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.

MAC Polishes and Purple By Night Dupe..?

About that Givenchy Purple By Night frankenpolish idea I had... I had an epiphany! Givenchy Purple By Night = OPI Ink?

Last night I wanted to do a purple color for my mani, and I grabbed my all-time favorite polish: OPI Ink. It's so close to Purple By Night but better! I don't have a good picture of it because for some reason it turns blue in every picture I take. I don't know why it does that- it's very clearly and obviously purple on my nails. I will get a good picture of this color if it kills me!

So why do I like OPI Ink better? It's more purple. It has DEPTH. It's super shimmery and it makes me happy.

But, it's not an *exact* match to Purple By Night. It's pretty flippin' close though. I think adding a touch of pastel shimmer and maybe a little black would make it exact. I'll find out when I get another bottle- I can't sacrifice my precious bottle to duplicate a polish I don't like as much.

After a while I got curious and added a coat of Misa Confection Section on top. Not a match, but it sure looks cool. Great combination for you layering lovers out there- OPI Ink and Misa Confection Section.


Now that that's out of the way, how about some pictures?

Here's my entire MAC polish collection. As you can see, I really don't have very many. This is because of the experiences I've had with MAC polish. It's very hit-or-miss, formula wise.

The old formula was pretty bad, watery or sometimes too thick, takes too long to dry, hard to apply. As a result of the formula issues, for quite a long time I completely avoided MAC polish. I regret that now, because I passed up some very cool colors.

I'm happy to say that the new formula MAC polishes are 100% better. I have not had any problems with the polishes released in the past two or three years.



Blue Sprinkles. Silvery blue shimmer with slight rosy duochrome and copper squares. Sweetie Cake collection.


$$$$$ Yes. Smooth, foil metallic silver. Heatherette collection.


Dark Angel. Deep cream purple. I'm not sure which collection this is from, but it's a few years old. I bought it because it's the name of a VNV Nation song.


Gold Veneer. Perfect metallic light gold. Antiquitease collection.




Illegal Purple. Deep, dark vampy brownish eggplant. Cult of Cherry collection.


Kid Orange. Impossible to photograph properly- it glows. Bright orange red. No idea what collection this was from.



Lola Devine. Gorgeous squishy-looking peachy pink cream. Heatherette collection.



Metalist. Smooth and highly reflective coppery gold metallic. Neo Sci-Fi collection.


Neon 8. Bright orange shimmer with slight pinkish duochrome. Neo Sci-Fi collection.



Naughty Nautical. What a horrible, horrible picture of this! I'm ashamed. It's a deep blackened-blue shimmer. Naughty Nauticals collection.


Phosphor. Amazingly gorgeous glowy golden yellow shimmer. Neo Sci-Fi collection.


Plasma Blu. Hot turquoise blue shimmer that practically lights up on your nails. Neo Sci-Fi collection.


Rainy Day. Blue-grey gunmetal metallic shimmer. Blue Storm collection.


Seasonal Peach. Drop-dead gorgeous vintage pinky-peach cream. Cremesheen collection.


Silverstruck. Antique metallic with a hint of reddish tint. Cult of Cherry collection.


Wildfire. Seriously watery blackened purple shimmer. Smoke Signals collection (I think...).

I might be wrong on a couple of the collections, so please feel free to correct me if you see a mistake!

That's my MAC polish collection (minus Nocturnelle because it seems to have escaped!) as of now. I plan to expand this at every chance I get! Most of these colors are discontinued but I've seen almost all of them at Cosmetics Company Store outlets fairly recently. They run about $10 retail and from $7 and up at the CCO.

Swatches: New OPI Designer Series shades!

They're finally here!! The nine new OPI Designer Series polishes are here at last and it's instant love. I'm a sucker for holographic polishes, and while these are different from your average holo, they're still beautiful and mesmerizing.

On to the swatches! As always, I leave these huge to show you the detail, so please click the images to enlarge them.


Classic. A warm gold holographic polish. As you can see, it's more of a 'scattered' type holo, as opposed to other holographic finishes like the China Glaze Kaleidoscope and OMG collections or previous OPI Designer Series polishes.


Coronation. A bright silver prismatic holo. It's similar to polishes like China Glaze Sexagon and OPI Paris Couture For Sure, but as you can see it's that scattered type of shimmer.



Extravagance. This one was so pretty it needed two pictures. One outside, one inside under fluorescent light A rich purple with incredible shimmer. Stunning, and a must-have for purple lovers like me!



Illuminate. A fascinating holographic brown with green duochrome! Holo and duochrome? I'm not sure if I can handle the awesomeness!


Limited. A warm coppery-pink sort of shade with holographic shimmer. These aren't glitter, for all of you who are wondering. They're perfectly smooth, silky, sparkly shimmer polishes and they're not the least bit gritty or chunky.



Opulence. Very flattering mauve-pink with holographic shimmer to keep it from being plain. It's a pink I would wear!


Reflection. Wow!! I'm not sure how to describe this color.... Hot pink coral with gold duochrome and holo? It's extremely eye-catching and just one hell of an excellent shade. This one was even opaque in one coat, but I did two anyway.


Reserve. Another pretty holographic pink- very feminine and flattering but not the least bit boring!


Tapestry. For some reason I want to call this shade 'russet' and I have no idea why. It's sort of a pink-red, more on the red side than the pink side. Loaded with holographic shimmer. Reminds me a little bit of OPI Crim-sun but not as holo.


These are so gorgeous. Maybe I'm biased, because anything holographic is a winner in my book, but still... They're HOT! And on top of the amazing colors, the formula is top notch. Perfect application, no three-free goo texture, dried *super* fast and smooth and shiny to boot. I have no complaints here other than they're not holographic enough. Okay, maybe one or two complaints. The names are stupid and impossible to remember and they cost twice as much as a regular OPI polish, but it's a price I'm willing to pay. I love a polish that will make me want to stare at my hands all day.

In case you missed it, I swatched the rest of my Designer Series collection (not 100% complete, but close!) back in May. You can check out the posts here:

Designer Series Part 1

Designer Series Part 2

And if that's not enough OPI holographic goodness for you, I also swatched the It's Summer For Shore collection here:

OPI It's Summer For Shore Collection

Enjoy, and embrace the holo.