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!)