Sinful Colors

Another drugstore brand that I really like is Sinful Colors. I used to have a lot of Sinful polishes in the 90's, so I have a soft spot for Sinful. Especially Sinful in the old bottle.

I haven't been able to swatch much of my Sinful collection yet, but I did take some bottle pictures which show the colors very accurately.

Before I post the pictures, I'd like to say one thing about Sinful...

The formula is TERRIBLE. It's not just that they're either too thick and globby or too thin and runny, they're all very sheer. It's very hard to apply these polishes. Sheer polishes with bad formula are especially difficult because you have to figure out a way to do enough coats to build opacity without making a gigantic clumpy streaky mess.

There are a few of them that don't give me any trouble- Dream On, Tucson, San Francisco. The rest are a pain in the rear.

However, the colors are so lovely and unique, the trouble is usually worth it.

I am missing a few bottles... They are in my house somewhere, but hell if I know where they are...

Please click the images to enlarge. These are much better in full size.




Sparkle, Heartache, Broadway Star, Treasure Island, Pearl Harbor, Kansas



Hottie, UFO, Pinky Glitter, Pink 4 Ever, Pink 4 Ever (version 2), Green Ocean




Pacific Ocean, Poison Ivy, Guam, Green Bean, San Francisco, Show Me The Way, Irish Green



Toxic Shine, Shausha, Dream On, Daddy's Girl, What's Your Name?, Pink Diamond, Tucson


Lagoon, Euro Trash, Old Gold, Morph Marie, China Gold, Canary Yellow, Serena & Chloe

And a couple that I swatched but can't find the bottles:



Swedish Blue



Greenland (five coats!)

Sneak Peek: Rescue Beauty Lounge Spring 2009!!

OMG OMG OMG OMG OMG OMG OMG!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!


GLITTER!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Locavore, Frugalista, Look Rich, Be Cheap

I'll have a full review of these as soon as the sun comes out (and I stop hyperventilating!!!).... I think I'm going to faint!

Sneak Peek! Barielle Shades Summer 2009

Summer's looking pretty good so far...





Swatches coming soon :)

(Two greens!!!)

Preview: Essie Winter 2008

From the press release:

August 2008, New York, NY – Shine through the glamorous season with essie’s new winter 2008 nail color collection that is seductive, charming and right on trend!

Tailored jackets, floral prints and structured shapes brought an elegant grown-up look to this season’s runways. From New York to Milan to Paris, designers favored a sophisticated, ladylike silhouette with tweeds and twin sets to full skirts and full collars. Best of all, the little black dress is back with an updated twist and colorful accessories to accompany it! Try sporting a red suede clutch or amethyst ankle boots - and don’t forget the “it” accessory of the season, nail color!

Winter’s divine fashions parallel essie’s new collection of six striking nail colors from classy reds to shimmery violets and a surprising burst of gold, proving that “without color, it wouldn’t be fashion.” - Essie Weingarten

Show off essie’s winter nail colors for an instant chic look - and make sure to use a base and top coat like essie’s first base base coat and good to go! for a flawless manicure and pedicure!

Essie's winter 2008 nail color collection includes:

Bold & Beautiful – Rich, ruby garnet

Damsel in a Dress – Oh-so-deep currant

It’s Genius – A violet quartz shimmer

Rock Star Skinny – Glamorous crimson red

Sexy Divide – Electric Violet Temptation

Shifting Power – Sizzling molten gold

Special thanks to Essie for images and information.

Random Black Polish Swatches and Comparisons!

I've been working really hard on my swatching project lately and I feel like I'm finally making progress on the giant mountain of polishes I wanted to photograph. Yay!!!

I've actually been working on photographing my entire stash for quite some time, but the problem is my collection keeps growing. That, and I get distracted very easily lately... But wow! Progress feels awesome!

Anyway, here are a few swatches I wanted to share with you:


Zoya Suvi compared to China Glaze Gussied Up Green. Index and middle finger are Suvi, ring and pinkie are Gussied Up Green, thumb is (left) Suvi and (right) Gussied Up Green. You can see that while they're quite similar, they're definitely different enough to justify owning both. Love 'em!



Red glitters! Thumb to pinkie: China Glaze Ruby Pumps, New York Summer Fire Red Glitter, Hot Topic Red Glitter, Zoya Delilah, Zoya Jade.
All quite different! And all very pretty. I still haven't quite figured out the text thing yet, but I'll figure something out!

And there's recently been a lot of interest in black nail polish, so I've swatched a few.



Wet N Wild Fantasy Makers Black Pearl. No, it's not pearly, it's creme.... Weird name lol.


Black Rose. It doesn't have a label so I don't know the actual name or brand, but I found this on the Fantasy Makers halloween display at Walgreens!


Wet N Wild Fantasy Makers Black Magic (over Black Pearl)


Orly Goth. My favorite black with silver glitter. The glitter shapes are somewhat random and it reminds me of snowflakes.


Petites Black Star. Gorgeous black and gold glitter!



Hot Topic Black Glitter. No label so I don't know what the actual name or shade number is, sorry!


Hot Topic Black Iridescent. This is one of the coolest polishes ever. It's full of little flecks of multicolored glitter- they change to all the colors of the rainbow depending on the light! It's unbelievable. If you like black polish, you MUST get this one- it's only $2.99!


Chanel Black Satin. If you're thinking of getting this, don't. Get Zoya Raven instead! It's identical and costs $6. Zoya's formula is better, too!



ManGlaze Black. I adore this.


Misa Wishing On A Star.


Misa I Will Survive.


These are just a few of the black polishes in my collection. If there's a specific black that I haven't posted and you'd like to see it, let me know and I'll be happy to post it for you!

I also took another taupe and dusty purple comparison picture with some new colors I got, but I think I somehow deleted it! I can't find it anyhwere in my photo library or my nail photo folder! :( Oh well... Guess I'll take it again. *sigh*

Stash organization before pictures

Already swatched!



Drugstore.

Orly Fall 2008: Gems Collection Swatches

This collection was a surprise to me! I heard nothing about it until I saw it online when I was ordering my France polishes. It's a good surprise, though, it's an awesome collection!

I realized that I don't feature Orly (YARLY.) very much on here... It's not intentional! I really do like Orly, they just don't seem to release new collections as often at the other polish companies. If you can't tell, I'm a sucker for 'new'. I'm always curious about new and exciting polishes, makeup, fragrance, hell, anything 'new'!

The only thing I don't like about Orly is that they take for-ev-er to dry. I always seem to ruin my nails when I'm wearing Orly because I can't wait for them to dry.

Anyway, on to the gems.


Here they are, all lined up. Look, they come with cute rings! They don't fit on my tiny fingers, but they fit the bottle nicely. Star of Bombay, Golden Maharaja, Mandalay Ruby, Sea of Light, Golden Jubilee, Midnight Star.


Golden Jubilee. Bright orangey gold shimmer. Very bright. Sparkly. Mmm.


Star of Bombay, Super deep dark blue with the faintest hint of shimmer. The shimmer is almost invisible on the nail, except on very bright light.


Sea of Light. A peachy-coral-pink kind of color with a blueish-purple shimmer overlay. Almost duochrome, but not quite.


Golden Maharaja. My favorite out of the collection. Gorgeous rich brown with golden shimmer. This bubbled badly seconds after applying. I'm not sure why. Must be an Orly thing.


Mandaly Ruby. Medium red creme. That pretty much says it all.


Midnight Star. Very pretty frosty deep purple. It's like a purple/silver fusion. This one also bubbled very badly just seconds after application. What's up with that?? I bubbled before I could even take a picture of it. Lame! Still an awesome color, though.

Hooray for nice surprises!

On a totally unrelated note, have any of you been having trouble with your China Glaze polishes lately? Every time I try to wear a China Glaze polish, it takes hours to dry. This is happening with old and new formula polishes. The other day I tried to wear Passion In The Pacific with Seche as a topcoat, and eight hours later I could still dent the polish. Same with Side Saddle on my toes. Is it just the weather, or do they really take that long to dry? I didn't have this problem with any of the Ink collection, but every other collection seems to be doing it now. Hmmm...

Essie Fall 2008

Here's a little teaser:


Tomboy No More, Swept Off My Feet, No Boundaries, Lacy Not Racy, Forever Young, Big Spender.


It's pitch black here, so I can't really do swatches, but I promise that if the sun comes out tomorrow I'll be sure to swatch!

Initial impressions: WOW! Fall! Vampy! PURPLE!!!

China Glaze Sexy Sport and Zoya Chit Chat Collection Bottle Pictures

I really, really, really want to swatch these, but I promised I would leave Yasmeen on until it chips! ARGHHH!!

Anyway, the China Glaze Sexy Sport "collection" is 3 old colors and one new color- Sexy Lady. The re-released colors are Sexy, Sexy in the City and Sex on the Beach.


Sexy Lady, Sexy, Sexy In The City, Sex On The Beach


Here's Sexy Lady. It's a simple hot pink creme.


And this is the Zoya Chit Chat collection:

Gaia, Erika, Bekka, Lianne, Annie, Elke.

Gaia, Bekka and Lianne look extra awesome to me.

I have a lot of swatching to do. When I'm doing it, it seems like a pain in the ass- waiting for the right lighting, uploading, cropping, resizing, watermarking.... But now that I can't swatch because I can't take off my polish, I really want to! I miss it. It really is fun, even if my neighbors all look at me like I'm insane.

I hope this polish chips soon.

Zoya Color Lock System plus FREE Gossip Collection Sampler!

My Zoya Color Lock system and Gossip Collection polishes just arrived!


Look at how gigantic that bottle of Remove+ is! And yes, those are full size polishes!

I can't wait to try out the Color Lock system, and I'll be sure to review it when I do. It comes with Remove+, Anchor base coat, Armor top coat and Hurry Up speed dry drops (I LOVE speed dry drops, and I'll bet these are similar to my favorite, Qtica Half Time)

So, how did I get the free polishes? Simply purchase the Zoya Color Lock System and enter promo code SUMMER at checkout to get the Gossip collection free. EDIT: Oops, looks like this expired yesterday =( Sorry!!

Thank you Zoya and Art of Beauty for this awesome promotion! I can never resist free nail polish :D

OPI Mod About Brights 2008 Swatches, and also Allure magazine hates fat chicks.

I'm so excited! Allure magazine sent me two awesome gifts- a Pureology shampoo and a Paula Dorf Heartbreaker eyeshadow palette!!

As much as I rag on Allure for their ridiculous advice, they always treat me well. One time they sent me a Redken styling balm and Herbal Essences conditioner! Yay, presents!

This issue of Allure really had me furious, though. It's the yearly "naked" issue which features celebrities posing nude. They make a big deal about having a size 16 girl in the spread, but then when you get to the picture... THEY HID HER BEHIND FLOWERS! You can't see her body at all, just her head. Everyone else is stark naked and on display.

What kind of message does that send? It doesn't say "all sizes are beautiful", that's for sure. I think the message they're trying to get across is, "If you're bigger than a size 2, you need to be hidden until you conform" or "being bigger than a size two is something to be ashamed of, so we need to hide you behind flowers. Fatass." Maybe even "only tiny women are worth looking at."

I oughtta give them a piece of my mind... That's insane, insulting and infuriating and it's not constructive and it doesn't promote a positive viewpoint on body image!

Anyway, enough being pissed off for today... How about some pictures?

Here is the OPI Mod About Brights collection that I meant to post:



That's Hot! Pink, Mod-ern Girl, Brights Power, The "It" Color, Green-wich Village, Dating a Royal.


Dating a Royal, Green-Wich Village, The "It" Color, Brights Power, Mod-ern Girl


That's Hot! Pink.

So, on a non-polish related topic...

I'm not all that impressed with MAC Naughty Nauticals. I picked up the three new pigments and the blue nail polish. I'll see if seeing it in person can persuade me, otherwise I don't need more blue eyeshadow that I look weird in anyway. Blue eyeshadow makes my skin look weird. Bleh.

Does anyone besides me care about Dazzleglass? I love Dazzleglass. I think I need all of them now.. I hope they stick around for a while! It's glittery without being glittery. Mmm, glitter.