Specializing in nail varnishes - rare, unusual, and obscure

Tuesday, August 30, 2011

Maybelline Scene on the Runway 2011 Part 2: Bad Mister Frosty


Today's manicures are two more slightly less awesome colors from the most recent Maybelline collection.
Be Scene in Green is a quite frosty sea green with a delightfully obnoxious name. Notorious Navy is a frosty dark blue shimmer.
While I did buy four of the six colors in this collection, I didn't purchase the boring mauve creme or typical gold shimmer.
These manis are one coat Spa Ritual Lacquer Lock bc, one coat CND Stickey bc, two coats of polish, and one coat of Seche Vite tc.
These pictures were taken indoors with artificial light.




Monday, August 29, 2011

Maybelline Scene on the Runway 2011


Today's manicures are two secretly awesome colors in the new Maybelline collection. When I first spotted the display at Rite Aid. I grabbed up Notorious Navy and Be Scene in Green (which turned out to be disturbingly frosty upon swatching). A subsequent visit caused me to reexamine the display, and two previously drab colors which I had dismissed as cremes under the unforgiving fluorescent lighting were discovered to have contrasting shimmer. I bought these two shades with the dubious names of Cool Couture and Purple Trend. Can't decide whether names this bland are better or worse than Suzi's puns.
Cool Couture is a greyed-out teal with turquoise shimmer. Purple Trend is a bruise colored brown-toned plummy purple with quite subtle blue shimmer, like MAC Blue Brown pigment.
While I did buy four of the six colors in this collection, I didn't purchase the boring mauve creme or typical gold shimmer.
These manis are one coat Spa Ritual Lacquer Lock bc, one coat CND Stickey bc, two coats of polish, and one coat of Seche Vite tc.
These pictures were taken indoors with artificial light.




Saturday, August 27, 2011

Tony Moly GT03 Mars


This mani is Tony Moly GT03 from the Galaxy Collection. As previously stated, Tony Moly is a Korean brand (not distributed in the US as far as I know). I ordered the whole collection on eBay for $10 a bottle. This is a brown jelly base loaded with red, orange, purple, and small gold hex glitter.
This mani is one coat Spa Ritual Lacquer Lock bc, one coat CND Stickey bc, two coats of polish, and one coat of Seche Vite tc.
These pictures were taken indoors with artificial light.


Because of the brown jelly base and metallic glitter, I thought of Lippmann Superstar and decided to do a comparison...



Friday, August 26, 2011

Tony Moly GT02 Earth


This mani is Tony Moly GT02 from the Galaxy Collection. As previously stated, Tony Moly is a Korean brand (not distributed in the US as far as I know). I ordered the whole collection on eBay for $10 a bottle. This is a blue-grey base with purple flash with silver, blue, and pale purple holo glitter.
This mani is one coat Spa Ritual Lacquer Lock bc, one coat CND Stickey bc, two coats of polish, and one coat of Seche Vite tc.
These pictures were taken indoors with artificial light.


Thursday, August 25, 2011

Tony Moly GT01 Mercury


This mani is Tony Moly GT01 from the Galaxy Collection. As previously stated, Tony Moly is a Korean brand (not distributed in the US as far as I know). I ordered the whole collection on eBay for $10 a bottle. This is a black jelly loaded with silver, blue, and red glitter.
This mani is one coat Spa Ritual Lacquer Lock bc, one coat CND Stickey bc, two coats of polish, and one coat of Seche Vite tc.
These pictures were taken indoors with artificial light.


Wednesday, August 24, 2011

Tony Moly GT05 Jupiter


This mani is Tony Moly GT05 from the Galaxy Collection. As previously stated, Tony Moly is a Korean brand (not distributed in the US as far as I know). I ordered the whole collection on eBay for $10 a bottle. This is a purple jelly with orange and lavender glitter and blue iridescent hex glitter. This glitter was not as dense as GT04 for me. I don't know if it just needed more shaking, but I feel the coverage with two coats was inadequate and the purple jelly base dominated the glitter a bit.
This mani is one coat Spa Ritual Lacquer Lock bc, one coat CND Stickey bc, two coats of polish, and one coat of Seche Vite tc.
These pictures were taken indoors with artificial light.


Tuesday, August 23, 2011

Tony Moly GT04 Neptune


This mani is Tony Moly GT04 from the Galaxy Collection. Tony Moly is a Korean brand (not distributed in the US as far as I know). I ordered the whole collection on eBay for $10 a bottle. This is totally unique and amazing. It's a dense green and gold glitter in a dark green base with green hex glitter. This polish eats top coat. I heartily recommend buying it if you live in Asia, visit Korea, or don't mind ordering overseas polishes on the internet like me.
This mani is one coat Spa Ritual Lacquer Lock bc, one coat CND Stickey bc, two coats of polish, and one coat of Seche Vite tc.
These pictures were taken indoors with artificial light.


Saturday, August 20, 2011

Estee Lauder Metallic Sage Mega Comparison Post

I ran out and bought Estee Lauder Metallic Sage yesterday after seeing both Scrangie and Vampy Varnish do beautiful manicure posts with it. Since I can't compete with their presentation skills, and the $19 price tag is rough, I decided to do an exhaustive comparison to hunt for dupes.
Metallic Sage is a brown toned sage green with a subtle golden, slightly coppery shimmer.
First I compared all of my green nail wheels and pulled Rescue Beauty Lounge Anne and BB Couture for Men Adam and Posse. Adam is the closest thing I had. The base color is almost spot on (perhaps a little more brown), but as you'll see, the shimmer is different (much more red).

SHIMMER COMPARISON


Indoors with artificial light:


Outdoors in sun:


Next I decided to find the closest green creme I had to the base color of this polish. I pulled Rescue Beauty Lounge No More War, Obsessive Compulsive Cosmetics Swamp Thing, and Chanel Khaki Brun. Khaki Brun was the closest (not a perfect match) so I decided to try layering combos to match the shimmer in Metallic Sage.

CREME COMPARISON (BASE COLOR)

Indoors with artificial light:

Outdoors in sun:


I layered two coats of Chanel Khaki Brun under Lippmann Collection Diamonds and Pearls, NARS Adelita, and Wet n Wild Flirt in Gumdrop.

LAYERED COMPARISON


Outdoors in sun:

I also layered two coats of Chanel Khaki Brun under CND Effects Crimson Sparkle, Copper Shimmer, and Copper Pearl. Copper Shimmer was the closest to the shimmer in Metallic Sage, but the effect gives off a stronger shimmer.

Outdoors in sun:


All swatches are two coats of polish over base coat without top coat.


Saturday, August 13, 2011

Lynnderella's The Glittering Crowd



Today's mani is the last of the three Lynnderella first editions that I ordered, The Glittering Crowd. I had a NARS Purple Rain mani from my friend's wedding yesterday that I layered one coat of Glittering Crowd over.
Sorry the pics are not the best ever. I am sick and trying to take it easy, but I really wanted to try this and share it before I get Lynderella's Halloween collection.
In case you're living under a rock or without a makeupalley, please check out the Halloween Collection here:
lynnderella-lynnderella.blogspot.com.
I ordered all 9 and I think they look amazing. She will be resuming the sale Friday, August 19 @ 9pm Eastern / 6pm Pacific.
The Glittering Crowd is intense. It is a vast collection of glitters in all shapes, sizes, and colors in a clear base. I'm fairly confident I cannot possibly identify them all. I know there are at least three sizes of hex glitters, two sizes of square glitters, bar glitter, mini glitter, and more...
Okay, I just checked Lynnderella's blog and here's what she says:
"New batch has over 100 different multi-coloured hexagon, square and bar glitters in various sizes. Royal blue, chartreuse, red,
violet, holographic silver, orange, lime, emerald, teal, cyan, gold, pink, aqua, fuchsia"
This polish is available again along with the Halloween collection.
It is so much better than Lippmann Collection Happy Birthday and all it's various imitators because of it's diversity. Literally every nail I painted looks completely different and it is impossible to predict what will come out of the bottle when you are painting your nails. As someone who has a lot of nail polish (and may be slightly jaded), I find the novelty of this exciting.
These pictures are taken indoors with artificial or natural lighting as indicated.

with flash:

without flash in low natural light:



Saturday, August 6, 2011

Lynnderella Mercurial


natural light:

w flash:

Today's mani is Lynnderella Mercurial. I put it on for my friend's bachelorette party.
Mercurial is a blackened silver shimmer jelly-ish base filled with small and large silver hex glitters, large square silver glitter, and small lilac hex glitters. It is so variable (or mercurial) that it almost looks better indoors, since the complexity can get lost in the glare of the sun.
This mani is one coat Spa Ritual Lacquer Lock bc, one coat CND Stickey bc, two coats of mercurial, and one coat of Seche Vite tc.
All these photos were taken indoors with natural and artificial light.