More from BB Couture For Nails!

BB Couture is another brand that is new to me but has been consistently shocking me with their unique and creative shades.

I remember that when I reviewed my first BB Couture Polishes, I was under the impression that the line was 'boring pinks and reds with a few awesome colors' tossed in. I was totally wrong. After viewing an actual color chart of all the BB Shades, it's clear that the awesome colors strongly outnumber the boring pinks and reds.

Here are a few of their amazing new shades (and a couple older but still new to me ones!)


Hermosa Surfer Girl. A deep pink jelly with multicolored glitter. This is a berry-pink, maybe a fuchsia? It's fairly bright bright but also mellow and rich. The glitter in this is hard to describe- it seems multicolored or at least iridescent as I can see gold silver and green clearly. I'm not sure if it's one type of glitter flashing different colors or a bunch of different colors of glitter.

Laguna Lagoon. Light mint green creme. This color reminds me a little bit of mint chocolate chip ice cream, but maybe a little lighter. Very pretty. This shade also had a particularly smooth formula, which is very rare for opaque milky pastels.


Midnight Malibu. Deep ink blue with multicolored glitter. This looks a lot more purple to me in the bottle, but when I apply it it's definitely a deep blue. Maybe a touch of purple. This has the same multicolored glitter as Hermosa Surfer Girl, but it has a touch of bar glitter thrown in as well. The bar glitter, although I love it, doesn't do much in this polish as it rarely makes it from the bottle onto your nail.

Moon Over Manhattan. Faded blue with subtle glitter. This is a really unique shade. I don't think I've seen anything like it. The shade of blue is really soft and faded looking, almost like it has a grey haze. It's more of a medium blue bordering on dark. The glitter in this is really subtle. It doesn't really sparkle much and it's not immediately noticeable but it adds a little depth and interest to the blue creme base.


Pink Champagne. Light pink shimmer with slight green flash. This has a shimmery, frosty almost metallic finish. It's a delicate light pink but to keep it from being too plain it has a touch of green flash that's noticeable at extreme angles. The green flash is more prominent in the bottle than on the nails.


Raspberry Cosmo. Hot pink with blue flash. Ooh, this picture didn't turn out so good. Anyway, this is another almost-metallic finish, and the hot pink base is accented with a subtle blue/purple flash.

Venice Party. Cornflower blue shimmer with silver glitter. This is another faded-looking blue. Quite pretty. This one is also very subtly duochrome, but only if you're looking closely. It is sprinkled with silver glitter. I have to be honest with you, I don't think this particular formula works. I've mentioned before the issue that arises when you add glitter to a thin metallic base. Instead of seeing a lot of sparkles on top of the polish, you get a weird bumpy texture that looks a little like bubbles. I like the color and that it has glitter, but I think the glitter needs to be bigger in order to break through the base color.

Venom. Frosty green. Venom is a medium green shade with silvery frost. I like the base color but I can't say I'm wild about the frosty finish. It tends to show brushtrokes so you must be very careful to apply it evenly. You can see in the picture where some of my strokes are more diagonal and some are vertical... Be mindful of your strokes when applying so you don't end up with that.


Balboa Beach Bunny. Rich purple with glitter. This one, like Midnight Malibu, contains bar glitter in addition to regular glitter. I love bar glitter. Unfortunately, this one does the same as Midnight Malibu- it has pretty bar glitter in the bottle but only one or two pieces actually end up on your nail. I'd love it even more if it had more bar glitter!

Blind Love. Green-gold metallic shimmer. This one is spectacular. It's bright and reflective but also has a fiery sparkle to it. It's an almost dead-on duplicate of Chanel Kaleidoscope. The difference between this and Kaleidoscope is one of them is a touch more green, but it's not noticable.


Dark Knight. Black with heavy gold shimmer. Oooh, this one is cool. It's a little bit like some of the other black-with-gold polishes that give the illusion of being a rich olive green. Dark Knight is extremely hot, very interesting to look at and I love the name as well.


Green Goblin. Forest green creme. I know I've posted this already, but it's so good I need to post it again. This time we get a rich, foresty, mossy dark green instead of all of the nearly-impossible to pull off and quite unappealing light yellow-greens we always see. I love this color so much, I might need twenty-seven backups.

Iced Olive. Shimmery olive. Another unique green! This one is a medium olive green, more on the deep green side than the yellow-green side with lots of gold shimmer. It's like the gold shimmer in Dark Knight. The cool thing about this kind of gold shimmer is that it gives it that bright in the middle/dark on the edges sort of look indoors. Like the center of the polish is glowing. Super cool.


Aren't those colors fantastic?! BB Couture For Nails is really surprising me lately. Almost every single color they've released since the first time I tried them as been edgy, unique and fun. Rock on!!

The formula on this is good, but inconsistent. Some are thick, some are thin, some are somewhere in between. The formula of these is much better than the first BB Coutures I tried, which had Three-Free Syndrome. These are a lot more smooth and less drippy/runny/gooey. I had trouble applying the frosty ones, but the cremes and glitters were perfect. Drying time is average.

I'm really happy that BB Couture is doing all of these unconventional colors. This is definitely a brand to keep your eye on. Lots of fun surprises. I'm really looking forward to seeing what comes next. So much potential! Potential and also proof that they're willing to do exciting colors!

BB Couture retails for $8.00 and can be purchased from Overall Beauty (I highly recommend and I can personally vouch for their great customer service) or directly from the manufacturer's website (but it doesn't appear to have all the shades).

Nubar Parisian Collection Summer 2009

Nubar's new Parisian collection is a set of sheers, pinks and french manicure shades.


Champs-Elysees Pink. A warm, pale pink. This has a very soft peachy tone to it, I'd call this in between baby pink and pastel peach. This looks like a creme, but if you look really closely you'll see that it has a faint amount of soft shimmer. This is three coats.

Cineaqua Shimmer. A metallic coral-pink. This is a very shiny and reflective shade of warm pink. When applying this one you should be mindful of the frosty metallic formula to avoid brushstrokes as much as possible. The brushstrokes fade slightly when the polish is completely dried. Three coats.


Eiffel Tower Sparkle. Sheer crystalline pink shimmer. My favorite of the collection! It's so pretty and sparkly, it starts out sheer and builds opacity with each layer. This reminds me strongly of OPI Princess Rule!. Three coats.

Hotel Baby Pink. Pastel pink creme. This one is a very mod-60's looking pale pink creme. It really stands out despite being soft and pale. Three coats.

La Siene Shimmer. A sheer warm pink with strong blue flash. This is a really cool color. The blue flash is really nice and it's great for layering. It looks really nice over neon pink as well as on top of these sheers. I've been trying out a few different layering combinations for this one. Three coats.

Louvre Nude. Sheer nude-pink jelly creme. This really does have a jelly-like texture. It is transparent and milky. This can easily be worn with one or two coats because it's not the least bit streaky. This is four coats.

Notre Dame Nude. Milky nude-pink creme. This one is similar to Hôtel Baby Pink in finish but it's a slightly cooler shade of pink. Very hard to describe. It also has that 60's-retro look to it. Three coats.

Parc Floral Pink. Sheer petal pink creme. This one almost has a jelly finish to it, but it's a little more milky than Louvre Nude. This shade of pink is particularly delicate- almost white but pink enough to blend with your natural skintone. Another very sheer polish that isn't streaky. Four coats.

Since this is designed to be a french manicure collection, I did a little layering with the two shimmer shades to give some examples of what you can achieve with these shades.

The base for layering here is the Revlon Charlotte nail from the Naturally Chic line.

Eiffel Tower Sparkle (one coat) over a french manicure.

La Seine Shimmer (one coat) over a french manicure.

As you can see, these are all very soft, natural, feminine shades of pink and peach. They would make great colors for the traditional french manicure, or they can be worn alone either as sheers or with more coats for full coverage.

Siobhan at The Nailphile did a great post about this which includes some great pictures of La Seine Shimmer and Eiffel Tower Sparkle layered over the other shades in this collection

The formula on these was very good. Smooth and thin, non-streaky and quick drying. I had no issues applying them aside from the brushstrokes on Cineaqua Shimmer, but that's more due to the finish than the formula. I normally have a problem with sheers and milky pinks being extremely streaky, but these didn't have that problem. Very cool.

Not the most exciting collection I've ever seen, but if you're into sheers and pinks, you may really enjoy these, especially if you've had issues with streaky sheers in the past.

This collection is available now at ByNubar.com. As a bonus, until May 15th, Nubar is including their Foundation base coat and Diamont Shine topcoat free in every order of $50 or more. This entire collection is priced at $49.95 if you buy them all together, five cents short of the free gifts with purchase... Kind of odd, but maybe they'll include it anyway since it's so close.

OPI Bright Pair Collection with Paige Premium Denim: Brights 2009

In the previous post you saw some comparisons and duplicates from this collection, now here's the "real" post :)

There are also swatches of the collection at The Nailphile and Sterling Nails.

A Grape Fit. Rich lavender creme. This is my new favorite pale purple. The problem I have with the pale purples/lilacs/lavenders is that sometimes they're so pale they look lifeless. This one is soft but still rich and bright enough to be interesting for me, and it looks good with my skintone.


In My Back Pocket. A bright orange creme. Ooh, orange! For some reason we don't see oranges being released very often... I wonder why that is? They're so bright and happy and flattering on most skintones. This one is especially nice because it's a little softer than most of the oranges that I have. It's definitely not neon and it's a little softer than pumpkin.

No Room For The Blues. Bright sky blue creme. Not the least bit unique but still a beautiful color. I really can't resist these bright blues, they are just soooooo pretty that I'm always drawn to them!


On The Same Paige. Deep orange creme. I want to call this red-orange- it's definitely orange but has a much deeper red tint than the other orange in this collection. Maybe it's coral? Would you call this more coral or orange? Coral is extremely confusing for me.

Over The Taupe. Taupe creme. This picture came out a little warmer than the color looks on me in real life. This is another color I never thought I'd like, but it ended up being my favorite from the collection. It's the most unique in the collection and it has that soft, grungy, edgy 'mushroom' look that I love so much.

Shorts Story. Hot pink creme. I'm going to use OPI's description for this one: "Hot Pink. The end." Haha! It's to the point and pretty accurate. This is a nice cool hot pink though, so it doesn't make my hands look dirty. I have a hard time wearing pinks, but I can usually wear the cooler, more blue-violet toned ones like this and OPI I'm India Mood For Love.

This collection is supposed to pair with the Summer line from Paige Premium Denim. Admittedly, I had never heard of the brand until this OPI collection mentioned it, but then again, I'm neither a denim wearer nor fashion enthusiast. But since seeing the promo pics for this collection that feature Paige denim in all sorts of bright colors, I kinda want some now.

That looks awesome. Admit it. Except.... Those jeans are ridiculously tight. I'm betting they're those 'skinny' jeans that don't look good on anyone but Emo boys (wait, did I say it looked good on emo boys?)....

The formula on these was flawless. Smooth, thin and opaque in two to three coats depending on the shade. I had zero application issues and the drying time was very fast. The Pro-Wide brush in these makes application really fast for me as well- I was able to use one quick stroke on each nail!

This collection of brights is missing what made the previous OPI brights collections unique- fun shimmers! The original sets of brights had duochromes (like Electric Eel) and sheer crystal shimmers in fun colors (like That's All Bright With Me). The Night Brights collection introduced us to one of the greatest polishes of all time: My Private Jet. It gave me one of my most favorite purple polishes, OPI Ink. Unique colors with no duplicates to be found. Mod about Brights gave us green and yellow. The Bright Pair collection is really pretty and all the colors are nice, but there isn't really anything unique about them.

I do like this collection a whole lot. The colors themselves are gorgeous, the formula on them is perfect and they all look really nice together. I only wish there were six more shades to balance out the cremes. It would have been cool to have coordinated layering shades like the old collection. But, it seems like the polish companies are scaling back lately and not releasing as many shades as they used to.

So... OPI Summer 2009 is almost done (one more collection to go!) and then we get what looks like an amazing set of collections for fall and winter. Woohoo!!

Comparisons with OPI Brights 2009 Bright Pair with Paige Denim

This time I thought I'd try something a little different and put the cart before the horse, so to speak.

I do love this collection of brights, but they are very similar to other brights I own, especially ones by OPI.

Index and ring: OPI A Grape Fit
Middle and pinkie: OPI Do You Lilac It?

As you can see, they're similar shades of lilac purple but Do You Lilac It? is significantly lighter.

Index: OPI No Room For The Blues
Middle: OPI Just Groovy
Ring: Zoya Yummy
Pinkie: Misa Right Here Now, No More Later

There are minuscule differences between these colors, but can you really tell? I wouldn't know this was four different colors unless someone told me.

Index: OPI On The Same Paige
Middle: OPI Orange You Glad It's Summer?
Ring: OPI Don't Be Koi With Me
Pinkie: Misa Um You're Too Delicious

These oranges weren't as close as they appeared in the bottle. Similar, but I don't think I have an exact match yet.


Index: OPI Over The Taupe
Middle: OPI You Don't Know Jacques
Ring: Butter London Fash Pack
Pinkie: Orly Country Club Khaki

Hmm, no dupes here! Similar, but again, nothing exact.

Index: OPI Shorts Story
Middle: OPI I'm India Mood For Love
Ring: OPI D.C. Cherry Blossom
Pinkie: China Glaze Laced Up

I thought I had more pinks similar to Shorts Story in my collection, but I couldn't find a duplicate. I'm sure that one exists, but I'll have to keep looking to find out what it is.

Index: OPI In My Back Pocket
Middle: OPI Osaka To Me Orange
Ring: OPI It's A Bird, It's A Plane... It's OPI
Pinkie: OPI Orange You Glad It's Summer?

This one seems closest to my favorite orange, OPI Osaka To Me Orange.

Aside from No Room For The Blues, I haven't found an exact duplicate of any of these colors. In my opinion, they're unique and pretty enough to own all of them, but only if you really love the color. I happen to love them all even though they look like other things in my collection.

I only wish this year's brights had the matching crystalline shimmers like the old Brights collections, but I'll save my lamentations for the 'real' post :)

Jessica Summer 2009 Life's A Beach Collection

This is the second collection I've tried from Jessica and I love it even more than the first!

The Life's A Beach collection is a collection of brights and a few have a very jelly-like finish!


Bikini Bottoms. A bright fuchsia creme. This isn't really as jelly-like as the other shades in this collection. It's a nice, bright pink but it's not neon. It also looks good against my skintone, which is rare for pink!






Diva On The Dunes. Bright orange creme. This one is a lot more jelly-like, but doing three coats covered up the squishy look. It's a very bright but not quite neon orange.



Loving The Lifeguard. Rich red-purple creme. This looks a lot like some of the neon purples in my collection but with the 'neon' removed! It's not really bright but it is bold.



My Cabana Boy. Near-neon coral-orange creme. This color is hot! It was also impossible to photograph. This is as close as I was able to get to the real life shade. It's much brighter and more saturated. I don't think it's a true neon, it doesn't dry matte, but it is bright enough to be seen from across the room! I think this is my favorite one so far!



No Tan Lines. Bright bubblegum pink creme. Your standard girly pink.




Under My Umbrella. Near neon hot pink creme. This has the most obvious jelly finish out of all the polishes in this collection. It's also super bright but not a true neon. It's right on the edge of bright/neon! Bold and bright, perfect for a summer pedicure.


I didn't think Jessica did a whole lot of brights or neon-like colors, so this collection was another surprise for me. The more and more I experience this brand, the more I like it.

I especially love the name of this collection. Life's A Beach. Ha!

The polishes all have a great texture, not too thin, not too thick. They don't seem to have three-free syndrome. They all apply evenly with no streaking, running or pooling. They dry very quickly and the wear on them is really quite good. The bottles and brushes are also of a very high quality, and that helps a lot when applying polish.


I love these colors. Like I said, they're bright but not neon. Brighter than the colors in China Glaze Kicks but not as bright as the colors in Zoya La-Di-Da. Every shade is flattering and could be worn by a wide variety of skin tones and still look perfect. I was especially shocked that the pinks looked good on me. Pinks usually make my fingers look dirty or burnt. Bonus!


Overall, hot colors, perfect for summer. Great formula. Not the most exciting or unique collection, but at least there aren't any ugly colors. Perfect for someone who's not brave enough to venture into neons but wants to wear bright color.

I don't have an exact release date for these, but they're available at the end of April and can be purchased from Jessica's website.

Essie Summer 2009: NEONS!!!

I just got the new Essie neons and HOLY CRAP! These are BRIGHT!!!!!!!

First, a disclaimer and then the swatches. Since these polishes are neon, they don't photograph true to life. I have not yet found a way to capture the true glow of a neon polish. They do weird things to my camera. I have tried my best to get the colors accurate, but these will look much, much brighter in real life.

I'm trying out different types of lighting for these, and a couple of them turned out pretty good. Some are taken in the shade or in a dark room, so that's why my skin looks grey... No, I am not a zombie. Yet.

Edit:  Check out Siobhan's awesome swatches of this collection at The Nailphile!




Flirty Fuchsia. Neon pink. Sunlight pictures of neons never come out, I don't even know why I bothered. This pink has almost a touch of red to it- it's a deeper pink than Punchy Pink but it's just as bright!




Funky Limelight. Neon highlighter yellow. This is a true highlighter yellow. It's officially my new favorite yellow. This is retina-searingly bright, in fact, it gives me a bit of a headache just looking at it!




Perky Purple. Saturated neon purple. This might actually be my favorite type of color. No matter how many neon purples I own, I just never seem to get sick of them and always find myself wanting more! This is more of a deep purple in real life, but super bright. It's a lot like Essie Bermuda Shorts from last year's neons.




Punchy Pink. Uber-bright neon light pink. This is the lighter of the two pinks, and it seems more on the cool end of the spectrum. These pictures can not possibly portray how cool this polish is. It is ridiculous.


The formula on these is perfect. Thin, pigmented, smooth, totally flawless. I had zero application issues. These are right in line with the Zoya neons formula-wise. In fact, these are even thinner and smoother than the Zoyas, but not as opaque. They are slightly on the sheer side- one coat of polish lays down a lot of pigment but to build intensity you really need three coats. All of these pictures are three coats of polish with one coat of Seche Vite. Since it is the nature of neons to dry matte, you will need a topcoat if you want a glossy finish.

I am going to say it right now: Funky Limelight is the best neon yellow I own. It's the brightest, the smoothest, the least streaky and just plain incredible. Backup-worthy. I don't usually like to choose 'best' products because something better usually comes along, but no, this is THE. BEST. Period.

Overall, I am totally thrilled with these. Yes, these are pretty much your average neons, but they seem a lot brighter than most of the neons I own. The other thing that has me so excited about these is that, hello, they're ESSIE. Neons. Essie. Safe, sheer-pale-pink-nude Essie made these obscenely bright neons. Wrap your brain around that!

I would have liked to see a blue and green to round out the collection, but I can deal with just four awesome shades. I can't even see clearly because of the spots in my eyes from looking at these. It's like looking at the sun. Wicked.