Showing posts with label yellow. Show all posts
Showing posts with label yellow. Show all posts

Friday, May 15, 2009

Obsessive Compulsive Cosmetics Nail Lacquer

I wouldn't have discovered this brand if it weren't for a wonderful reader recommending them to me, so thank you!

Before I post these pictures I want to apologize for the quality. I was too anxious to swatch them and spent a couple hours battling clouds. They are a little blurry and have lots of reflections of clouds on them, but the colors still show accurately. Sorry!

Okay, hold onto your hats!


Blackboard. Chalkboard green creme. Wow. Totally unique color. Exact same shade as the chalkboards (blackboards) from when I was a kid. I love this to death. I don't own a single dupe for this color.




Dangerous. Medium grey creme. This is the color of sharks. Gorgeous grey creme with easy application.

Grandma. Bright coral creme. The name of this one had me practically rolling on the floor laughing. I love a company with a sense of humor. This is totally something my grandma would wear. Despite the fact that it's a grandma color, it's still nice! Bright and summery.


Swamped aka Swamp Thing. Dark olive creme. My bottle says Swamped, website has it listed as Swamp Thing, I'm not sure which is correct. This is such a perfect color. It's the olive I've been looking for. Not bright and clean olive by any means, this is a murky, dirty, stagnant swamp green and I couldn't be happier.

Traffic. Taxi cab yellow creme. This is a bold bright yellow creme that has a surprisingly good formula. I've been trying out a lot of new yellows lately (including this one) and the formulas seem to be improving drastically. Maybe they have finally figured out how to make a yellow smooth? Either way, this had great formula and opacity, especially for a yellow. It could be a two coater if you're careful, but I did three because I was too excited to apply it properly.

Wasabi. Wasabi-paste bright spring green creme. This is almost the exact color of that little ball of wasabi that you get with cheap sushi. It's bright but at the same time it's a little murky, if that makes sense. It's crisp with a little dirtiness. Fantastic and also pretty unique.

The formula on these is great. It's on the thin side but it's very pigmented. All but Traffic and Wasabi were two-coaters. I'm pretty sure these are three-free but the texture of the polish wouldn't make you believe so. I had zero application issues. Drying time was very good as well.

I am so impressed with these polishes. All of the names are pure genius, the formula is impeccable and the colors are mostly unique and not boring. I'm always complaining that polish companies are playing it too safe, but you won't hear me say that about Obsessive Compulsive Cosmetics.

After a quick browsing of their website, I can say they're definitely not afraid to think outside the box. They seem to be focused mainly on professional, theatrical and special effects makeup, but when looking through all the shades of products you'll see every color of the rainbow represented. Not just boring safe pinks. Their polish line is the same- it's a small, limited selection but every color is represented, and for once, someone has more than one green. Awesome.

Overall, I am ridiculously pleased with my new polishes from Obsessive Compulsive Cosmetics. Blackboard and Swamped/Swamp Thing were instantly added to my 'favorite polishes ever' list the minute I opened the package, and the rest of the ones I tried were very memorable. I especially love the names of all of them, even the ones I didn't try- Uber, Lucretia, Pallid, Bone Daddy and Anime, just to name a few. I hope that in the future they will expand their polish line to include even more colors and finishes! I, for one, would love to see a little glitter.

Obsessive Compulsive Cosmetics nail lacquers and cosmetics are also vegan and cruelty-free. The polishes can be purchased directly from their website and retail for $8.00.

Wednesday, May 6, 2009

Reader Requests

Index: NARS Zulu
Middle: Illamasqua Rampage
Ring: BB Couture Green Goblin
Pinkie: Rescue Beauty Lounge Recycle
None are dupes of each other.

Index and ring: OPI Pearls Night Out
Middle and pinkie: Color Club Front Row Diva

Index: Misa Dirty Sexy Money
Middle: Essie Greenport
Ring: Barielle Sweet Addiction
Pinkie: China Glaze For Audrey
None are dupes of each other.

Index: OPI I'm India Mood For Love
Middle: OPI That's Hot! Pink
Ring: OPI Strawberry Fields
Pinkie: OPI Feelin' Hot-Hot-Hot!

Index: Barielle Swizzle Stix
Middle: Misa Right Here Now, No More Later
Ring: OPI Just Groovy
Pinkie: Zoya Yummy
All but Swizzle Stix are very, very similar to each other.


Index and pinkie: Essie Short Shorts 2008
Middle: Essie Flirty Fuchsia 2009
Ring: Essie Punchy Pink 2009


Index: Essie Perky Purple 2009
Middle: Essie Bermuda Shorts 2008
Ring: Essie Funky Limelight 2009
Pinkie: Essie Shorty Pants 2008

This year's Essie neons are *much* more neon and bright than last year's shades. In fact, compared next to each other, last year's neons don't even look neon.



Thursday, April 23, 2009

Sephora by OPI Revisited

I have two new Sephora by OPI polishes that I want to swatch, but my nails are in no condition for swatching right now. I always break them doing stupid things! Opening cabinets, car doors, doing laundry... Ugh.


So, instead, let's revisit the Sephora by OPI line. When it was originally released, I did a bunch of swatches with all the polishes I bought. The formula was so thick and awful that the swatches suffered. Now I've added some thinner to them and they've come out quite a bit better.




Beauty Junkie. I admit that I only bought this for the name. It's kind of a vampy-brown-red-plum creme, too red to be chocolate.



Brainiac. One of the biggest disappointments. It was described as spiced pumpkin, but does this look like spiced pumpkin to you? No! It's kind of a weird burnt-salmon...



Cab Fare. Yellow with shimmer. It's pretty sheer in addition to being thick, stringy and goopy. All yellows are streaky and thick to some extent, but this one seems worse than others. The color is pretty nice and I like the sparkles.



Call Your Mother. Very pretty muted taupe-purple creme.


Charge It. Metallic gold. This one is pretty similar to Chanel Gold Fiction. I haven't done a side by side to see if they're exact dupes, but they have a very similar shade and texture.



Domestic Goddess. Bright candy grape purple creme.




Don't Go There. Another nice muted purple creme.



Metro Chic. Hard to describe... Mousy, grey taupe creme? I do love this color. It's the only Sephora by OPI polish I've worn since doing my original swatches...



Never Enough Shoes. Black with multicolored glitter. The glitter in this is small and subtle.



Queen Of Everything. Gorgeous metallic platinum-silver.



Run With It. Warm grey with coppery speckles. Reminds me of wet cement. Sort of similar to Zoya Harley.


Like I said before, I was not impressed with the formula of these. It's not consistent with OPI's formula, it seems like a completely different brand. Not all of the polishes were bad- some were a normal texture. The rest were insanely thick and gooey. I added thinner to them and it helped tremendously. Also, a lot of them have streaks of unmixed pigment that never mix back in no matter how hard you shake it. The streaks will occasionally transfer to the nail.

I don't like the way the bottles look, either. They look cheap and strange. The plastic they use to seal the bottles is also difficult to remove.

Nice colors, but I feel like they need to to a little quality control on these before they sell them.

Hopefully my nails will grow back soon so I can swatch my new ones!

Wednesday, April 22, 2009

NYX Revisited.

About a year or so ago I did a post featuring swatches of my entire collection of NYX polishes.
Looking back at them, I realized that the pictures could be a lot better, so here I am at number three in my series of collections revisited.

I've also revisited China Glaze Bahama Blues and Color Club Dance To The Musique.


Antique. Smooth, shimmery metallic antique gold. More of a bronze, really.



Asphalt. Black jelly with multicolored glitter. I call this one "Clown Roadkill."

Aurora. Light, pearly green-tinged yellow. This is soft and springy. Very difficult color to pull off, though. Makes my hands look super red.



Jungle. Duochrome aqua, green and turquoise shimmer. This is a must have color for any blue or green lover. It is breathtaking.

Las Vegas. Deep rich green with tons of green shimmer. This is incredible. Again, another must have. It is impossible to capture the beauty of this polish on camera. It has so much depth and sparkle, you just have to see it to believe it.





Lime Sparkle. Golden green glitter in a lime green jelly base. One of the best glitter polishes in the universe. It's so smooth and shiny, so ridiculously sparkly and over-the-top insane. I adore this.

Paradise. Light blue shimmer with golden-green duochrome. Serene and tropical.

Rainbow Sparkle. Opalescent glitter in a neon yellow jelly base. Holy cow. One of the most bizarre polishes in my collection. It is super bright and neon, much closer to the bottle color than the color on my nails. Awesome.


Tahitian. Spring green shimmer. Crisp light green, doesn't necessarily make me think of Tahiti, but it's still nice.

Techno. Pearly, frosty medium purple. Much, much more purple in real life but still a little on the blue side.

Wild. Shimmery, rich purple. It is a nice color, but it's one of the worst polishes ever. It's insanely sheer. If I recall correctly, this was either five or six coats. It needs them. You won't achieve bottle color with fewer coats than that.


Purple Avenue over Wild. Blue-opal chunks of plastic in a sheer purple base. Honestly, this is an awful polish. I'd pass on this if I were you.

And one old picture because I couldn't find the polish to re-photograph it:

Peach Avenue over Wild. Peachy opal chunks of plastic in a sheer orange base. Another awful polish. Do yourself a favor and get Sinful Green Ocean if you want the plastic-chunk look, it's much better and easier to use.



The formula on these is very hit-or-miss. Some were dreamy, like Techno or Jungle. Others were sheer, like Wild and Las Vegas. Some were thick, some were thin, some were just right. I don't know what's up with their formula. Drying time is also all over the place. I can't make a definite statement on this.

The color selection is unbelievable. They have everything you could want. Sheers, reds, pinks yes but also duochromes, glitters, brights, vampies, GREEN, blue, et cetera. I don't know if they regularly release new colors or if they only have a core line, but this brand is hardly lacking in variety. The one downside is that they have changed formulation on some colors but kept the same name, so you may have two entirely different colors that share a name.

The only thing I really hate are the "Avenue" polishes. I thought they would be neat mylar glitter or something, but they're just crap. They are nearly impossible to apply. You will have an inch thick coat of sheer goo before you even have a decent amount of glitter on your nail. You could use the toothpick trick that I use to apply the heart polishes (Like the Valentine's Day Nicoles) but it's just not worth it. The 'glitter' is large chunks of sharp plastic. It sticks up through the polish and doesn't lie flat. At least they're really pretty to look at in the bottle!

I bought all of my polishes directly from Nyx Cosmetics.


Tuesday, April 21, 2009

Reader Requests

I am trying my best to catch up on my requests. Please be patient with me. Thank you :)



Essie Blueberry Crumb. Quite sheer, this is five coats.



Index and Ring: China Glaze Agent Lavender
Middle and Pinkie: OPI Done Out In Deco
Not dupes!


Index and Ring: OPI Louvre Me, Louvre Me Not
Middle and Pinkie: OPI Overexposed In South Beach
They looked more similar to each other in the bottle. Not dupes, I'm afraid.



Dior Bleu Poison. AKA Poison Blue. Very dark, looks nearly black in most lighting.


CND Plexi Pink. Sheer hot pink tint with blue/purple iridescence. Makes a great layering polish, especially over blue.


China Glaze Yell-O-Neil. A medium yellow with glass fleck shimmer. Beautiful color, painful application.


NARS Orgasm. Very sheer, needed five coats.



China Glaze Celtic Sun. Neon highlighter yellow jelly. This is a pretty bad picture of it- it's closer to the color in the bottle. It is the color of a highlighter in real life. Very, very, very bright.


OPI Think Merry, Pink Merry! You may want to view this beauty full size. Shimmering frosty pink metallic with silver microglitter. Ulta Exclusive, holiday 2008.


OPI Breathe Life- sunlight. It lights up with blue sparkles in the sunlight.

Followers