Misa Living On The Fast Lane Collection, Spring 2009

Ooh, I just got the latest collection from Misa, Living On The Fast Lane, and I am so excited! Check it out!



Dirty Sexy Money. Some sort of dusty green-turquoise creme. I have no idea how to describe this color other than freakin' sweet. Dirty Sexy Money is totally unique- I don't own a single color like this. I can't even think of a color to compare it to- maybe if you mixed some green and grey into China Glaze For Audrey? Who knows. I'm in love. Dirty Sexy Money also has a retro kind of look to it, and it really kinda does look like dirty money.


On The Edge. Stunning dark blue creme. Indoors, it's quite a bit darker and more subdued looking, but outside in the sunlight the color really pops. It's bold and dramatic. What's not to love?


Push Upon It. Rich, pigmented berry creme. This color breaks my camera! I can't seem to get a good picture of it. It's like the picture, but darker, deeper, more purple and not as glowy looking. It's close to Zoya Moxie, they have a similar 'feel' to them. I will try to figure out how to get a more accurate shot of this.


Right Here Now, No More Later. Bright sky-blue creme. WHOA. Bright! The picture speaks for itself- this color really stands out. It's cheerful.


Speed Of Life. Orange creme. Orange!! I love orange!! This is a lighter orange, not too deep like a true pumpkin orange would be, but it's not neon, either. It has a soft look to it, like Halloween candy or orange sherbet. Truly beautiful.



Stop Rewinding, Just Fast Forward. Bright coral-red creme. I've been seeing a lot of this color lately. It's like some of the other colors in this collection: Bright, but not neon. It dries shiny. Very rich, very punchy, great spring and summer pedicure color. I imagine that this color would look good on any skintone.

Overall, I'm super-excited about this collection. I have two new favorites, Dirty Sexy Money and Speed Of Life. The creme formula really makes these colors stand out. With all the shimmer I've been wearing lately, these are quite a refreshing change. There's just something about cremes in bright colors that makes your nails look perfect. I love them.

Sure, not all of the colors are completely unique- I could probably find a couple duplicates for On The Edge, Push Upon It and Stop Rewinding Just Fast Forward, but that doesn't make them any less beautiful. I really like how this spring collection is not your stereotypical spring collection. No pastels, no pink! I dig it. Spring collections are my least favorite, and this one is a sigh of relief for me. It was fun to swatch, unlike swatching 24857 shades of pastel pink and red.

The formula is perfect. No issues at all. Smooth like butter. These also, oddly enough, dried much faster than most of my other Misa polishes. I don't know if it's because of the pigment of these particular shades, or if it's the creme formula or what, but I like it. Fast drying polishes are an absolute must for me, I don't have the patience to deal with polishes that never dry even with quick-dry topcoat and drops *cough*CND*cough*.

If you are a fan of blue or green, you need to check out Dirty Sexy Money. You will either love it or hate it. I love it. Like I said, it's totally unique, one of a kind, can't think of a single polish to match it.

One final observation: These smooth, glassy, perfect creme finish nails are just screaming KONAD ME!!!! KONAD ME NOW!!!!!!!

Swatches: China Glaze Operation Color

Pics first and then my opinion!


Agent Lavender. Not really lavender, is it? It's more of a greyed-out blue/purple... Periwinkle?


Code Orange. Perfect pumpkin orange with a hint of red/pink shimmer.


Golden Opportunity. Golden yellow with subtle gold shimmer.


Pink Underground. Candy pink with silvery shimmer.



Revolution. Bright orangey red creme.


Secret Peri-wink-le. Dusty periwinkle blue creme.


Overall, I'm extremely disappointed in this collection. I really love the color of Code Orange, Agent Lavender and Secret Peri-wink-le, but the formula SUCKS.

They look really bad in these pictures because they were impossible to apply. They were so thick they wouldn't spread! Just a big sticky, gooey, globby mess. Shame on you, China Glaze!

The only exception was Revolution, which applied amazingly well. Too bad I don't wear red!

When I first saw pictures of this collection, I was confused. For a collection called "Operation Color" it's really not very colorful. It's really muted, "dusty", bland. I don't understand why this was called Operation Color- I think a different name would have been more appropriate for these faded looking shades.

I think I've fallen out of love with China Glaze. Aside from Rodeo Diva, their formula has been sucking lately. It's too thick, gooey, stringy and bubbly and it never dries. Unless they really wow me with some great colors, I might not be buying any more China Glaze! Bahama Blues looks interesting, so I'll give them a chance to redeem themselves.

Another thing I'm annoyed with is the fact that they never respond to their emails- I've emailed them at least half a dozen times without so much as an auto-reply! Again, shame on you, China Glaze! Companies should care about the consumer and make answering customer emails a priority! I guess they're too busy booking out-of-work strippers for their promo images to respond to emails. Hmmph!

Rescue Beauty Lounge Fall 2008 Swatches!

Again, please ignore the broken nails- I know they don't look pretty!



Bruised. This is very nice for fall. It's muted and soft but it still stands out.


No More War. THIS IS HOT!!! It's the exact color of a green olive. I don't own any other colors like this- it's totally unique. I'm a huge fan of olive green and I will be wearing this color a LOT.


Teal. Much darker than I thought it would be. Very nice blue creme that seems a little faded. I also don't have any colors like this one.


Plie. A pretty pink creme, the color of ballet slippers. At first I didn't like this because it made my hands look dirty, but looking at this picture, I think it's really nice now!


All of these are totally unique and completely different from everyone else's fall releases. I think that's one of the things I love most about Rescue Beauty Lounge- they always have something different! While everyone else is releasing vampy metallics and red cremes, Rescue Beauty Lounge stands out by releasing muted, unconventional colors in a creme formula. Awesome.

The formula on these is amazing as usual- all are pretty much one coaters, but I did two anyway. Plie was a little streaky. Otherwise they're smoother than glass and you could apply them with your eyes closed.

On a different note, apparently I haven't been getting my comment notification emails! I think I have it working now, so if you've left a comment recently and I haven't responded, I'm sorry! I'm going through my posts now to see what comments I've missed. Your comments mean a lot to me and I'm very thankful for your feedback!

Sephora By OPI Swatches!

So the UPS man just surprised me with a box of nail polish from Sephora! I didn't even get a tracking number, they just mysteriously showed up! Hooray, another pleasant surprise!

Swatches first:


Brainiac. Sephora described this as "spiced pumpkin." Whenever I see the word "pumpkin" it's like an alarm goes off inside my brain that says BUY BUY BUY BUY BUY!!! Unfortunately, this doesn't look very pumpkiny to me. It's like a weird muted salmon-coral, or pinkish burnt orange. I still like it, but it's NOT PUMPKIN :(


Cab Fare. I love the color- a bright yellow with yellow-gold shimmer, like Orly Live Wire but not as bright. However... This polish was extremely thick and impossible to work with. See how thick it looks on my nails? That's two coats and it's uneven and lumpy. This was even, dare I say, stringy?


Call Your Mother. Oooh, I like this. Another muted purple. I'm happy that these colors are appearing more often. They're very unusual and I find that exciting!


Charge It! If you don't want to spend $30 on Chanel Gold Fiction, get this! It's not an exact match but the finish is the same. It's a bright, shiny, metallic, polished gold. Love this.


Domestic Goddess. Bright purple creme, woot!!


Don't Go There. Brighter than Call Your Mother, but I don't like it quite as much. It just doesn't do anything for me. Pretty, but meh.


Metro Chic. Another one of these weird colors! I love 'em! Quite similar to You Don't Know Jacques, and I'm perfectly fine with that.


Never Enough Shoes. Not exactly what I was expecting. I had expected more obvious glitter, but this is actually really subtle. I can see red, gold and silver glitter, but it's super-tiny microglitter. I was hoping for something like Petites Black Star.


Run With It. WOO! This is wicked cool! I think they should have named it 'wet cement' because that's what it looks like. It's a muted light grey with the tiniest tinge of red, it looks like. It has a fine shimmer running through it that gives the appearance of concrete- all those little sparkly crushed stones. I really, really love this. A lot. I hope this isn't limited edition!


Truthfully, I wasn't impressed by the quality of these. The main problem I had is that every creme shade I bought has ribbons of unmixed pigment running through it. I normally don't have a problem with this, a little shaking is enough to take care of it most of the time. But, even after a moderate amount of shaking, the ribbons were still there, and worse, created pigmented streaks on the nail!

Formula-wise, about half were good and half were a horrible, thick, gooey, streaky mess.

The brushes are nice, a nicely shaped standard nail polish brush, no Pro-Wides here. I am not a fan of the bottles for three reasons: One, they look like they'll be insanely hard to open if a little bit of polish dries in the threads. Two, they look cheap. And three, they look more like something you'd find in an, um, adult store than a bottle of nail polish.

I'm happy with all the colors I ordered, even if they weren't exactly what I was expecting.

OPI Fall 2008: La Collection De France Swatches

EDIT: Now with 100% more commentary!
I promised I'd have these up on Monday, and damn it, I am going to post them before midnight!

The odds were against me today. I was supposed to have these on Friday, but UPS decided to reschedule my shipment! So today I waited and waited as all the good sunlight disappeared. No OPIs! I was about to give up hope when I heard the UPS man pull up... at 7:30PM!!! By this time the sun was setting and I had no light for swatches. (I took over 200 pictures of these outdoors in the sunset and not a single one turned out!)

But, here they are, finally, OPI La Collection De France!

I'm tired, so I'll spare you the commentary and let you admire the images without my constant nonsensical babble ;-)

A Oui Bit Of Red
This actually has a bit of fuchsia shimmer to it that wouldn't show up in the picture. You can see the hint of shimmer in the botttle if you look closely. It's your average red shimmer, very pretty, but not something I would wear.

Baguette Me Not
Really odd muted salmon brown sort of color. Another "mom" color, but I really like it. It reminds me of fall. Very soft.

Bastille My Heart
This is a bit more purple in real life. A deep, shimmery, stainy (yikes!) wine shimmer. Pretty, but holy crap does this ever stain.

Crepes Suziette
This is less red in real life. More of a muted burnt orange type of color. Another soft "mom" color that's extremely similar to Baguette Me Not, just a shade darker. In fact, this is a creme version of one of my favorites- Cheyenne Pepper. It's like Cheyenne Pepper without the beautiful golden shimmer.

Eiffel For This Color
Hot. Seriously. It reminds me of Black Cherry Chutney. A deep, dark black cherry color with shimmer. Not terribly unique, but still awesome.

I'm Fondue Of You
LOVE this one. Chocolate brown with a touch of red and gold shimmer. Very 'fall'. It's similar to Rescue Beauty Lounge Noisette, but more subtle (and not quite as pretty!)

Yes... I Can-Can!
Another cherry-colored polish! This says "Moulin Rouge" to me. Vampy, sexy, shimmery dark cherry.

You Don't Know Jacques
This is probably my favorite out of the collection. There aren't too many colors that look like this. It's very unusual! Is it grey or taupe or mousy brown? I'll probably wear this the most often out of all of these.

Louvre Me, Louvre Me Not
Hey, is this Zoya Jacy? Close, but a tad darker. Medium purple/plum with pink shimmer. Gorgeous.

Parlez-Vous OPI?
This is wicked cool. It's a greyed lilac. Like Do You Lilac It's undead zombie sister. This *might* be tied with You Don't Know Jacques for my favorite of the collection. I can't decide. Maybe it's my second favorite.

Tickle My Francey
A coffee with too much cream nude. I don't wear nudes or pale colors, but I really love the way this looks. It's not your average nude, there's just something about it that's unique. It has that Rescue Beauty Lounge Grunge feeling to it, but more natural looking. Elegant, for sure.

We'll Always Have Paris
A deep wine cream. Well, maybe not wine exactly, but purple-red-brown. Man, I think I really suck at describing colors. That's what pictures are for, I suppose. Vampy and rich, definitely not unique, but still beautful anyway.

These colors are not what I expected from seeing the promo pictures. I think there are really only three totally unique colors in this collection -You Don't Know Jacques, Parlez-Vous OPI, Tickle My Francey. They are all really pretty, but I feel that OPI played it too safe. What happened to the OPI that released Night Brights? I can see what they were going for in this collection, and I'm sure the average nail polish consumer would love all of these, but for a nail polish junkie like me, I've seen all these colors before. Red shimmer, vampy shimmer, vampy creme, wine creme, ho-hum.

I'm not saying that I don't like these- I think they're all gorgeous- but I think OPI could have been a little more, I don't know, exciting? Look at China Glaze's Rodeo Diva collection! They did a mixture of traditional and non-traditional colors and every single color came out awesome.

Then again, this is just my opinion and I know that I like my polish colors to be more "out there" and over the top- bring on the glitter, the duochromes and the neons! I do love my vampy colors, but the nail polish market is becoming SO saturated with them I'm starting to become bored! At least I have OPI's Halloween and Holiday collections to look forward to.

There.... I made it! I'll add in my comments when I've had some sleep. Enjoy!