Mail Call

I got two very nice surprises in the mail this week, one from amusedPolish (who has a real name but I'm not sure she uses it on her blog) and one from Jennifer/jaljen at nailpolishUK.

Here's what I found in the package from amusedPolish, which she sent out of the blue as a thank you for a little something I'd sent her earlier this year as an "I'm sorry the swap package I sent you got eaten by the volcano" gift:



In front, polish from brands that are not available here: Luminelle (shade is Mauve Captivant, which I think translates to "pretty purple") and Glam Nails (shade is Larissa, which has flakies a la Nfu-Oh). In back, there are Essence stamping plates so now the lone one I got at Ulta has friends. The one on the far right is something I put on my wish list when I decided stamping was for me; it's the plate from the Stampy Kit 02, which has never ever shown up in any Ulta I've looked at, and I check the display every time I'm in one of the stores. To say I was delighted to see it is putting it mildly! I was so eager to use it that I just went ahead and stamped on top of my (left on entirely too long so please pardon the chips and such) Stila mani using Wet 'n' Wild Black Creme:



Those of you who have this plate (and/or really good eyesight) might notice that I never managed to get the littlest star in the design onto my nail. I'm not entirely sure if I wasn't getting it from the plate to the stamper or was getting it on the stamper but then not onto my nail because at the time I didn't notice it was missing, being so distracted by trying to make sure I had the arch of the stars oriented correctly and somewhat centered. You'll see I didn't do so well with the centering on my index finger, so I took that opportunity to add a butterfly in the open area. I was extremely pleased with myself for figuring out how to only get one butterfly from the two on the plate. I also managed to get topcoat on without smudging the stamping very much, so that's progress, too.

I knew the package from Jennifer was coming, since we'd arranged a swap, but I didn't know exactly what was in it because we did a "grab bag", just trying to send things the other person didn't already have but which we thought she would like. I didn't have any Models Own, so you can imagine how pleased I was when I opened the box and found these inside:



Left to right: Blue Moon, Purple Poppy, Slate Green, Blue Gem, Dusty Mauve.

All colors I would have bought myself if a) this brand were sold here or b) I were braver about ordering from companies overseas (I love swapping internationally, but something about sending my credit card information to a company in another country makes me pause, which is really silly because I've used my cards in foreign lands when travelling and nothing bad has ever happened; indeed the only time I had a credit card number stolen was right here in the U.S.) I didn't know which one to try first, but eventually picked Dusty Mauve because the shimmer in the bottle intrigued me.



On the nail, it is much more dusty than mauve, which is fine by me; I love a good pewter. I did not have a chance to get it outside in the sunlight to see what it would do there; I suspect it saves its flash for that sort of environment.





Emboldened by my star stamping experience (and since the WnW black and Essence plate were still nearby), I tried added flowers to the Dusty Mauve. Lots and lots of flowers. Stamping on top of stamping. What I got was rather a mess. I considered pretending it did not happen, but decided to share, hoping in a few months we can all look back and this one day be amazed at how much better I've gotten at stamping.



Thanks, amusedPolish and nailpolishUK!

Pixel Perfect

Wet 'n' Wild appears to have my number this summer. First they got me to buy the entire Wild Shine Candy-licious collection, then I tried but failed to resist the Craze vacation destination-themed minis. Next, reports of a television show-themed Craze collection surfaced on the MUA nail board. I tried to stay calm as weeks passed and the new Crazes did not appear at my usual haunts. I wanted to at least see them for myself, you know? Not necessarily buy them, nothing like that, just see them. But they did not show up and an opportunity arose to swap for some of them, so I got the cool toned ones I favor. The very day that package arrived at my house—you've probably guessed already—I saw the display in my Rite Aid.



There it was, untouched, just waiting for me. The tag line said "Pixel Perfect: scene-stealing 3D shades in a fast-drying, multi-dimensional formula". Multi-dimensional? Is that what we're calling shimmer these days? No matter, I grabbed the four I hadn't swapped for and went to the register. I love a complete set, and these are only $1.99, and cute, with punny names.



Top row, left to right: The Wonder Yellows, 9.0.2.1.Orange, How I Met Your Magenta, The Gold & The Beautiful.
Bottom row: Sage in the City, Teal or No Teal, Saved By the Blue, Buffy the Violet Slayer, Gray's Anatomy.

They're not minis like the vacation-themed ones, either; these are .34 fluid ounces, which I'm pretty sure is the normal full size for this line (the minis were .22 fluid ounces).



Here are the warm colors on the nail:



Top to bottom: The Wonder Yellows, 9.0.2.1.Orange, How I Met Your Magenta, The Gold & The Beautiful.

My favorite of this group was the orange; it seemed like a really wearable shade, even for a cool color loving person such as myself.

Now the other side of the color wheel; there are five of these, so my thumb gets to make an appearance for a change:



Thumb: Gray's Anatomy. Fingers, top to bottom: Sage in the City, Teal or No Teal, Saved By the Blue, Buffy the Violet Slayer.

Ah, Karen colors. I'd wear any of these as a full mani, but if forced to pick just one, I'd go with the green. It's very glowy, and good greens are still a bit hard to come by.

These swatches are three coats, and you can see there's still a hint of visible nail line (some shades more so than others), so if that bothers you, skintoned "underwear" is called for. All of them went on nicely, and the stubby cap was easier to manage with the longer brush that these had versus the minis, where it really bothered me. All in all, I'm glad I got these.

Wheel B: Purple Shimmers

It's Nail Wheel Wednesday—today I have purple shimmers to share.



1. Arissa Rockin' Amethyst (3 coats)
2. Finger Paints Be a Pal-ette (3)
3. GOSH Gasoline (3)
4. Kiko 262 (3)
5. Petites Color Fever Wild Plum (3)
6. Finger Paints It's An Original (2)
7. Zoya Matte Savita (2)
8. H & M Fashionista (3)
9. Finger Paints Passionate Purple (3)
10. Zoya Harmonie (3)
11. Zoya Vegas Freeze (5)
12. OPI Purple with a Purpose (2)
13. Milani Purple Passion (3)
14. Savvy Gotcha Grape (3)
15. China Glaze Coconut Kiss (3)
16. Zoya Mimi (3)
17. Barry M Vivid Purple (3)
18. Savvy Deep Amethyst (3)
19. Sally Hansen Complete Salon Purple Pulse (3)
20. Essie Sexy Divide (2)

As with the purple cremes last week, I have more that should have made it to the wheel, but didn't, like L.A. Girl Rock Star Groupie. Next week, because I needed a change from all purple all the time, I plan to feature greens. Here's hoping they'll be easier to color adjust, as these purples have been giving me fits.

My First Estee Lauder

I'd never been in a MAC store until two weeks ago, when I ventured out in search of eye shadow to send to an online friend in exchange for some black label OPIs she was looking to get out of her stash. (The one MAC polish I have I got in a swap.) I was a tiny bit indimidated by the two well-groomed young men working at the store; I think both of them were prettier than I am (and one of them might have been wearing more makeup, too). I was brave, though, and walked right in and got the shadows (I don't think I even blushed when the sales associate corrected my pronounciation of one of the shades). I of course looked at the nail polish also, but they didn't have any colors on display that really sang to me. What did sing to me on my way to my car was the Estee Lauder display in Saks Fifth Avenue, where I picked up my first polish from that brand: Surreal Violet, which is part of their Fall 2010 collection. (I did also consider the other color in the collection, Blue Dahlia, but decided that buying two $18 nail polishes on impulse was a bit much and besides I already have a navy creme I like a lot.)

Surreal Violet is more mauve than violet to my eyes; there's definitely a touch of brown to it. What sold me is the copper/amber shimmer, which, while subtle, is definitely there and adds a richness and interest. I really like this one.





Surreal Violet made me think of Essie's Demure Vixen, another taupe-y mauve with shimmer.





Top to bottom: Demure Vixen, Surreal Violet, Demure Vixen, Surreal Violet.

From some angles, Demure Vixen can look almost as dark as Surreal Violet, but in most lights, the Essie definitely shows up lighter and pinker than the Estee Lauder. Here they are in normal room light:




Top to bottom: Surreal Violet, Demure Vixen.

And here they are in sunshine:



Top to bottom: Demure Vixen, Surreal Violet.

I like Surreal Violet better. I do wish its shimmer were a tiny bit more visible indoors because that copper is so pretty against the base color.

Throwback

After all the glitter swatching excitement, I chose a very subdued polish for my nails for the end of last week: Stila Nail Shimmer in Juno, a sheer-ish beige shimmer. I bought this years and years ago, on a trip with my mom. It was the first time I'd set foot in a Sephora and the first time I'd bought any nail polish outside of a drug store. I got two bottles and remember thinking they were really expensive, but since I was on vacation that didn't seem quite as important as it would back home. I want to say they were around $10, but it's been so long I'm not sure. They definitely have that old school chemical smell about them; it took a while for that to dissipate even after the polish was dry.





One more, in less direct light (and after another helping of cuticle oil):



I think the shimmer in here is so pretty, and I wish I'd bought more colors of these (and kept them) when I had the chance. Good thing I like this shade, as Mr. Karen and I went away for the weekend and I didn't get a chance to change my polish before we left, or after we got home, so it's still on my nails today (and holding up very well, too).

Mo' Glitter

At the same time as I ordered the All That Jazz trio from Nordstrom, I also added the other two new glitters from Deborah Lippmann to my cart. They didn't ship at the same time, and for a while I was worried that I wouldn't get them at all, as there were reports on MakeupAlley of pre-orders for them being cancelled or lost, but earlier this week mine showed up.

Let's start with the one that I should like because it is my favorite color, purple: Bad Romance. It looks pretty in the bottle, with small and hex red violet glitter packed in a mysterious dark base.



I put on two coats, and skipped the topcoat, which means it looks especially bumpy in the photos to follow.





The dark base is not so mysterious after all; it's black. As far as I'm concerned, the glitter is not dense enough to cover enough of the black, or the black is too dense and covers up too much of the glitter. I look at this and see Halloween, which might be the next time I wear this one. Guess I'm just not much of a rocker chick.

The other glitter, Across the Universe, is getting a lot of love on nail blogs, which I now completely understand. It's gorgeous, blue and green glitter in a navy jelly base. I used three thin coats and some spots could have used one more, but even so, I couldn't stop looking at it and was very reluctant to take it off do to more swatching (imagine if I'd put a base coat on and shined it up—I might still be staring at it now).







But remove it I did, so I could do my favorite thing: layering.



Left to right: Lippmann Across the Universe, China Glaze Towel Boy Toy, Zoya Charla, OPI Jade is the New Black, Sally Hansen Salon Navy Baby.



AtU over (top to bottom): Towel Boy Toy, Charla, Jade is the New Black, Navy Baby.



AtU over (left to right): Navy Baby, Jade is the New Black, Charla, Towel Boy Toy.



AtU over Charla.

I am so happy with how this layers. Charla was my favorite, but I'd wear any of these combinations, and layering will make my bottle last longer. That's a win all the way around.

Choose Your Moods Winners

Thanks to everyone who entered the Mood Struck giveaway. This morning I updated my spreadsheet with the last few entrants from comments that came in overnight and checked my e-mail one last time to make sure no new entries had come in that way, then picked names using the Random Line Picker. The winners are—

Prize #1, Warm Brights: Anur
Prize #2, Cool Tones: MissMidnightBlue and Allya of Painted Tips
Prize #3, Soft Shades: dr4g0nf1y

Ladies, I've e-mailed you; if you don't see a message from me, e-mail me at the.karend at gmail dot com.

You may notice that I awarded two #2 prizes. When I added up all the entries, that package had a lot more people who'd put their names in for it. Since I could still get more of those same colors and wanted everyone to have a similar chance to win, I decided to just double up the prize for that one, which put the chances of winning it right between the other two packages.

Though it might be a bit presumptuous, I'm thinking ahead to my 500 followers giveaway and have gathered some polishes for it already. I'd like to hear your thoughts on whether you'd rather have one big prize package or several smaller ones, so let me know in the comments or e-mail me. Thanks for reading!

Not So Nouvelle Anymore

My nails for the first part of this week were Chanel Nouvelle Vague. I passed on it when it came out this past spring, figuring I already had China Glaze For Audrey, which, according to nail bloggers I trust, was pretty much the same color and just lacked the very subtle shimmer of the Chanel. But later, and I can't even explain why, I came down with a severe case of non-buyers remorse and started looking for a swap because though I wanted it, I sure didn't want it enough to pay crazy eBay prices. I almost struck a deal with a woman who wanted five OPIs for it (her reasoning was she could buy OPI for $5) but fortunately I had the sense to back off when she wouldn't commit to which OPIs she wanted before I bought them for her because not too long after I found a person with a used-once bottle she was willing to swap for something more reasonable. It wasn't until this week that I actually put the polish on my fingertips, and having now worn it for a few days, I am so very glad I didn't go over retail value for it. It's pretty, but I'm not convinced it's $23 worth of pretty. The shimmer is indeed very subtle; most of the time, in most lights, it looks like a creme finish.





Before I took it off, I decided to do some layering experiments with it. Seemed a shame to cover up the Chanel shimmer since that's evidently what I paid for but since I didn't see much of it anyway, why not. Being an equal opportunity polish employer, I chose one Chanel ($25 retail--because of the gold, I guess), two Pure Ice ($2 each), and one Sinful ($1.99, but often on sale).



Left to right: Chanel Illusion d'Or, Pure Ice Oh Baby, Pure Ice Heart Breaker, Sinful Nail Junkie.



Layered over Nouvelle Vague (top to bottom): Chanel Illusion d'Or, Pure Ice Oh Baby, Pure Ice Heart Breaker, Sinful Nail Junkie.



I'm not that crazy about Illusion d'Or over this (I think it needs a darker or warmer base to really shine), but I like the other three.

****

One more reminder: Today is the last day to enter my giveaway for the mood polishes.

Wheel A: Purple Cremes, Mostly

Welcome to the premiere episode of Nail Wheel Wednesday, featuring the first nail wheel I ever filled in completely (I'd only used them for quick swatches before). Of course I started with purples, which means I about gave up on this series before I started because even after playing with the color correction for ages, it's still not quite right. But I shall forge ahead, since it's got to get easier after the purples. I don't have a master plan for this series, so we'll just have to see how far through my stash I make it before I get distracted or run out of wheels (or space to store them). It's already been an educational experience for me. It's easy to fool myself into thinking I don't have that many similar colors when they're stored by brand as I have them now, but the nail wheel does not lie.



1. Orly Plastix Purple Pleather (3 coats)
2. Ulta Celebutante (3)
3. Rescue Beauty Lounge Mismas (2)
4. Kiko 292 Light Grape (3)
5. Orly Rio Nights (3)
6. LA Colors Color Craze 563 Nuclear Energy (3) [This one is completely off; it's much brighter and redder than it shows, but adjusting the whole photo to make it look right threw everything else way off.]
7. Sally Hansen Complete Salon Plum Luck (2)
8. Orly Matte Purple Velvet (3)
9. Maybelline Express Finish Matte Grape (3)
10. Maybelline Express Finish Matte Plum (3)
11. Sally Hansen Complete Salon Pat on the Black (3)
12. Revlon Plum Night (3)
13. Borghese Ectasi Indigo (3)
14. China Glaze VIII (3)
15. Orly Wild Wisteria (2)
16. OPI Sapphire in the Snow (3)
17. Ulta Devious (2)
18. OPI Funky Dunkey (2)
19. China Glaze Grape Pop (2)
20. Orly Charged Up (3)

Obviously I've got some dupes and near dupes to weed out of my stash. The photo doesn't show the subtle differences I can pick up if I take the wheel into bright light and study it carefully, but even when I do, I have a hard time making a case for having six medium toned purple cremes, or seven dark ones of varying warmth. I'm thinking reorganizing my collection by color would make it easier to figure out which ones need to go, because I know for sure that I have still more purple cremes that didn't make it onto this wheel (Finger Paints Amethyst Atelier, for instance). I've no idea when I'll be able to make time to do that reorg, though. I thought about it this past weekend, but decided I'd rather do more swatching.

Cracking Up

In keeping with my goal of trying to do a fun mani on the weekend, this past one I pulled out a couple things I'd gotten in a swap with a lovely Australian gal on MakeupAlley.



BYS Shadow Puppets and Cracked Finish Purple.

The light grey creme, Shadow Puppets, went on first. After three coats it was still more sheer than I prefer for a polish to be worn alone, but I wasn't going to wear it alone, so I proceeded to the next step—without stopping to take a picture, because I was very excited to see what was ahead. Next I applied one coat of the Cracked Finish, which seemed a tiny bit streaky but I didn't want to try and even it out lest I disturb the cracking action. At first nothing happened and I was worried, but then as the purple dried, the surface of my nails started looking distressed and by the time it was fully dry, I had some interesting crack patterns on them. I didn't use BYS top coat as recommended on the Cracked Finish box, as I did not have any, so I put my standby Sally Hansen Insta Dri on instead.





The purple has a blue-ish shimmer to it; it photographs more blue in the bottle than it looks on the nail. After a day and a half, the finish looked more distressed. Maybe a different top coat would have helped the crackle layer adhere better, but when a mani starts out with jagged lines across it, a few chips around the edges aren't really a big deal.



Like the Cover Girl Crackle Lacquer from back in the day, this BYS Cracked Finish was a lot of fun. I also got a black one in the same swap, and I'm looking forward to trying that one and experimenting with both colors over other brands of polish, too.

All That Jazz

Back when I posted about the Essie Fall 2010 minis, I mentioned I'd gone a little overboard on the Nordstrom site. Today I have more to share from that shopping incident: Deborah Lippmann's All That Jazz trio.

Let's start with the one that's been getting the most acclaim, Lady Sings the Blues:





I've seen this described as a jelly, and it does have some squishy-ness to it, but I only needed two coats, so it is rather more pigmented than what I think of as a typical jelly. I was hoping for more of the hex glitter to show up on my nails (like it does in the bottle), but the second coat only covered up the hexes in the first coat, so I didn't think a third would help me achieve that effect. I wasn't excited enough about this one to try a top coat over it; maybe that would have perked it up a bit.

Next up, Razzle Dazzle, a raspberry glitter. I was happier with this one, as 3 coats got me pretty close to the look of it in the bottle (and again, top coat might have helped even more, but I was just feeling lazy and didn't go there).





Razzle Dazzle is nice and glowy, and my favorite of the trio.

Finally, here's the problem child of the set, Some Enchanted Evening, which is warm salmon pink glitter in a clear base. Worn alone, it looks unfortunate on me, like a slightly festive skin condition.



Okay, so it's a layering polish. What goes well under salmon pink? Answer: not China Glaze Admire, as you can see below.



Some Enchanted Evening over (top to bottom): China Glaze Admire, Massini Fall Promo Shade (silver), Essie Wicked.

It doesn't look that great over silver, either. It's pretty good over a deep, deep wine; Essie Wicked was by far my favorite of these first three I tried layering Some Enchanted Evening over.



But surely there's more than one color it'll look good on; let's try another handful.



Some Enchanted Evening over (top to bottom): Sally Hansen Bermuda Sand, Sally Hansen Cafe au Lait, Rimmel Steel Grey, OPI Parlez Vous OPI?.

Hmmmm. The only one of these that really works for me is the taupe (or grey, if you're the team which names polish at Rimmel).



Most layering polishes don't make me work nearly this hard to find compatible partners. The more I look at the pictures of the successful pairings I did find, though, the more I like it, so perhaps this underdog of the set will triumph in the end, getting to go to work on my nails while its flashier sisters have to stay home in the Helmer.