Bikini With A Martini, Always Sheer Bliss

This is Essie Bikini With A Martini, ColorStay Always Sheer Bliss, and Zoya Shelby. There is a swatch of Shelby by itself somewhere on this wheel (see here), but here I was using it as a layering polish.

I had trouble decoding my own writing here, so let me translate: Girls on Film is the speckled polish on the wheel - which we are not talking about here. It's in the next entry. It's the three below this that are the swatches in question. Below that is (in top to bottom order) Bikini With A Martini over Shelby, Always Sheer Bliss over Shelby, and Always Sheer Bliss alone. Always Sheer Bliss by itself came out a really odd bluish color and I don't exactly know what's up with that. This is an old polish, though, and it may just be something to do with age and the formula. I think this is the original formula of ColorStay polish - at least, I don't remember having seen it before this version came out. They came in a two-pack with a topcoat, and it only came in rather boring colors, to my eyes, which is why I don't have more of them. The other one I have is Continuous Cranberry, which you can see down at the bottom of the wheel - I was using it for a layering polish as well. (I think that's a Finger Paints polish on top of it, but I'll get to that later.)

I do have a swatch of Bikini With A Martini by itself, somewhere, but the fact is, it's sheer and you can't see much. If I come across it I'll add it or link it, but it really doesn't tell you too much. I'm not sure this picture tells you too much, either, really. I actually like Bikini With A Martini, but only as a top-coat; by itself it's too sheer to bother with. I think here you're mostly seeing Shelby with some extra oomph from Bikini With A Martini's shimmer.

I rather like Always Sheer Bliss as a top-coat as well, although I suspect that over Shelby it wouldn't be a successful combination for me, the pastel-hater. (Note that that's not really true: it's not that I dislike pastels at all, it's just that they don't look good on me.) I might try it sometime to see how it looks, if I remember. If I hate it I can always put something else on top of it!

I was trying to figure out the time-frame on ColorStay (that's how it's capitalized on these bottles) - I think they came out with a full range of ColorStay cosmetics all at one time. I mainly remember that because there was an eyeshadow that I particularly liked that I wore for several years. I think we're talking about the range of 10-15 years ago, maybe? The early 00s, let's say. Although I'm not sure I bought this polish that long ago. I have this memory of going in Ulta and looking at all the new stuff, and we didn't have Ultas in Houston until around that time period, so I don't see how it could have been much earlier. (Does Ulta even carry Revlon any more? I think they've gotten above all that drugstore kind of thing these days, but back then half the store was drugstore brands.)