Sally Hansen

Here's my little collection of the limited edition Xtreme Wears for this fall.

Left to right: Purple Gala, Purple Fiesta, Mystic Lilac and Concrete.

I only found Concrete last night! I found Purple Fiesta while in NYC. I've only had success finding these when I pop into random Rite Aids that I don't usually frequent.

These wear really nicely for me. I bought a backup of Mystic Lilac since it seems to require more coats than the others. Also it seems like a perfect color to wear in the spring. Purple Fiesta didn't seem to get too much love on the blogs, but I like it! Purple Gala, on the other hand...maybe it's a little too foil-y for me. It seems more...formal? Maybe I'll try it when dressing up.

Polish hauling as of late...

I have brought home to the Helmer all sorts of things!
Here's what I've hauled lately:


Sally Hansen:
Purple Fiesta
Purple Gala
Mystic Lilac
Shining Moments

Essie:
Sew Psyched
Merino Cool
We Can Do It Pink

OPI:
DS Classic
Suzi Skis Suede
Halloween Go Goth Minis
Pikaki Phakakta Plum (very very old)

Nina:
Never Glum Plum

Orly:
Bonder

China Glaze:
Halloween Awakenings Set

Seche:
a fresh Vite
Chemise

CND:
More of my trusted SolarOil

Borghese:
Stellare Notte

Petites:
Vintage Gray

Barielle:
Out-Grey-Geous

Along with the Nubars, which are currently on their way, that's a lot of new polish to play with! At least for me, I don't have a huge collection (yet?).

Nubar!

A good example of the pleasures and dangers of nail polish blogs- I discovered this brand.

However in the name of frugality, i vowed to not place an order until a promotion was offered.

And that means I placed my first order today! There is a 30% off $30 or more promotion going on from November 15th to the 20th.

My choices were:

*Barricade (from the Fortress collection)
*Stronghold (ditto- love that they had a complete grey series!)
*Pharaoh Purple (from the Cleopatra collection)
*Gem (from the Prisms collection)

Not a huge order but I was concerned about shipping costs. With the 30% off, it almost covered the UPS Ground, which made me feel so much better about placing an order for polishes sight unseen. Haven't done that in ages.

I will be looking forward to sharing my thoughts on these!

Technical difficulties

Hello there,

I am sorry to say that my household contains three laptops- and ALL of them are on the fritz! Ugh. It certainly is putting a damper on sharing nail polish fun in a blog format.

At the moment I'm actually typing this out using the itty bitty keyboard on my iPod touch! It's quite silly but I wanted to post an explanation of why I'm missing in action.

I might try to post what I can. Let's see how it goes!

Stash Pics - Grey.

My slowly but surely growing collection of grey polishes.

First, the cremes:



Left to Right:
OPI Moon Over Mumbai
Sally Hansen Wet Cement
Rimmel Grey Matter
Maybelline Gray T Glamour
Essence Surfer Babe Point Break
American Apparel Factory Grey
China Glaze Recycle
OPI Suzi Skis In The Pyrenees

And my 'others':



Left to Right:
China Glaze Tinsel
Revlon Galaxy
OPI Give Me The Moon
China Glaze SciFi
OPI Luzerne-tainly Look Marvelous
Nina Smoke And Mirrors

Moon gazing

Following up on my Lunar Plains post, I thought I would do a comparison between two moon themed polishes I have.


Here we have two OPI polishes. Moon Over Mumbai on the left and Give Me The Moon on the right. So far, they look pretty (make that very?) similar.


OK, from this angle, you can see a bit of blue shimmer going on in Give Me The Moon on the right. Just the slightest hint.


Oh, THERE it is. From this angle the blue shimmer is much more visible. This is a lot more like how they are on the nail. With Give Me The Moon, the blue shimmer sort of overpowers the subtle grey color of the polish. I ended up not liking this polish when I applied it, because of this.

I definitely prefer Moon Over Mumbai. If you love blue, you might prefer Give Me The Moon.

Lunar lemming

CM Lunar Plains. How I want you.

I love the blog Polish or Perish and while going through their extensive back blog catalog, I came across the August 2009 post Gray and Purple.


(image courtesy of Polish or Perish)

While the post's title is enticing enough for me, a glimpse at one of the polishes used has stopped me in my tracks. That would be Lunar Plains. Grayish greenish gorgeousness shot through with silver shimmer? Yes please.

Of course, I can't find it anywhere, except for that one lovely picture, and a mention on a random Australian shopping site...

With any luck I can eventually track it down.

Pink AND grey!

From the Essence Surfer Babe summer 2010 collection. Pointbreak is a shark grey creme, Hang Loose is lilac-tinged pink creme. Both applied nicely.

I especially love the way these two polishes look paired together. I'd do a manicure in one color and a pedicure in the other.

I'm not very familiar with the Essence brand, I just happened to come across these at Ulta and grabbed them. Very reasonably priced polishes.

OPI Swiss Collection

The latest OPI collection has gotten lots and lots of positive press. I really liked the concept and the color choices. I ended up buying two: Luzerne-tanly Look Marvelous and Ski Teal We Drop.

Luzerne-tanly Look Marvelous (everyone seems to hate that name, and with good reason if you're blogging about it - it's awful to spell out) has been on my toes for ages. I put it on almost immediately after I got it, to cover up a fresh pedicure I wasn't fond of. I definitely see the green tint to the pewter, which I love. It's quite pretty.

(I had been wanting Suzi Skis in the suede finish but had not picked it up. Luzerne is even better IMO - glad to have this polish instead.)


Ski Teal We Drop is of course a departure for me, but a welcome one. Teal is one of those colors I've loved all my life. When blue and green combine on the color spectrum, well, color me happy. I just hadn't seen a teal nail polish that really spoke to me, except for the gorgeous and luxe Rescue Beauty Lounge version, of course. (My significant other thinks my burgeoning nail polish collection is silly enough as it is...if he found out about RBL's prices he'd be speechless!)

I was thrilled to see comparison pics with RBL Teal...I might even prefer the OPI version, which has been described as just a tiny bit lighter than the RBL. This is plenty dark as it is - what I like about it is how rich it is without being mistaken for black.

So, teal is the official color for Ovarian Cancer Awareness, and September happens to be the official Ovarian Cancer Awareness Month. I recently stumbled across the website Teal Toes, which asks women to paint their toenails teal to raise awareness of ovarian cancer. Teal is considered an unusual color in nail polish (maybe not for polish bloggers, but for most folks!) and so if someone asks you about your choice in polish shade, you can mention that teal is the awareness color.

I am proud to be able to oblige by using my new OPI shade.

Sula Paint & Peel

Stopped in a local Ulta and found these on sale. I think they were marked down to $2.99 each? It seemed like they'd be worth a try.


I chose the colors Dove and Royal.

Royal is pretty great. A beautiful blue.

Dove was surprisingly different on the nail than in the bottle, quite a bit darker than I thought it would be. Streaky application.

I admit that I have the reprehensible habit of picking at nail polish during times of high anxiety, which makes these useful, I suppose!

Took a little bit of a summer vacation, but I'm back again!

Nail of the Day

OPI Sweetie Pie layered over Sally Hansen Wet Cement.

A quick little bored-with-my-manicure changeup. Not a natural pairing for me, but the bluish/lilac flash in the Sweetie Pie works well over the SH. For some reason it reminds me of moonlight?

For someone who's loved wearing pink nail polish as long as I have over the course of my life, I am really preferring the cremes right now.

On my toes, I just can't get enough of Suzi Skis right now. Gorgeous in the sun.

boredom is the mother of invention.

(or something like that)

At times, I have this weirdo memory that holds onto the most useless facts, tidbits, and (particularly vexing), product information.

For instance, I've never forgotten reading in a beauty magazine (Allure?) at least four or five years ago (and maybe much longer than that) about the splendid combination of NARS polishes that is Pussy Galore topped with Arabesque.



See, wouldn't that be pretty? Or at least rather interesting to try?

Alas, NARS polishes are $16 each, which makes trying that out a $32 whim. A little pricey.

So, while trying to decide what shade to apply next, I attempted instead a frugal little DIY with some polishes I already had on hand.

For my wannabe manicure, I used:

*one coat of Lippmann Collection Constant Craving
*one coat of China Glaze Good Witch?
*three coats of Sally Hansen Xtreme Wear Strobe Light

with Seche Rebuild as base and Vite for top.

The verdict? It's very, very, very pink. And the Sally Hansen is holo which is a little distracting from the look I was going for. But it's certainly fun, and perfectly summery.

Haul

Now that I have nail polish on the mind, of course I'm going to grab more when I can.

Here's what I've picked up lately:

*China Glaze Tinsel
*China Glaze Light As Air
*OPI Suzi Skis in the Pyrenees
*OPI Sweetie Pie
*OPI Honeymoon Sweet
*American Apparel Factory Grey
*Sally Hansen Xtreme Wear Strobe Light

My Private Jet

Many blogs have already discussed this, but I'll go ahead and throw my hat in the ring.

My Private Jet - the chameleon of OPI. And not like a duochrome, either. There have been several iterations of this popular color.

I originally picked up one bottle that happened be a holographic version, and I fell for it. Fell hard. I ordered FOUR more bottles. Unfortunately, those four came from different stock.

You can see the difference here:

On the left, one of the four 'duds'. There is still some teal flash in this bottle. But compared to the bottle on the right...

I tend to make use of my dud bottles by doing the initial coat with them, and the second coat with my holo bottle. Even the dud bottles are lovable - the charcoal + holo just seems so wearable - much less harsh than just black. Sigh, this is the color that really got me hooked on polish.

Grey versus grey.

Just a quick little side-by-side bottle comparison pic:


Sally Hansen Wet Cement and China Glaze Recycle. SH is lighter and cooler.

HELMER!

Hello, my new organizational friend.

nubs.

It's going to be a little while before I can start posting pictures of my own nails.

As I realized for the billionth time this week, nail polish isn't just about aesthetics. It also keeps me from (ugh) biting my nails down to nothing. Anxiety much?

I've discovered it's a very simple equation:

*polish on = no nail biting
*bare nail = suddenly up for grabs

Well, onward and upward.

The brilliance of Scrangie

In navigating the world of the nail polish blogs, a beacon of awesomesauce is the blogger that is Scrangie.



This is her swatch of Sally Hansen Wet Cement and In The Spotlight from her original post, found here. I just couldn't get this combination out of my head. So much so that I was compelled to stop in my local Walgreens where they fortunately had these two on the shelves. First time I've bought drugstore polish since...high school? It's been a while. But these are fantastic.

Wet Cement is a beautiful light grey that I can see wearing quite often, and I am a real believer in the power of interesting topcoat polishes (like In The Spotlight) to save a boring or damaged or unflattering manicure.

Not pink or grey: American Apparel polishes

I guess you could call it a mini-haul...

Took advantage of the 3 for $15 multiple special they have and grabbed Mouse, Hunter and Mount Royal.

This is directly thanks to all the many nail polish bloggers who were kind enough to post lots of swatches and talk about what they thought of these colors. I definitely would not have chosen these otherwise.

I looked hard at Factory Grey, but I already own China Glaze Recycle and I thought they would be similar. Maybe not, I'm new at this. I might have to grab that one, too. AA just came out with six more shades, so perhaps even more bottles in my taste will be forthcoming.

Have also picked up my first bottle of Seche Vite. It applies so thickly! Wow.

Why the name?

I love OPI, pinks, and greys. That's most but not all of my polish collection. Sounds limiting when I put it that way, but I can keep the collecting until control if I limit myself to shades I'll actually wear.

I think nail polish is fun and feminine. There are far worse hobbies to have!