Rimmel Part 1

I thought now would be a great time to post about my love of Rimmel polish. The other day I was out shopping, and noticed that the Rimmel Underground Play Fast polish displays at every store were completely empty! This can only mean one horrible, horrible thing: They're being discontinued.

On the bright side, a few of the colors (Camouflage, Hard Edged are two that I saw) seem to have been repackaged in the 'regular' 60 Second bottles, and they have a new display.

A few of the stores I went to still had a couple lonely Play Fasts on their displays, so if you've been thinking about buying a particular Rimmel color but haven't yet, now would be the time to do so. I've had my eye on a few shades but haven't bought them because I assumed that they were permanent and were never going to be discontinued. Now I might be too late!

Anyway, the intention of this post is not to make you go out and buy Rimmels, but to share may love of this particular polish line. I just thought it would be worth mentioning that these will soon disappear.

I will do another two or three parts to this post when I'm done photographing my Rimmel collection. So, you may consider this part one :)


Rimmel Underground Play Fasts:


Hard Edged. One of the most beautiful polishes ever to see a drugstore shelf. It's a vampy brown shimmer with pretty strong duochrome. As you can see in the left hand side of the photo, there's some green/gold iridescence visible in the bottle. This is visible on the nail, but it's very subtle. Hard Edged seems to change from brown to purple in some lights. This picture doesn't capture the true beauty of this polish at all. It has a lot of tonal similarities to OPI Black Tie Optional.


Camouflage. A gorgeous, gorgeous quick-drying golden green shimmer. What I like the most about this shade is that it's more green than gold. A lot of drugstore greens in the past have been too light, too gold, and not green enough for my liking (Maybelline Go Go Green, L'Oreal Bijou Gems B. Strong.) but Rimmel Camouflage is nice and rich. It's a St. Patrick's Day green.
Perfect in every way.


Night Life. An edgy mushroomy taupe-brown with golden bordering on copper shimmer. Rimmel may have been ahead of its time with this color! This was released years ago, and just this past year mousy taupe-browns and purples started to become extremely popular. This is a very unique shade, I can think of only one similar shade- CND Family Secret. While they're not exact matches, the taupe/brown/grey with reddish shimmer makes them cousins.



Street Wear. Another edgy, sexy muted shade. This time it's a grey putty with subtle gold shimmer. Extremely hot. It reminds me of mushrooms. I think this picture makes it appear a little more warm-toned than it actually is, but it shows the shimmer well.

About half of the shades in the Rimmel Underground Play Fast line are these fabulous sheer, flaky shimmer colors that are really amazing.


Out Of Control. This is a really old picture! I haven't taken a new picture because this one is just about perfect. Out of Control is a pinkish-red color, more of a coral really, that has outrageous gold shimmer. It truly is out of control! The polish is made of little flakes, so it takes three coats to reach bottle color.


Pop Quiz. Light, peachy orange flakes mixed in with silvery white flakes. Another very unique shade from Rimmel. I'd be hard pressed to find a match for this polish. The different colored pearly flakes all combine to make this pretty light orange color. It's very sparkly, and I have a feeling that it would be great layered on top of one of the other more opaque Play Fast shades like Mouthy.



Scene Stealer. Mesmerizing gold/taupe/bronze/grey shimmer flakes with a slight duochrome effect. This is a very beautiful polish, I've never seen anything like it. It is very sheer but still packs a punch! This picture is three coats and you can still see through it a bit, I'm sure four coats would make it 100% opaque, but I like the sheer look of this. It sparkles and changes in the sun, and even looks good in dark indoor lighting. Another polish with layering potential, would probably go well with Night Life.


And a couple "regular" Rimmels...


Green With Envy. Not exactly what I would ever consider green, but pretty anyway. A bright metallic blue/aqua type of color. You may notice that the bottle is absent from this picture. That it because somehow I accidentally threw it across my kitchen and it shattered all over my ceramic tile floor. Swatching is dangerous... >.<
Torrid. This color has been repackaged, so this is the 'old' version. The new version appears to be exactly the same, but I won't know until I apply them both. Sometimes companies do that. No idea why. Anyway, Torrid is a rich plum-brown shimmer. I can't decide if it's more reddish or brownish. I guess it doesn't matter if it's as beautiful as this!



Dazzle. A very unusual drugstore find! A festive light gold metallic packed with fine medium-gold glitter! As much as I adore this color, this one is a victim of "good idea, bad execution". When you mix light-colored and light-textured metallics with glitter, instead of looking like a nail covered in delicate, sparkling glitter, you get a nail with weird speckles and lumps. Glitter and thin-formula metallics rarely work. Another example of a metallic with glitter that doesn't work: L'Oreal Bijou Crystals B. Shocking. Instead of a nice glitter look, you get chunks. But, for every few failures, there is one success... One of the best light metallics with glitter is the ancient OPI Mystic Moonshine. So, it can work, but it rarely does.


I really love Rimmel polishes. The formula on them is always perfect, they dry quicker than any non-holographic or neon polish I can think of, and they have a variety of incredible unique shades. I have seen UK-only shaded that are even more spectacular than the ones they sell here!

I wish people would start to love drugstore polishes instead of shunning them because they're 'low-end.' You all know I love my OPI, my Rescue Beauty Lounge, Dior, Lippmann Collection, Essie, all of the more expensive and popular brands. Drugstore polishes can be just as good! If I put a Rimmel in a Chanel bottle and told you to use it, you'd probably think that Chanel had improved their formula. I encourage you to look past the name and packaging and love the polish inside.

The odd thing about drugstore polishes is that they're not always inexpensive. I almost bought a Revlon the other day that would have cost me $7.50! I'll talk more about this in another post, but the idea that drugstore polish is cheaper is quickly becoming inaccurate.

OPI South Beach Collection Spring/Summer 2009

OPI South Beach Collection - Spring/Summer 2009. Release date is February 4th.

Pics first, opinions second :)


Bronzed To Perfection. A warm reddish-bronze with awesome flaky shimmer. Very strange shade choice for spring, but I'm digging it. The shimmer in it is what makes it stand out to me- instead of tiny, round particles it has itty-bitty little irregular shaped shimmer.


Clubbing Til Sunrise. Shimmery, orangey gold. Reminds me of maybe a cross between OPI 18k Ginza Gold and OPI Live From NY... It's OPI!



Conga-Line Coral. Shimmery reddish coral. I like the shimmery finish, but I can't say I really like the shade. It's too in-between for me. I need something that stands out.



Done Out In Deco. Pale lilac that leans a little bit blue. I love this one. Very spring-appropriate, another "Easter Egg" type shade. It's a lot lighter than I had expected it to be, and it is somewhere in between lilac and periwinkle.


Feelin' Hot-Hot-Hot! Bright pink creme. I know that a lot of people will really love this color, but it's just not for me. First of all, I hate the name- it instantly brings to mind that incredibly irritating song that drives me insane. Second, this could easily be mistaken for a dozen different OPI polishes... Elephantastic Pink comes to mind first. There's absolutely nothing wrong with the color itself, it is a very pretty hot pink. It's just that it feels done to death.



Miami Beet. Rich beet-purple creme. Whoa, this one was a surprise! it looked really uninteresting on the promotional shot, but I love this on the nail. Just goes to show me that I can't always judge my favorites based on the promo pics. This is a little more of a vibrant purple in real life, my camera couldn't pick up the richness of this shade.


OPI On Collins Ave. Very bright orange-red. Maybe more orange than red. This is a really cool color- for some reason it reminds me of shrimp. OPI Cajun Shrimp maybe? I want to do a pedicure in this color. I've really been drawn to near-neon orange-reds lately.


Overexposed In South Beach. Shimmery purple. My favorite out of the collection! Again, looks nothing like I thought it would from seeing the promotional pictures. It's saturated and shimmery and reminds me a lot of OPI Louvre Me, Louvre Me Not.


Paint My Moji-Toes Red. Muted red creme. Very muted, actually. So much so that it looks almost mauve in the bottle. I know that the use of the word "mojito" in the name is just so they can make a toes pun, but I really think that this should have been green. Mojito says green to me! Again, this color will probably be really popular with the average salon client, but I can't see a whole lot of nail junkies being excited about another red polish.


Party In My Cabana. Bright pink creme. Wait, didn't I just see this color? Zzzzz, booooring. Okay, I'm being harsh. Again, nothing wrong with the color, but it's been done to death.


Sand In My Suit. Shimmery, sandy nude. This really does remind me of sand. This is not my type of color at ALL, but I have to admit, I actually like it. At first I thought it was ugly, but then I put it on and it really grew on me. I like the silvery shimmer.



Suzi & The Lifeguard. Shimmery light pink. The shimmer in this baby-pink shade is very fine, almost to the point of being a frost. Very cute, very sweet. It reminds me of seashells.


I have very mixed feelings about this collection. Nothing in this collection really excites me. On one hand, it's all very work-appropriate, conservative and feminine and will most likely be a well-loved collection by a lot of women. On the other hand, it's too safe and there's really not a unique shade in the whole collection.

I do really like a few of the shades- Overexposed In South Beach, Miami Beet, Bronzed To Perfection, Done Out In Deco, OPI On Collins Ave. Wait... that's almost half the collection, isn't it? Okay, I like half the collection. That's reasonable. I was just hoping to really love the entire thing, like I have with so many OPI collections in the past.

I will admit that I know absolutely nothing about South Beach. The only thing that comes to mind when I think of South Beach is the South Beach Diet. I can picture the cover of the book, a metallic shade of green and aqua. Sparkling sea water. And that's what I think is missing from the collection. Water! South Beach is still a beach, and beaches have water, right? This collection could have used a seafoam green, an ocean blue, even a turquoise or a mother-of-pearl seashell shade. When I think of beaches, I think of fun, lively colors- swimsuits, sparkling water, beach balls, tropical drinks, sunshine. The OPI South Beach seems like a sleepy, vacant beach next to a retirement home. The colors look weathered and washed out, like they need a new coat of paint.

I know, I'm probably in the minority here, but I feel like this collection is missing something.

That being said, I'll move on to application issues. There are none. These polishes apply amazingly well, they're silky smooth and most shades only need two coats for complete opacity. Even with one coat, these colors aren't streaky or uneven at all. OPI must have really been working on their three-free formula, because this is a huge improvement! No running, no globbing, no overly thick polish. Just perfect. Dreamy, even.

That's my take on it. I don't love it, but I don't hate it. It's just okay. I wish they would have been a little more 'risky' in the color choices, or at least had a little more variety within the collection. Red, red, pink, pink, pink, nude, brown, purple. Maybe OPI has something really super-exciting planned for us in upcoming seasons. What do you think?

Don't forget about the free polish from Misa!

I just wanted to remind you that the Misa promotion is still valid for a while longer!

Free Misa Polish: A Gift To My Readers.

And here's an update on all of the questions regarding this promotion:

Update On Misa Promotion.

And just for fun, here are a few more Misa swatches :) I'm working on a ton more, and I'll post them as soon as I can.

Burnished Bronze

Blue Over A Boy


A Sunny Smile Makes Me Go Wild

Amethyst Anemone

A Sin Worth Committing

Disco Queen


Dance Fever

Confection Section


Chocolate Icing

Candy Girl

Moody Model

Sweet Pleasure

Sepia Stained Cotton


Ghetto Fabulous

Toxic Seduction

Free Nail Polish from Misa! A gift to my readers.

Good morning everyone! I have an awesome present for you all.

Misa, one of my favorite nail polish companies, is giving you a free nail polish of your choice. All you have to do is pay shipping- a flat rate of $3.00 and you can choose any polish you like.

If you can't make up your mind on which polish to choose, you can order up to eleven additional polishes for a discounted rate of $1.50. If you choose to order more than one bottle, shipping will be a little more, but won't cost more than $7.00. If you decide to go with twelve polishes, you'll pay $23.50, and that includes shipping. Rock on!!

This is an awesome gift from Misa to my readers!

All you have to do is contact Misa and mention my blog to get your free polish. The contact information is:

PHONE: 1-888-733-6472
EMAIL: info@misacosmetics.com

Or, alternately, you can email me and I will pass the information on to them. This promotion will run until the end of January.

You can browse Misa's website for pictures of all the colors, or you can use the search function on my page so see the Misa swatches I have posted so far.

One of the things Misa does best is duochrome polish. The have some really cool duochromes, like Bo Jangles, Decadent Drifter, Embroidered Emerald, Foxy & Folksy and Road Warrior, just to name a few.

Bo Jangles


Decadent Drifter


Embroidered Emerald


Foxy and Folksy


Road Warrior


They also have some of the best neons around! My favorite neon color from Misa is Pour Me Something Tall and Strong:




Misa doesn't just have duochromes and neons, they have my other favorite formula: GLITTER.

And hey, if you're not into any of those, Misa has some of the nicest cremes, shimmers and vampy colors around. Remember the Poisoned Passion collection? Oh yeah. You know what I'm talking about.

I'll be posting some Misa swatches soon in case you need help deciding which free polish you want. I am so excited!!!


Thanks MISA!!!

Swatches: Barielle Shades

When I first saw these in the September issue of Nails Magazine, my heart skipped a beat. Green and purple!!!!!!!

I looked all over for these polishes and finally gave up- I was never going to find them. It was all a cruel joke. I put them out of my mind...

...Until people started talking about them again! It was so mean, waving those lovely green and purple polishes in my face, knowing that I can't get them.... BUT! Some kind soul emailed me to say that they're available at CVS of all places! I know! CVS, can you believe it?!

They're also available on Barielle.com, but they cost $8 there and $6 at CVS.

I didn't get the whole collection because I'm on a polish budget right now, but the other two didn't really excite me that much. One was a pearly white, and one was a slivered brown that reminded me of Misa Earthward. Very pretty but possibly easily duplicated.

Enough babble, on to the swatches!!


Date Night. The undisputed star of the show and quite possibly one of the most perfect greens in existence. Please excuse the tipwear, I was wearing this for three days before I took the picture. This is a rich, deep, true green. No blue hints. It's lush and extravagant. I haven't wanted to wear anything but this color since I got it. If you like greens, you NEED this.


Hidden Hideway. Another unbelievably spectacular color from Barielle. A vibrant purple that's just a bit blackened. It's one of those lit-from-within colors that I love so much. The best thing about this is that it always looks purple in the middle, but blackish around the edges. I hate purples that look black, and this is not one of those! It's like Zoya Yasmeen's older, naughtier sister.


Secret Encounter. I keep wanting to call this one Random Encounter, heh. Another perfect purple shade. This one is much brighter and more on the red side. The color is made more beautiful by the incredible smooth shimmer this polish has. It sparkles with microscopic multicolored particles in full sunlight. So beautiful.


Two Timing. A beautiful shimmering coppery fall leaves type color. It reminds me a little bit of OPI Music Hall Curtain Call. It's not as red as Music Hall Curtain Call, more ambery copper, but the gold shimmer really brightens it and makes it flashy. This just screams FALL to me. Love.

I can't tell you how impressed I am with this collection. All of the colors are amazingly perfect, not a single dud in the whole collection; even the ones I didn't get were beautiful. It was like they hacked into my brain and created a collection they knew would make me freak out. And I gotta tell you, I freaked out over these!

Formula wise, I have mixed feelings. They are very thick but not difficult to apply. The thickness causes them to be mostly opaque in one coat, but a second coat is still necessary. The formula is smooth and not runny, and I like that, but they also take quite a while to dry. I always use Seche Vite on my polishes, and usually use Qtica Half Time drops on top of that, so manicures do dry quickly for me, but each polish tends to dry at their own speed.

CND, for example, takes the longest to dry because it doesn't ever actually dry. China Glaze takes the second longest, remaining dentable for a day or more. OPI is usually the fastest, mostly dry in 10 minutes and totally dentproof within a half hour... And so on and so forth. These polishes dry slower than OPI but not as slow as China Glaze. I was able to dent this polish after two hours, but by the end of the night it was completely dry. For the record, it was one coat of basecoat, two coats of polish and one coat of topcoat.


That being said, I'm still completely in love with this collection. I might even have to go get the other two polishes. I haven't been this excited about a collection in quite some time. It's perfect. Perfect! Bravo, Barielle! Great job! I didn't even know Barielle made polish, so seeing these shocked the hell out of me and made me giddy with polish-joy at the same time.

Rock on, Barielle.

Swatches: China Glaze Romantique Spring 2009 Collection

If you noticed, the other day (on Twitter) I said these were ugly and disappointing, and I didn't even want to swatch them.

Well, the sun was out yesterday and I got around to swatching them and I think I've changed my mind!

In the bottles they do look pretty ugly. Bland, boring, would never catch my eye on a shelf among other more interesting polish collections.

However, on the nails they're actually really cool. They're a frosty metallic texture. Not really chrome or reflective, but a smooth shimmery type of metallic. Sort of futuristic looking. Not all of the colors are 'my thing', but there are a few that I'm seriously digging.

These are sold in two halves like past China Glaze collections, a warm selection and a cool selection. I don't remember which are which, so I'll present them alphabetically.

As always, please click on the pictures to view them full size- I try to leave them really big so you can see the detail of the polish :)


Admire. See? Isn't it cool? Admire is a cool silvery pinkish color. For once, a pink that is flattering on me!


Adore. I don't know what color this is. I want to say blue, but it seems more... teal? Is it turquoise? I say it's blue. This is one of my favorites. Spaceman blue. (... Cause you're the one that I adore... We must never be apart....We must never be apart... )


Awaken. Awaken, take the land that must be taken! Okay, sorry, had to do it. Ten points to anyone who gets the joke :) Aaaaanyway, it's a gorgeous blued-charcoal metallic. Looks really similar to some of China Glaze's other charcoal metallics, but the texture of this one is superior. Smooth and opaque, very lovely.


Cherish. A frosty mint green. This one was disappointing to me. How many light mint greens do we need, honestly? I can think of four other polishes I have that look like this. Nail polish companies: stop making light greens. We want rich, deep, saturated forest greens!!! Cherish the thought of always having you here by my side...



Delight. Kind of a bronzy brown with a reddish mauve tint to it. This is one of the ones I thought looked really ugly in the bottle, but once I put it on my nails I decided that I liked it. (Uhh... sky rockets in flight??)



Devotion. Sweet devotion, it's not for me... Just give me motion and set me free.... Seriously, all of these names are reminding me of songs. Maybe they did that on purpose. Devotion is a gorgeous frosty silver. Right up my alley, I'll definitely be wearing this one.


Emotion. Sweeeeeet emotion.... Metallic medium warm-ish pink. Plain, but pretty. The color doesn't wow me but I like the finish. I would probably never wear this, but I'm sure it will be a popular color. But I need some time of from that emotion, time to pick my heart up off the floor...


Harmony. Unforgettable harmony. Holy crap, did I just sing Barry Manilow lyrics?! I'm embarrassed for myself. *ahem* Harmony is a drop-dead gorgeous metallic purple. I really love this one. It's bright and shiny and PURPLE!!! .... together in perfect harmony...



Joy. Have I no control, is my soul not mine? Am I not just man, destiny defined? (That's one of my favorite songs ever. Anyone know it?) Joy is a really stunning muted purple metallic. This might be my favorite of the entire collection. Truly lovely. Joy to the world...


Magical. There's not too much magic in this one. It's a pretty yet bland pinkish silver. Kind of... champagne? It's not really gold, but it's too pink to call it pure silver. I can't think of a song lyric for this one.


Passion. Wow, I can't think of a song lyric for this one either! Totally gorgeous light gold metallic. Might be tied with Joy for my favorite. I would wear this all the time. It rocks.
(Ooh, I think I have a song. Amy Rose's theme in Sonic Adventure is called My Sweet Passion...)


Poetic. I'm not sure what to call this color, either. Light metallic dusty rose? Mauve? Pretty but again, not anything special. It doesn't wow me, but I still like it.


Overall, I do like this collection. As I said, my first impression of it was that it was really ugly and boring. It's not. The bottle color is very deceptive, because once you put these on your nail they're really fascinating. And the more I think about it, the more I appreciate China Glaze for doing different collections. I mean, look at some of the other collections that were released recently. Essie Winter, OPI La Collection de France and Holiday in Toyland, Lippmann and Rescue Beauty Lounge's recent collections... This collection is nothing like any of those. I'm not sure if it's because it's meant for a different season, but this is totally unique. Essie would have released red and pink cremes, OPI would have done maybe some interesting vampy shimmers, but China Glaze released pastel metallics. I like that.

The formula was pretty nice on these. It was still a little runny and goopy like three-free polishes tend to be, but these went on nice and smooth with minimal running or streaking and they were surprisingly opaque. The were a little quicker to dry than usual as well. I have no complaints.

The names are really hard to remember. It's like OPI's Designer Series with the one word names that aren't the least bit memorable or descriptive and they're all really similar. Design, Desire, Extravagance, Exclusive, Elegant... How am I supposed to mentally connect the name of the polish with the color? I need a cheat sheet or something.

I found it amusing that most of the names immediately made me think of songs. I suppose that the names are generic enough that the words are used in a variety of songs, and maybe they meant it that way. Maybe I'm just nutty.

So... what do you think? I say: Awesome finish, bland colors, but a very versatile and pretty collection.