Time to Go Shopping

I think I might need to put myself on a schedule for display posts because somehow I never seem to manage to do one until my photo folder is filled to overflowing (well, it would be overflowing if it were a real folder rather than a computer file, but you know what I mean). I get paid twice a month; maybe a shopping post twice a month makes sense, too. For today, though, settle in for a long journey with me through stores in four states.

Let's start in Michigan at a Walgreens. This particular store had the Black Radiance Girls Rock collection I shared in my last display post, but this one was setup correctly instead of having the cardboard shoved underneath the polishes.



Moving on to Rite Aid (still in Michigan, as we will be for the rest of this entry with a handful of exceptions, which I will note when we get to them), there were two new displays from City Color. The first is called Masquerade. That has some crazy long false eyelashes and four polish colors in square bottles (a shape they've used before, which with this brand isn't a given). I didn't see any shades names on these.



There were no shade names on the bottles in the other City Color display, either. This one's called Flutter, and has eight colors in rose shaped bottles.



On the shelf below the City Color roses was L'Oreal New York Nudes, six skintone shades ranging from pale to dark. Left to right: Park Avenue Luncheon, Broadway Boogie, Til the Sun Comes Up, Hudson Sunset, Downtown Chic, and Brownie Points. The display says these are limited edition, which seems odd for colors that might otherwise become staples in one's nail polish wardrobe. We all need good underwear, after all.



Next to the nudes was the four-color version of the Essie Stylenomics collection for fall 2012. Left to right: Head Mistress, Stylenomics, Skirting the Issue, and Miss Fancy Pants.



At this point, I went back to Illinois to visit my mom. In a Jewel-Osco where I'd gone to pick up a few things before I went back to the hospital, I saw the Maybelline Fall 2012 Scene on the Runway display for the first time. There are six polish colors here: Boho Gold (olive/green duochrome), Auburn Ablaze (deep orangey red shimmer), Downtown Brown (warm brown with green shimmer), Metal Icon (brown/silver metallic), Avante Green (green/lime duochrome), Pink Cosmo (gold/pink duochrome).



Later that weekend, I was in a Meijer doing grocery shopping for my mom's return home. I tried to take a photo of the six-shade version of the Essie Yogaga display when I discovered my camera wasn't working and had to resort to using my phone, which made the colors warmer than they should be. Left to right: Gym Dandy, Marathin, Boxer Shorts, Pilates Hottie, Yogaga, and Spinning Again.



Back at Mom's house, I discovered my camera didn't just need a battery charge, it was broken. It'd been having some issues, bad enough that I'd done some poking around looking for a replacement, so I went out and bought a new camera when I picked up Mom's prescriptions later that day. I used that new camera to shoot the Wet 'n' Wild Fergie display that I spotted at a Meijer back in Michigan on my drive home (I figure if I'm going to stop for a bathroom break, I might as well do it in a place that also sells nail polish). This is the five-row version that eluded me for so long when I was searching Walgreens after the line debuted. The difference is Meijer has put $2.99 price stickers over all the $3.49 ones that come preprinted on the display.



At Ulta, OPI Germany had arrived. I won't rehash the color list here since there are swatches all over, including in my OPI Germany post.



Also at Ulta, the six-color version of Essie Stylenomics. Left to right: Stylenomics, Miss Fancy Pants, Don't Sweater It, Head Mistress, Recessionista, and Skirting the Issue.



Continuing our wander around Ulta, here's the Piggy Polish Fall Softly display. These three colors don't say autumn to me. Left to right: When Leaves Leave, Goodbye Blue Sky, and Autumn Acoustics.



I believe all three of these are re-named re-promotes. Why do I say this? Because I could see the old color name stickers under the new ones. Based on that, I'd say if you've got Blue Me Away, you don't need Autumn Acoustics. Same with Goodbye Blue Sky, which used to be known as Tic Tac TOES. I couldn't quite make out what was under When Leaves Leave; it might be Coral Reef, something that starts with Co anyway.



Time to go back to Walgreens and see if there's anything new. And lo, there is—Sinful Hot Flash. As usual with Sinful, I don't know if these are new colors or repromotes or what, but I am sure there are eight of them: Super Nova, Heavy Metal, Gone Platinum, Hot Hot Heat, Precious Metal, Zincing of You, Hot Wired, and Moss Have.



Walgreens also had a big Maybelline display that included the six fall limited edition polishes.



On my pre-Labor Day trip out west, I of course did some polish shopping. When I met up with the lady behind Lilacquer Polishes, one of the things we did was go to a nail supply store. There was a lot to look at there, but I didn't want to be obnoxious about taking too many photos, so just snapped one of the China Glaze Magnetix II display, which I'd never seen before (I've since seen it at Sally Beauty back here at home). I left a lot of the background here so you can get a taste for how very much stuff there was in that store. Six colors here: Con-fused (green), Sparks Will Fly (blue), Get Charged (purple), Positively in Love (pink), Gold Fusion (gold), Bond-tastic (orange). There's also a new magnet in this display, with three new for China Glaze designs: concentric circles, a nine-patch grid (to this quilter's eye), and vertical lines.



While in Washington and Idaho, I also got the chance to visit a couple different Fred Meyer stores (which are only in the northwest U.S. and are not to be confused with Meijer stores, which are only in the midwest U.S., though it would be easy to mix them up since the names are similar and they both sell the same sorts of things). Fred Meyer seems to have gotten rid of LA Girl line since my last visit, but I got over that quick when I saw what they'd added: Essence. The section was twice as wide as the one at Ulta and had not just the Colour & Go line (in the new bottle style) but crackle and magnetics and nail art toppers and double ended duos and stickers and stamping plats and a space for a limited edition display (in this instance, Marble Mania). I was incredibly tempted to buy one of each polish, but managed talk myself down.









Of course Fred Meyer had other displays, too. There was a L'Oreal New York Nudes that included not just the polish but lip stuff, too.



They had one of the seasonal Sally Hansen groupings of Hard as Nails core colors. This was called Seaside Shades and contained Rock Star, Frozen Solid, Made in Jade, Stonewall, Sticks and Stones, and Die Hard Fan.



I was intrigued by the Absolute Magnetic ring magnet display. This had four magnet designs but no polish, nor did the display make it clear that you'd need magnetic polish for the designs to show up; it just says "hold magnet over wet polish". If they'd had a design I didn't have from someone else already, I would have bought one, but they didn't so I didn't.



At Northwest Beauty Supply, which was in the same building as Fred Meyer, I saw my first Nubar display in person.



After I got back from Idaho, I had only not many days at home before I headed to Illinois to check up on my Mom, and I didn't spot any new displays in that short time. I don't remember if I even went into any drugstores that week. Maybe not. It seems implausible, but I think it might be true. Mom is doing so well that I heeded her wishes and started my drive home earlier in the day than I'd planned (she was worried about me getting home too late). I took advantage of that extra time to swing into Chicago proper to check out the flagship concept Walgreens store that Alli McBally tipped me off about in a comment last month. I was so jazzed about it that I took a shot of the building:



This Walgreens is definitely not like any other one I've been to. It's two floors, for one thing. The first floor is a food market, with a lot of fresh stuff. I zoomed by that part to get on the escalator to where the beauty stuff was. At first, it seemed similar to any Walgreens, with the familiar drugstore brands. But then I got to the higher end brands. There was this display with Essie and OPI, just like Alli said there'd be.



Next to that, there was the first GOSH display I've seen in real life. I was puzzled by the polish bottles being in there upside down. Sure, you can see the colors better, but that invites polish to drip into the threads and stick the bottle shut. Ladies who live where GOSH is common, is this the done thing in a GOSH display?



There was more GOSH on the other side of the display, too:



At this point in my visit, a sales associate appeared from behind the display and told me "no pictures". She said it was corporate policy and was not swayed by my trying to chat her up about how excited I was to see my first GOSH display and all the other things this store had. From then on, she watched me like I was a corporate spy or shoplifter or both. I did manage to sneak one more photo, of the tini beauty section, another brand I'd never seen in a store before, mostly to see if I could get away with it—if I couldn't, I figured I'd at least have a good story about getting thrown out of a Walgreens.



It felt like I was pressing my luck, so I didn't try to document the other displays, which is sad because there was the biggest and prettiest Pop Beauty one I'd ever seen, and one of The Balm, which I'd never seen anywhere. There might have been a couple more, but I was feeling so unwelcome by that point that I put back the two GOSH I'd been carrying around and left the store without buying anything. That's sad, because I feel like I'm the perfect customer for that store—I buy tons of polish and they have tons of it I don't already own. I'm not sure if I never want to go back or want to try again to see if I get a friendlier sales associate. I wonder whether I should write Walgreens to see if I can get permission to take photos (obviously they sometimes allow it, because I found a whole gallery about the first floor on eater.com). I know it's their right to not allow photos. I also know there are better ways the sales associate could have handled the situation that didn't leave me feeling so iffy about going back. Ah well, it's not like I can't get polish seventy hundred other places. In fact, I walked down the street from that Walgreens to Sephora, which was a lot more comfortable (had more customers, too). I'm not a huge fan of the nail bar, as the lighting from below makes it hard to see the polish, but the sales associates left me alone to play when I told them I wasn't in need of help.



Let's end today's journey here. I do have more displays to share, but since many of them are Halloween themed and I'm planning a Halloween giveaway, I'll save them for next week or the week after (depending on when I get organized for the contest). Thanks for reading this far and have a great weekend!