L'Oreal Mix and Matte Swatches

As the title says, today I've got swatches of the shades from the L'Oreal Mix and Matte display, but first I need to vent just a tiny bit about my life outside of nail polish, which has been a touch more stressful this week than usual. Monday, I was out of town, having extended my weekend visit to see my mom when there were some unexpected developments (she's physically doing pretty well, but there are concerns in other areas that needed some attention), then when I did get back to work, I had to fire one of the people on my team, so that was not a fun process either. It's just the way things go sometimes. I'm fortunate to have so many other things going well in my life, such as being able to buy plenty of new nail polish, like the L'Oreal colors I have to share today.

The Mix and Matte display has six shades, three regular cremes and three matte ones. Left to right: Lacquer-ized, Never Lacque-ing, Lacque-onic, No Matte-r What, She's So Matte, and Matte-r of Fact. The word "matte" in the names of the last three is the main indication that these are matte; the bottles aren't frosted and the front label just says "nail color" like the regular cremes.



When I swatched these, I used the display as my inspiration. It shows a matte color on three fingers with funky French tips added using one of the regular cremes, then an accent nail of the same regular creme topped with one of the Nail Lingerie strips.



I didn't use any Nail Lingerie strips in my swatching, though, since I've already reviewed them (see that blog post here) and putting them on for just the short time before I moved on to the next swatch seemed needlessly wasteful. Besides, you can see the colors better without stickers on top.

For my first pairing, I chose She's So Matte, the black matte polish which I also featured in last Friday's matte topcoat comparisons, and Lacque-onic, a classic red creme. I used only one coat of She's So Matte; two (or some basecoat before the first) would have been better for disguising my ridges. I used two coats of Lacque-onic, which is certainly decently pigmented but was no match for the deep dark of She's So Matte. That meant I needed to make my funky tips thicker than I'd like to get them anywhere near as red as the accent nail, and of course I couldn't smooth that out with topcoat because that would ruin the matte/glossy contrast.





Matte-r of Fact is a teal matte creme; its partner for this swatch party was Never Lacque-ing, a cool-toned beige creme. I used two coats of Matte-r of Fact and three of Never Lacque-ing. I had the same lighter tips over darker base issue as with the first pair; maybe I just need more practice doing funkies. Or maybe I just need Photoshop; I suspect there was some image editing going on with that mani photo on the display, as they don't have lumps at the tips at all.





Our last couple is No Matte-r What, a deep red matte, and Lacquer-ized, a purple-leaning medium pink. Both of these were two coats.





I'd wear any one of these colors as full mani. The regular cremes aren't anything I don't have already in my stash but they'd be nice options if I weren't already overstocked. The mattes are quite nice. My favorite is Matte-r of Fact, the teal.