Vestido de Gala

This is Jade Vestido de Gala - I think the name means "party clothes" or something to that effect. I showed my stash from several brands of international polish yesterday, and I decided this was my favorite from that bunch.

I have several polishes from this "Special Glitz" line - they are fine glitters in a jelly base. You can't tell it from this picture but the glitter is mostly holo glitter - there might be some regular glitter mixed in, but it's the holo that you notice. This is one coat on the nail wheel; it darkens up considerably on the second coat. And it's quite textured, as I recall - it's not a textured polish per se but you probably want Glitter Food or maybe an extra coat of top-coat for this. But it's really really pretty. (All of the polishes like this are pretty, mind you, but since this one is my beloved berry-color, naturally it's my very favorite.)

Stash: assorted international brands

I've decided to combine some of the brands that I only have a few of - I'll never get through this tour of my stash if I go one by one. So here we have some various non-US brands.

This group is all British:

This is Model's Own Hyper Gel in Pitch Purple, No 7 in Pillarbox, A England Saint George and Briarwood, Barry M in Silver Glitter (which was an LE polish).

I have four of this brand, so they get a picture to themselves. This is Jade, which is a Brazilian brand:

Three of these are the same formula, Special Glitz, which is a jelly full of fine glitter. I really like those. The names are Echarpe de Seda (dark red), Vestido de Gala (plummy red), V.I.P (orange), and the outlier is Stiletto, which is just a medium green creme. I used to get these from Llarowe but I don't know if they have a US seller these days.

And then this is just what's left over. I have a couple of Illamasquas which must be with the higher-end polishes, and I have Nfu Oh 51, which is just MIA, I haven't seen it in a while now. I'm sure it's here somewhere and it'll turn up, though. Oh, and I didn't put the Kikos in with these, either, but I know they're around somewhere in another bin.

Layla is an Italian brand (as is Kiko) and these two are CE61 and CE39 (which is sort of a grayed out purple). You can see that the bottle of CE61 is about halfway empty - I've worn that one a lot. I really liked the purple one also but I haven't remembered to wear it as much. Then the wavy bottle is Dear Rus, which is South Korean, and this is #601 - it's a nice gold-and green glitter which I always forget to wear. And last is Glitter Gal Lizard Belly, which is a dark gray-green scattered holo.

I decided that out of these polishes, Vestido de Gala would be my favorite. I did a new swatch for it and I'll post that soon, but meanwhile here is the old one. (If Nfu Oh 51 was here it would probably have been a contender, but since it's not, I decided it was ineligible. I'm picking from what I actually had on hand to photograph.)

Let's Go Crazy

Here's Deborah Lippmann's obviously Prince-themed Let's Go Crazy:

So this has settled a good bit, and I really couldn't get it to shake up to the point where it looked really mixed-up in the bottle, but as you can see I still got a pretty good glitter payoff on the nail, just the same. It's a mixed glitter in a purple base, which I feel like should love... but somehow I don't, quite.

My sister bought me these three Lippmann glitters which you can see swatched here as a birthday gift  a couple of years ago - she works at a department store and presumably didn't pay retail for them, but I still feel kind of guilty because except for Mermaid's Dream I don't really love any of them. I looked at swatches and gave her a list of things I thought I wanted, but I don't really love either of the conventional glitters I have from Lippmann. I like microglitters and I like things like Mermaid's Dream which are kind of offbeat glitters, but for whatever reason I am very "meh" about these. (Although actually, considering how popular that line was, I'm not sure if you can truly call Mermaid's Dream unconventional, either. But hopefully you know what I mean.) I think the last time I talked about this I said I needed to wear it and see, and I haven't worn it but that's still the case. I can't quite make myself give this away so far (it's a Prince polish, after all) but if I keep avoiding wearing it, maybe I should.

Non-permanent haircolor

I've been coloring my hair with this stuff from Sally Beauty and it seemed worth talking about. They've been in the process of changing the packaging but I believe this is the old packaging:

You buy most of the bits and pieces for this separately, which is weird for those of us who are used to the little kits from Clairol or L'Oreal. This is the color that I got, it's Burgundy Brown.

I used to use a Feria color years ago called Chocolate Cherry which I really liked and which was sort of similar, so this one seemed like a good bet. (I don't think a real auburn would be flattering on me but the ones with red-violet tones seem to do well.) Right after I used this the first time, I thought I was going to hate it, but then when I washed it the first time it lightened up some and after that I thought it was perfect. It lasts for 20 shampoos, which is a good while if you don't wash your hair every day. My experience was that it fades very gradually and unobtrusively.

I used Feria (which is L'Oreal) when I first started coloring my hair, probably 15 years ago or more now - I started getting noticeable gray when I was still in my 30s. Then for a while I got it done in the salon, and then (in the time when I was unemployed) I started doing it at home again, and I tried a number of different things, Nice & Easy and the boxed brands like that. I'd let it grow out for a while and it would always start annoying me eventually and so I'd eventually color it again. Then one day last year I let the hairstylist talk me into getting a "gloss" or demi-permanent color - I'd always had permanent color before. "Gloss" for haircolor turns out to be a trademark owned by Redken, but I did really like it, so later on I went in Sally's and asked whether they had something similar and this is what they steered me to.

I bought a kit with the applicators and the little pan (and gloves, which were really awful ones but did the job) and then you buy the developer separately and the "sealer" to put on afterward. It's all amazingly cheap if you're used to salon prices, and I'm pretty sure it's at least as cheap as the boxed stuff in the end. It seems much quicker than doing permanent color, and it's much easier on your hair, because it has fewer chemicals. If anything it seems to make your hair easier to handle. (I assume I'm not the only person around whose graying hair has become much more troublesome - so anything that helps with that is wonderful.)

Since it's easier to deal with overall than permanent color, and the results so far have been great, I'm really sold on this.

NOTD: Ocean Drive

This just came and I haven't even swatched it yet, so you're seeing it on my nails first, for once. This is KL Polish Ocean Drive:

I cleaned it up some more after I took this picture - it's not perfect but you can get the idea. This is from the new summer line. It doesn't say it's a flakie but that's what it seems to me to be. It's rather sheer, but it was opaque enough to suit me in two coats. If you are a fiend about visible nail lines and you don't want to see any at all, you'll want three, I would think.

I wish Kathleen would do more polishes that aren't cremes, because I really like her formulas so far on the not-creme ones. (The creme formula seems nice, too, on the one that I've tried. I'm just not really a creme person.)

NOTD: Odhani

So here's Square Hue Odhani actually on my nails.

This is the second time I've worn it, as I mentioned, and I still love the color but man is it difficult to get on. Since it's a crelly, it's pretty sheer, and you can see that the tips either never got covered properly or are already chipping (maybe a little of both), and this is with four coats, I think. If you don't already have this polish you probably can't get your hands on it anyway, and honestly I don't think I recommend that you try, despite the lovely color. It's just too much of a pain in the ass. (Which is not to say that I'm not going to wear it again, since I already have it, but maybe I need to look around and see if I can find anything else in this not-too-light not-too-dark range of blue.)

Odhani vs Mesmerize

I showed my little Essie stash yesterday, and I said that Mesmerize was one of my favorites. When I was taking pictures, I noticed that Mesmerize is similar to Square Hue Odhani, which I had on last week, and loved. They're not dupes at all but they're close enough that they're interesting to compare.

This is Mesmerize, and then the other blue at the top of the wheel is Odhani (which was in last month's Square Hue collection):

You can see on these swatches that Mesmerize is definitely darker. They look more similar in the bottles, though, which is why I noticed this in the first place:

Odhani is a crelly; I think Mesmerize is just a regular creme. Odhani was a bit balky to apply but looked so beautiful once it was on that I really fell in love. (In fact I love it so much I may wear it again, and if I do I'll try to get a decent picture this time!)