rd row: Feifei, Charge It Up (magnetic),  Blueberry Fizz (texture), Alcatraz... Rocks (texture), Azure, Quick Jeanius, They're Heeeere!

(Note that I was attempting to go from slightly greenish at the top left to slightly violet-toned at the bottom right - that was my rationale in the way I arranged these. I'm not sure I got them all in the right place, and definitely it's hard to see that here. Definitely Black & Blue has greenish tones and Quick Jeanius I remember in particular as reading "blurple" on the nail. In between it gets a little more difficult.)

I'm not going to necessarily talk about every one of these, but I know I have things to say about some of them, at least - starting with Black & Blue up at the top left, which seemed like a weird color to me until I started thinking of the name as "Blackened Blue," then it made much more sense. The next three are all super-bright blues. I've heard people say they had staining problems with Liberty, but I did not - I'd just say make darn sure you have a good thick coat of base-coat on for any blue, and especially these bright ones. I haven't worn Sweet Peacock in so long that I'm not even sure about whether it stained or not. (Maybe it's time to wear that one again, because I do remember that it was really pretty.) But Cabo Cruise, the Fergie one - that one stained like a mother---er. Worst staining issues I've ever had, and it's possible I might never wear it again, I'm afraid to try it. But it's a really pretty color! so just be aware of that one.

Let's see, then after that we have just a whole lot of medium-to-dark blue glitters and cremes, and they're all really pretty, and I don't really have anything particular to say til we get down to Revlon Intrigue, the lighter one that's second-to-last on the 2nd row - I notice that it looks in this picture, at least, like it and Pacific Blue, down on the row below, are dupes in the bottle. So I guess I need to try that one out. (I went looking to see, and here's comparisons of Pac Blue with Mesmerize, which doesn't look anything alike in the bottle, and Pac Blue with several more blues that I don't have. I couldn't find any comparisons for Intrigue - my guess is that in actuality Intrigue is a duller blue.)

You may notice that Shy, next to Intrigue on the end of the middle row, stands out like a sore thumb because it's the only pastel. I just do not look good in pastels, medium blues are as pastel as I go any more. (Of course, what people call "pastels" half the time are what I call medium tones anyway. If I was going to go off on an Easter-season rant, it would be about how people's idea of the word "pastel" is way off - but I don't really think it's worth the energy.) The next-closest thing I have to a pastel is probably Blueberry Fizz, the Gumdrop texture down on the bottom row - as I recall it's actually a very pale silvery-blue and looks more silver than blue in a lot of lights.

Things in this picture I have never worn: the unnamed mini, Playmaker, Jordana's Skinny Jeans, Charge It Up, Azure. I need to get on the stick and wear these!


As those of you who follow me on Twitter may already know, I'm having computer issues - I'm writing this on my "backup" computer, my old one. I'm not sure if that means I'll post less or actually post more, because until it's fixed I'm cut off from most of my games. (This is the computer I retired because its graphics card was sucky and it wouldn't even render Rift properly, and that was two years of games ago, so I'm not even going to try it with the newer ones.) I think I'm going to go ahead and haul the XPS into the shop, though. I am too addicted to ESO now to go without it for long. (Plus we're already into the free month that came with the software, so it's going to waste as it stands!)

What I've bought

I haven't gone hog-wild lately, but I still seem to come home with a polish or two every week. Here's the recent ones:

• Two Cent, from Sonia Kashuk, marked down at Target. Grab this if you see it, because it's gorgeous and probably (I'm guessing) being discontinued.
• Indi-glow, an Xtreme Wear that I think is LE. I haven't swatched it other than glopping it on a nail wheel, so I'm not sure yet about the issues that Pretty Girl Science reported. Maybe these are LE because they're testing something new, I don't know. I certainly hope they haven't reformulated the whole line if the issues are as bad as she reports.
• Intrigue, from Revlon Brilliant Strength, a blue somewhere in the cornflower/periwinkle sort of range. This is the first polish I've bought from this particular line, and HEB was having one of its famous coupon sales so I figured I should take advantage!
• Bold Sangria, from Revlon Colorstay. Walgreen's had the whole Colorstay range marked down like they were being discontinued - are they giving up on Colorstay nail polish, or maybe they've reformulated again and are coming out with all-new colors? I don't know. But I've wanted this color since it first came out so I figured I'd better grab it.
• Buffy the Violet Slayer, from the WnW FastDry collection. With a name like that, it was only a matter of time before I bought it, plus this color is right in my wheelhouse in any case.

The thing sitting on top of those polishes is a Clinique make-up bag from the latest Clinique bonus - or hmm, maybe it's technically wrong to say it's the latest, because this was from Dillard's in March and I'm pretty sure Macy's has a different one going now that it's April. But anyway, this is the latest one *I* have, and it has a nail polish, too:

I'm not going to try to tell you about every one of these samples - mascara, base, makeup remover. The color items were available in a pink range or a peach range, and I always go with pink in a choice like that, since I generally think that orange is not flattering on me. However, the orange polish that was included was yummy and I'm sort of sorry I didn't get it. The pink polish is called Hi Sweetie, and it's a nice bright pink, I do like it, too. Plus I got Raspberry Glace lipstick, which is a color I've had before and I know I can wear. I partly also bought this for the moisturizer sample, so I can try out the reformulated yellow moisturizer. (The very fact that it's reformulated makes me nervous, I've been wearing this moisturizer since my mother started giving me her samples in the mid-70s. But most people seem to like it pretty well.)

Trying the untried: Santa Red My List

This is messy because I was literally painting my nails in the car when I stopped to get gas:

Needs some serious cleaning up, and suffers from the usual lobster-hands lighting issues as well, but this is China Glaze Santa Red My List (which - DISCLAIMER - I did receive for free from China Glaze, although they might not want to claim it in any case!) with some flakiness from Chloe as a top coat. It's pretty. It really reads redder than I expected in practice, although it's definitely on the pinkish end of red. Just waving my hands around as one does when talking, at least in the light I'm in right now, I believe most people would say I had red nail polish on, not pink.

Trying the untried: China Flower

This is China Flower, one of the new(-ish) Revlon Parfumerie polishes:

(under fluorescent light again, so as usual my hands look all lobsterish)
It's a nice bright slightly tomato-leaning red. I believe this is three coats - I was afraid at first that this was going to come out looking really orange-red, but it didn't. It has the very very faintest floral smell, but I put on topcoat and it mostly disappeared after that.

Note that my index finger is already chipped here - I don't blame Revlon for that one, though, it was the peelies. They struck before I had even gotten out of the car.

My husband gave me a pair of these for Christmas - the other one was a very pale pink, which is not really my thing, so I've more or less avoided that one deliberately, but this one I just tended to forget about. I have so many reds! I'm going to call this a new series - "trying the untried" - and see if I can knock out some of my untried polishes.

I Don't Bite

This is Sephora by OPI I Don't Bite (under fluorescent light):

This looks slightly bluer than it really is, and my pinky finger does not look at all red like the light makes it look, and I guess that's a shadow across my first two fingers because it's not a bruise - but if it's a shadow I have no idea what it's of! But ah well, you can get an idea of what this looks like, at least.

This is a discontinued polish, anyway, as are all Sephora by OPIs, of course, so it doesn't really matter that it has issues. Mostly, it just needs a base, because it's sheer and streaky and you can still see slightly-bald spots here after 4 coats. I like the grayed-out purple shimmer of it, but next time I'm layering it over something else just to avoid the issues. (Hmm, I wonder how it'd do as a syrup mani?)

Redrum, and more

Today's nails are Dollish Redrum, which was a Halloween polish from last year. You would think from the name that it would be blood-colored, like Blood of the Mountain turned out to be, but it really isn't. I guess maybe that was the idea? but if so her heart wasn't quite in it, and it's sort of a rusty rose-color. I really like it. (When I was poking around for a link for it, I saw that somebody called it a "garnet holo" but I really don't think that's accurate - at least, it's not at all the color that *I* think of as garnet. Your mileage may of course vary.)

I didn't put any topcoat on top of Redrum because I was running late the other day, and so it's chipped a bit now - but it lasted a couple of days even without it, it did better than I would have thought. Unless I change my mind, what I'm putting on next is a S-OPI I've never worn - I Don't Bite, which is a purple. I was trying to figure out how long ago it was that I bought these; I want to say it's close to a year. (Aha, found it, it was August, so not a year yet but a while ago just the same.)

I forget whether I mentioned this before, but I've been working on "pages" which are the ones which show up in links in the header - it took me a long time to figure out how to do this because I didn't know what they were called! I made one that's sort of an index by color (which is an update on an entry I did a couple of months ago with the same information), with the nail wheels and swatches and so forth, and then I started a list of indie polish brands and a list of more mainstream polishes. Those are really big tasks, though, so we'll see how completist I get about it. I have been adding pretty regularly to them, though. I may add a list of online sellers since that seems to go with these. (I have what's likely to be a long slow weekend coming up at work, maybe I'll work on that then!)