Recent Displays and Why I'm Mad at Ulta

I shared some displays from the Inland Northwest in my vacation entry, and today I have some I've come across here in Michigan since my last big display entry. (I still haven't seen any new Milani displays; I did order the colors I wanted online, so it's more a curiosity at this point if they're ever going to show up here.)

I'm not sure what's going on with Wet 'n' Wild; I only saw the Inked display at a couple stores early this summer, and now I've only seen Go with the Flow-er at one single CVS a few weeks ago. Based on things I've read online, this should have been out months ago. There were some empty spots in the display by the time I got there, but near as I can tell, there are eight colors in this collection: Tulip-git to Quit (bright warm pink), Right the Marigold-Round (brownish rose), Strike a Rose Vogue (mauvey rose), A Healthy Carnationship (light warm pink), Why Would I Lilac to You? (purple), Head in the Clouds (light teal), Save Water There's a Drought (teal), and Beat Around the Bush (green). I like the pinks/purples for blossoms and greens for stems theme, though I wish they'd included more variety in the greens—a bright grass green, for instance. That teal is so similar to a couple other Wild Shines that it seems like that slot should have been filled with something different.



In a blast from the more distant past, I found a Sally Hansen HD display at a Walgreens—the one that had Opulent Cloud in it. That's like two years old at this point. This wasn't there the last time I was at that store, so I'm not sure where they got it; maybe it gets stored in the back room and dragged out whenever there's a gap on the shelf. (The only polishes left were the two Disc bottles. Poor Disc; no one seems to love it.)



Crack is still going strong, as least as far as more brands putting out their versions. Nicole by OPI calls it Texture Coat. At Meijer, I've seen displays with four colors (Black Texture, Red Texture, Silver Texture, and Gold Texture), though I've seen swatches of other colors online (white and turquoise).



One of my Walgreens had a crackapalooza display, with many, many colors from 2012 by Cherimoya (I guess they're betting on the crack fad being over by 2013). I was most intrigued by the muted colors here, some mauves and brownish pinks, as I've not seen crack in those hues before. These were cheap, too: US$2.99 for one, $5 for two.





At Sally Beauty, I saw two colors of Finger Paints Crackle Effect: Blue Crackle, which has a creme finish, and Purple Crackle, which is a shimmer. (The display behind it in the photo is Gelish. I did not take a photo of that one, because I've decided that I am not going to get into that sort of thing. I may buy every other polish in the world, but I am not going to buy a UV light to cure soak off gel polish. I've got to draw the line somewhere.)



Sally also had new non-crack Finger Paints, the Fall Fashionista collection.There are nine colors in that one: Stunning Stilettos (gray), Haute Taupe (light brown), Military Green (sage), Vintage Velvet (blue green), Catwalk Queen (dirty yellow), Purple Pinstripe (warm purple), Raspberry Tafetta (reddish plum), Cordur-Orange (orange) and To-Teally Chic (turquoise blue).



My Rite Aid just put out the Maybelline fall displays. The makeup one has two polish colors in it: Natural Beauty (camel) and Sultry Siren (red). The nail polish one has six colors: Mauve Accents (mauve), Cool Couture (grey), Be Scene in Green (blue green), Notorious Navy (dark blue), Gold Accessory (gold), and Purple Trend (dark plum).





The plum and the grey both have a very intriguing shimmer; I'll be interested to see if it shows on the nail.



I haven't seen all of Essie fall yet, but Walgreens did have the 4-color retail display with Case Study, Carry On, Power Clutch, and Lady Like.



OPI's fall offering is Touring America, which I saw at Ulta. Twelve colors here: French Quarter for Your Thoughts (gray), Suzi Takes the Wheel (also gray), Uh-oh Roll Down the Window (olive), A-taupe the Space Needle (brown), Get in the Expresso Lane (dark brown), Road House Blues (dark blue), I Brake for Manicures (dark purple), Honk if You Love OPI (dark plum), Are We There Yet? (orange), I Eat Mainely Lobster (coral), My Address is “Hollywood” (warm pink), and Color to Diner For (red). I didn't notice until I was formatting the photos that there's a red that doesn't belong in one of the displays (bottom photo shows it best).





Halloween displays are starting to show up, too. NYC has Black Magic, which includes two polishes among the rest of the makeup: Blackula and Pumpkin. I saw this at Rite Aid.





Sally Hansen has pulled some of the new Hard as Nails colors into a Halloween display: Black Heart, Rock Bottom, Die-Hard Fan, Steely Gaze, Limestone, and Tough Love. This display was at Walgreens, but the colors are core now, so you can get them lots of places.



I'm not sure if the Revlon Masquerade display I saw at Walgreens is strictly for Halloween, but it sure looks the part. This display says "limited edition", but the bottles just say "new shade" so I don't know how long these will be around. Colors are: Golden Charm (gold), Royal Cloak (purple), Jaded Night (green), Alluring Amber (orange), Midnight Haze (grey), Phantom Angel (white), Devil's Candy (red), and Devil's Lure (very dark brown).



You may notice not so many displays from Ulta this time, which is a result of me not spending nearly as much time there as usual. On the same trip where I saw Touring America, I saw the new bottles for the Ulta salon polishes.Now, instead of tallish square bottles with narrow black caps, they're round bottles with wide silver caps.



It hasn't been very long since they changed to the black capped bottles, so it seemed odd that they were changing again so soon. Then I looked more closely and saw what's probably the reason: the new bottles hold less, though they look to be about the same size. The round bottles hold .33 fl. oz. (10 ml), while the black capped ones were .40 fl. oz. (11.8 ml). That's not a huge change, but it's not like the price went down to match; in fact, the price went up, from $5 to $6 a bottle. Per milliliter, that makes them slightly higher priced than OPI and Essie, which I think is a bit much. It even makes them more expensive per ml. than their Professional line, unless they raised the price on that, too—I didn't look.

But the salon polish shenanigans are not why I'm mad at Ulta. What I'm really upset about are the changes they made to the Ulta rewards program offered in this part of the country, where they issue rewards four times a year based on my spending in the previous months. When I first joined up, a level 2 reward meant I could get any polish up to $8.50 for free, which meant more OPI and Essie for me. Last quarter, they changed it so those polishes were at level 3. I wasn't happy, but I understood—the economy is still not great and everyone's got to make sacrifices. But this quarter, the only non-Ulta brand polish on the rewards list is Essie Ballet Slippers, which most serious polish heads either already have or don't want. I spent enough to get a level 11 this period, which I was planning to use for three of the fall OPIs, but now all I can get is an Essie I don't want and some of the new smaller Ulta salons. Color me not happy. I know Ulta is not obliged to cater to my narrow interests as a nail polish lover, and neither am I obliged to shop somewhere that doesn't value me as customer. I'll still go and take photos and check the clearance section, but my days of dropping big bucks on nail polish there are done for now.