Late June Displays

This has been a busy month for me, but not too busy to hunt nail polish displays. The first two I have to share are ones I spotted at a Jewel-Osco when I was back in Illinois. It's a brand I hadn't seen before called Heaven. The caps and bottles very much look like the Mardi Gras ones from Blue Cross that Rite Aid has had this summer (which themselves looked like Island Girl ones). Unlike the Mardi Gras, these shades have names on the bottles (and no indication on labels or display that they are from Blue Cross, so maybe they just use the same suppliers). The names are all Hawaiian/beach themed, which does make me wonder about a possible Island Girl connection.

One Heaven display was filled with bright and white cremes: Honolulu Orchid (turquoise), Island Surf (hot pink), Big Wave (yellow), Island Paradise (bright coral), Tropical Breeze (white).



The other Heaven display had shimmers and glitters in what I think of as a holiday color palette (and one white that wandered over from the other display): Aloha Girl (gold shimmer), Waikiki Sunset (berry red microglitter), Waikiki Dream (turquoise/fuchsia glitter), Oahu Paradise (silver shimmer), and Island Lei (multi glitter).



Also in Illinois, I saw one of those things that encourage me to keep stopping at drugstores even though I've just been to another one in the same chain a few miles down the road: a Walgreens had a full display of the Nabi Hologram line. I've not seen this at any Walgreens around me in Michigan, and didn't see it again at any other Walgreens I went to Illinois. There are 24 shades in the line (which I know only because I bought some off Amazon a while back—they're in my huge "to be swatched" queue) and 24 slots in the display, but when I pulled the first one out of each slot to snap a shot of the name, they weren't all different. If I'd had more time, I would have dug deeper to see what was up with that, but I had to get moving (this particular weekend was extra busy, as I split time between being with Mr. Karen and his folks and my mom an hour and a half away). Here are the colors that are showing—

Top row: Brone (I think they meant Bronze? Or maybe Brown?), Pefite Teal (yep, "pefite"; guess it was supposed to be "petite" but that doesn't make much more sense to me), Black, Gold, Sky Blue, L. Pink (not sure what the L stands for; probably Light, but this isn't a light pink), Ocean Blue, Ocean Blue (again).

Middle row: Tawny, Black Berry, Red, Navy Blue, Green, Silver, Cinnahon (I might start calling Mr. K this as a pet name), Teal.

Bottom row: Hot Pink, Rose, Purple, Winf (Wine, I suppose; typos on labels are so charming), Fushia (can't fault them for this; I have trouble spelling fuchsia, too), Lavender, Mocha, Flamingo.

The one that is not there (or was buried) is Dark Purple.



In the department of things we've seen before but not in these displays, I've got entrants from Maybelline and Sally Hansen. The Maybelline display is a tie in with the TV show Fashion Star (which I've never seen); it's called The Fierce French and has core colors from the Color Show line paired up in combinations to make the triangle nail art shown in the photos. Duos are: Shocking Seas and Coral Crush, Pink Shock (though this particular display has Pinkalicious in those slots) and Born With It, Pinkalicious and Green With Envy, and Orange Fix and Tenacious Teal. I've only seen this at Walgreens.



Sally Hansen has Tropical Paradise, one of the periodic displays they do with Complete Salon Manicure core colors in themed groupings. I've seen this at Meijer, Ulta, and CVS. I'm not sure what colors are supposed to be in here, as there's been a slightly different assortment each time I've come across it. This variation most resembled the assortment pictured on the display card—left to right: Rosy Outlook, Peach of Cake, I Lilac You, Jaded, Pink a Card, Water Color, Kook a Mango.



I'd seen the Zoya summer colors before; I swatched Stunning and Irresistible back in April. I hadn't seen a display of them, though, until this one showed up at my Ulta. So happy and bright!



I hadn't been to Sally Beauty in a while because I try to always have a coupon when I go and due to a problem with one of my purchases getting lost in system I didn't get one for a month (I eventually did get it, but only after I sent a copy of my receipt, which apparently was from a store that's not on the same computer system as the rest or something like that). When I did go back, there were a couple new things to look at, including a Finger Paints Hot New Shades display. This had what I think are new core colors, with glitter well represented: Colorful Collage (silver holo glitter, looks a lot like last holiday's Santa's Magic), Amazing Glaze (iridescent glitter), Peacock Portrait (turquoise/multi glitter), Van Gogh's Violet (holo/magenta glitter), Hue Brighten My Day (dark green/multi glitter), Vintage Vincent (teal shimmer), Leonardo's Lime (lime creme), Paint Me Happy (peach creme), and Pink Patina (pink creme). The sign next to the display said "8 New Shades!" and there were nine there, so I'm not sure what's up with that.



Also at Sally's, there was a little unlabelled display of three colors hooked next to the Nina Ultra Pro core display: Twinkle Twinkle (dusty blue), Star Bright (rose), and Shooting Star (silver). I suspect these might be Nina's take on the textured glitter trend, but since there was no indication of that, it's hard to tell.



In my last display post, I shared the corner display of new Fergie colors (still don't know if these are limited edition or not). Since then, I came across a different Fergie display at another Walgreens. This one has just a subset of the new colors from the corner display, and it also has a set of three minis (also same as ones from the corner display).



Also last display post, we saw Sinful Colors Pool Side polish in an eight-color shelf top display at Walgreens. I've since run across it in a big sidekick at other Walgreens stores, with the eight colors from the shelf top version plus some other shades that I didn't bother to document because it varied widely from store to store. I did like how this particular store grouped the colors together; that looked great compared to the jumbles I saw other places.



In another sidekick, I saw some trios from Wet 'n' Wild packaged on cards, with two MegaLast shades and a clear Wild Shine making up each combo. The MegaLast seemed to be one core shade paired with one I hadn't seen before, but since the whole Ice Baby bait and switch, I'm not convinced the new MegaLasts aren't just rebottled Spoiled or Fergie or some other line. Pairs are (old color listed first): I Red a Good Book with Club Cabaret (red/silver glitter), Disturbia with Mixing It Up (gold/turquoise/fuchsia glitter), On a Trip and I Saw a Comet (iridescent/turquoise glitter), Undercover and Silverati (silver glitter), I Need a Refresh-Mint and Blue Visionary (Turquoise shimmer), Sugar Coat and Sparkle and Grey (purple/silver glitter), Through the Grapevine and Plum Diary (medium purple creme), Wet Cement and White and Stormy (iridescent glitter), Candy-licious and Telescope Vision (iridescent/blue glitter).



Back to Sinful, they decided they hadn't confused me enough this summer with all the new colors released with old colors and core colors and put out another display. This one is called Bright Essentials, and like most Sinful Colors, I saw it at Walgreens. Shades are: Over It, Burning Bright (new), Eva So Bright (new), Clementine, High Strung (new), Endless Blue, Cream Pink, Dream On.



There's a sidekick version of Bright Essentials, too:



Five Below had some new Funky Fingers colors. Jawbreaker is multi colored glitter in a white base. The Pop Hits collection has four sheer toppers: Up All Night (lilac with iridescent glitter), Taken (turquoise with mylar flakies), Another World (green with iridescent glitter), and Beautiful (pink with mylar flakies).



Next door at Ulta, they had China Glaze Sunsational. There are twelve colors here. Starting at the top left: Shell-O, Heat Index, You Drive Me Coconuts, Are You Jelly, Isle See You Later, Keepin' It Teal, Sun of a Peach, Neon & On & On, Bottoms Up, That's Shore Bright, Too Yacht to Handle, and Highlight of My Summer. I am trying to not buy any of these even though they look so fun and bright, because if I buy a couple, I'll want them all to complete the set.



Maybelline has two new Color Show collections out, which I seen at both Walgreens and CVS. First up, the misleadingly named Holographic shades. These are not holos; they're just plain shimmers as far as I can see, possibly duochrome but not really showing that in the bottles. Five shades: Alluring Rose, Lavender Lustre, Bold Gold, Mystic Green, and Blue Blaze.



Perhaps Maybelline knew I'd be perturbed about their non-holo Holographics and sought to distract me with their other new offering: Polka Dots. These are black and white glitters in various colored bases. Shades are: Drops of Jade, Dotty, Clearly Spotted, Pretty in Polka, and Blue Marks the Spot.



I'll finish up today with some giant unbranded bottles of polish I saw at a random nail supply store in my travels this month. I put a regular 15ml bottle next to them for comparison.



And now I'm off again, this time for long weekend of fun with some ladies who love polish as much as I do. Depending on how much fun and how little sleep I get while I'm away, it may take me a while to resurface here but it'll be sometime next week for sure.