Pre-Black Friday Display Report

Post-Thanksgiving holiday shopping madness is almost upon us here in the States, so it seems like a good time for another display post. In the spirit of holiday excess, there are a lot of photos in this post since there's a lot of new merchandise in the stores.

Let's start at Ulta, where I do still drop by even though their rewards program in my area gets more and more annoying every quarter. This time, the only nail polish on the list of rewards is Ulta salon line, which I already have every color of that I'm even remotely interested in. Guess I'll end up getting another perfume I'll rarely wear. But enough of my whining about that, let's see what they've put out on the shelves lately.

These Ulta brand Nail Prints showed up just after my last display post. There are some cute designs, but no way am I paying $12.50 for them. I can't even make myself buy the Sally Hansen strips for full price, and I already know I like those and that they'll wear well. A few of these designs look quite similar to some that Sally Hansen already did.







Ulta had the full six-color display of Essie Cocktail Bling for Winter 2011, with Cocktail Bling, School of Hard Rocks, Bobbing for Baubles, Size Matters, Jingle Jangle, and Brooch the Subject.



They also had the Essie Dive Bar display, which is a grouping of previously released shimmers: Dive Bar, Steel-ing the Scene, Jamaica Me Crazy, Sexy Divide, Trophy Wife, and Over the Top.



Looks like Piggy Polish has two holiday displays this year. The first, Jingle Belle, is green and gold, with Jingle, Belle! (lime green shimmer), Ivy Leaf in Santa Claus (deep green creme), and Baby, it's GOLD outside (weathered gold shimmer).



On, Prancer! is the second Piggy Polish display. This one is red and purple, with Prancer (red shimmer), Just called to Sleigh Hello (red glitter), and Moonlight & Mistletoe (plum shimmer).



My Ulta visits didn't line up very well with the OPI Muppets release; by the time I saw the displays some colors were sold out already. Good think I'd already bought the ones I wanted online.





I did see a fairly full display of the OPI Ulta holiday exclusives, but wasn't overly excited by them because as Polish Wasteland, pointed out, there's nothing that special here. The deep pink glitter, A Sparkle Yule Love, looks just like Excuse Moi from Muppets. The charcoal glitter, How's It Snowin'?, is a dupe for Nina Ultra Pro Glamrock. The red jelly glitter, Speak for Your-Elf, is pretty, but I would have much rather had a purple jelly glitter instead.



There were new polish colors in the Pop Beauty section, including three kinds of crack, which they call Crash: Split Silver, Wrecked White, and Broken Black. There were also new foils: Naked Metal (rose gold), Golden Metal (gold), and Ruby Metal (out of stock, so I'm not sure but I'd guess reddish pink). Looks like to make room for the new ones, they took away all of the ones that used to be there except Violetta and Pinkest, which oddly are the only two from the old lineup that I hadn't yet bought. (There were a few bottles left of the old colors.)



The last new thing I spotted at Ulta were the Nicole by OPI holiday glitters, which were in a display with two colors of Texture Coat (a.k.a. crack).



I also saw the Nicole by OPI holiday polishes at Target. They had the glitters—Glitter in My Stocking (gold), Orna-ment for Each Other (red), My Sleigh's in the Shop (fuchsia), and Snow-man of My Dreams (blue)—along with a red shimmer called Berry Sweet and four Texture coat colors. Below that, there were two-packs (Chrome for the Holidays with You Can Sleigh that Again and Brrr, Brrr Burgundy with Come in from the Coal'd) and empty slots where something good must have been because they were all sold out (I think it was mini sets but I'm not sure).



Meijer had put out the Studio M holiday display. As typical for these seasonal ones, it's a mix of core colors, re-released, and Color Club dupes. Top row, left to right: Gold Glitter, Slammin' Red, Silver Lining, Sex Symbol, Purple Medallions, Special Effects, Gel-ous, Drama Queen. Middle row: Wonderland, Naughty & Nice, Snowed In, Dashing, Orna-mint, Gift of Gold, Bluecicile, Reindeering. Bottom row: Sugar Plums (looks darker than last year's version), De-luxe-cious, Sleigh Bells, Magnetism, Cupid & Vixen, Drama Queen (yep, in here twice), Ego Trip, and Oh Joy! (looks yellower than last year's).



The snowman mosh pit was in full swing; why they're cheaper than the pumpkins were I'm not sure since they're just as cute if not cuter:



The last time I was at Meijer, I saw three Sally Hansen mini sets: HD Hi-Definition, Xtreme Wear, and Insta-Dri. This time there was a fourth: Diamond Strength.



Besides the Sally Hansen minis, there were plenty of other options for nail polish sets at Meijer. The Super Glitz Collection had six full-size bottles of glitter polishes. There were two Ornaments mini sets, one with all glitter and one with a mix of finishes. There were scented minis in square bottles.









My eyes about popped out when I saw this next display at Meijer: 24 new designs of Sally Hansen Salon Effects strips. 24! Nowhere on here does it say limted edition, so I'm wondering if they're going to be discontinuing some or all of the existing designs or expanding that section of the core display or what. I guess we'll find out once it happens, since Sally Hansen is not known for keeping the nail world informed of her decisions. In the meantime, I will be distracted by deciding which of these I need to stock up on when they go on sale. The solid colors in this group (eight of them) are much more on the classic end of the spectrum than the ones in the current core display, which I really could have used last summer when I wanted some to wear to a wedding. I can see myself wearing any one of the 16 prints, depending on the occasion. There's Sweet Tart-an (pink and wine argyle), Tri-bal It On (black and white geometric), Brattlesnake (tan and black snakeskin), Queen of the Jungle (giraffe), Spring Fever (bright flowers), Stripe-Tease (red and black horizontal stripes), Tie-Dye for (pink and purple tie dye), Tattoo Much tattoo scrolls and flowers), Love Letter (black handwriting on soft white), Animal Instinct (red and black zebra), Lust-rous (silver and gold glitter on black), I Love Lacey (black lace on red), Mod About You (peach/purple/blue quilt!), Aflorable (sage/red/white vines), Tweed-le Dee (black/white tweedy plaid), and Hear Me Roar (black/blue dalmation spots).



To fill the void now that the hunt for Wet 'n' Wild Ice Baby is over, Walgreens has put out a few new things for me to look at. They had a subset of the new Sally Hansen strips (and they were clearancing the neon solid ones in the core display):



Walgreens also had things I've not seen anywhere else, starting with this L'Oreal Colour Riche holiday collection. The brushed gold caps are round, which is a different look than we've seen from L'Oreal in recently. Four colors here: Because You're Worth It (gold shimmer), Stroke of Midnight (charcoal shimmer), Violet Vixen (berry creme), and Breaking Curfew (deep plum).



Also at Walgreens, I saw Sally Hansen Complete Salon Manicure packs with two colors and clear for $9.99, which is a good price if you need clear and don't already have the core colors in the pack. The Chic Collection is gold and red, while Flirty is bright and light pink, Glam is silver and wine, and Haute is taupe and black.





Still at Walgreens, there were Kiss Nail Dress full-nail stickers for $7.99.



There's not much to report from Rite Aid lately. They do have some holiday mini sets similar to those at Meijer. Instead of six polishes in the round bottles, they have two assortments of four colors packaged with nail gems. Their assortment of scented ones isn't quite the same as at Meijer, either.



The only other new thing I've seen at Rite Aid recently was a Wet 'n' Wild Little Luxuries set with nine Color Icon minis. I know I showed one of these last display post, but this one has a slightly different assortment of colors. the biggest thing with this one is what looks like a dupe for last year's Prancer Megalast mini: chunky red glitter.



Moving on to CVS, I was once again confronted by the annoying practice they seem to have instituted region-wide this holiday: candy in the beauty section. These shelves here, between the nail polish pimp canes and the Revlon mascara standing display, should have nail polish displays on them. Or makeup displays. Or even those holiday perfume and bath products gift sets that pop up everywhere this time of year. Not candy. I like candy; I have no trouble finding the candy in the candy aisle. Candy in the beauty section is just not right.



Because of the candy situation, the Sally Hansen Gem Crush display was relegated to a top shelf next to some shampoo. Oh, so much glitter. Eight colors: Showgirl Chic (silver), Cha-Ching (red), Big Money (cool gold), Bling-tastic (turquoise), Be-Jeweled (lilac), Razzle Dazzle (dusty rose), Lady Luck (deep pink), and Glitz Gal (charcoal). I had actually seen this display at Meijer a few days before, but it was nearly empty, with only about four polishes left. It could be due to them being priced at $5.99 at Meijer and $7.39 at CVS. This doesn't say limited edition on it, so I'm hoping for a restock and sale at Meijer.



Right next to Gem Crush was another new Sally Hansen display (also not labeled limited edition), Smooth and Perfect. Seriously? Another new line? Where is that going to go in the core display? What's going to get bumped? And why do we need this particular line? It hides ridges, the display says. Well, okay, but so does a good base coat. Allows 20% more oxygen to reach nails, it says. Since when do my nails need oxygen? Streak-free, it says. Hmm, now we might be talking sense. These are all pastel ice-cream colors, which do have a tendency to streak. But why not just improve the formula for an existing line and re-launch? I really do not need yet another bottle shape and size in my Sally Hansen drawers (when I get back to storing by brand, now predicted to happen in summer 2012). Eight colors here as well: Fog (very light tan), Linen (pink), Dune (tan), Satin (slightly darker pink than Linen), Whisper (lilac), Air (light blue), Sea (light green), and Sorbet (peach). These all look pearly in the bottle. They might be quite pretty on the nail but a) I am not in the mood to buy pretty spring pastels right now and b) see above for ranting about a new line.



Whew. That empties my display photos folder for this go 'round. If you got this far, thanks for sticking with it!