L'Oréal Sparkling Soirée Swatches

Okay, yes, it would have been ideal for me to swatch L'Oreal's winter holiday polishes before the holidays. For one reason or another, that did not happen, yet when I saw them in my swatching box, I couldn't just say "sorry guys, your time has past" and move them along to storage untried. There were glitters, you see, and it's hard for me to pass up the chance to play with glitters, especially ones which don't make me go looking for base colors but instead provide them right there in the same collection. In defense of my slackitude, I did see this collection in a store just last night, when I was out hunting for the spring collection from L'Oreal.

Glitters on top: Midnight Fireworks, Snow Ball, Pink Party Dress, 24-Carat. Bases below: Almost Midnight, Hit the Slopes, Bring the Rubies, Tuxedo Noir.



Hit the Slopes, which I would have bought for the name alone, is a plain white creme. It's a pretty good one, not all streaky like some whites are. I used two coats, then topped it with two coats of 24-Carat, a shredded gold glitter. I added clear topcoat to smooth out the shreds.





Bring the Rubies is a dark red shimmer. Two coats was plenty, even though the formula was on the thin side (you may see residual evidence of that on my skin even though I tried to do a good job cleaning up). It dries quite shiny without any topcoat. In indirect light, the shimmer is subtle but still visible.



In direct low light, the shimmer glows.



I used Pink Party Dress, which has fuchsia hex glitters in a mix of sizes, to do a gradient over Bring the Rubies, adding clear topcoat to finish off the look.





Almost Midnight is an almost black plum creme. I did two coats of it as a base, then put one coat of Pink Party Dress on my index finger and two coats of Midnight Fireworks on my other fingers, putting clear topcoat on all my digits. Midnight Fireworks has multicolored hexes: turquoise, green, purple, red, silver, and gold.





Tuxedo Noir is a charcoal with silver shimmer. I used two coats for my swatch, but might have been able to stop at one if I'd been more attentive (I never expect a one coater). Looking very closely, I fancied I could see pops of pastel colors in with the silver shimmer: ice blue, celadon green, lilac.



I topped Tuxedo Noir with Snow Ball, which has multi-sized silver holo hex glitter. The holo in these hexes is strong, with a lot of color shifts as I moved my hand around.









One of the fun things about this collection as a whole is how many opportunities there are for mixing and matching. Pretty much all the base colors work with all the glitters, and the glitters work with each other, too. I had some fun experimenting before I put these away. Left to right below: Hit the Slopes topped with Snow Ball, Bring the Rubies with Midnight Fireworks, Tuxedo Noir with Pink Party Dress, and Almost Midnight with 24-Carat. All have topcoat added.



Then on top of the above combinations, I added one more layer of glitter: Hit the Slopes and Snow Ball were blinged up with Pink Party Dress, Bring the Rubies and Midnight Fireworks with 24-Carat, Tuxedo Noir and Pink Party Dress with Midnight Fireworks, and Almost Midnight and 24-Carat with Snow Ball. Again, all with topcoat.



I was especially entranced by that last trio, Almost Midnight and 24-Carat and Snow Ball.



For my final trick, I played with combination glitter gradients. My index and ring fingers started with 24-Carat and my middle and pinky with Snow Ball, then I brushed on Midnight Fireworks and Pink Party Dress before adding clear topcoat. I thought this was quite festive.





I quite like this collection. I would have made Almost Midnight a bit less vampy so the purple hue would show more, and maybe added some shimmer to Hit the Slopes to make it more interesting, but on the whole, I'm happy I got all of these. Snow Ball is my favorite. I was quite taken with Pink Party Dress, too, even though it's not as flashy as the other glitters here.