Almost Mid-February Displays

You may have noticed I disappeared again for a week; those of you who come around here regularly probably already figured out where I was—that's right, skiing at my favorite mountain, Schweitzer in northern Idaho. We didn't have the best weather this time, but still had a lot of fun, as you can see from my smile in this shot Mr. Karen took of me on the coldest day all week (-12 degrees F and so windy that half the lifts were closed).



I did take a day off the slopes to head into town where of course I looked for nail polish displays, but before I get to those, I need to share ones I took around here in Michigan before I left.

Nicole by OPI has a partnership with Carrie Underwood this year (similar to the one they did with Selena Gomez last year), and the first seven colors are starting to show up in stores. I first saw them at Kroger, my grocery store. Left to right: Lips Are Dripping Honey, Southern Charm, Sweet Daisy, Carnival Cotton Candy, Goodbye Shoes, Backstage Pass. The gold in the back right is Carrie'd Away.



I also saw the Carrie Underwood colors in a sidekick display at Meijer; this had topcoats and treatments along with the colors.



Cover Girl has some new shades in their Outlast line. A freestanding display at CVS had 9 polishes along with some other makeup. Shades are Bon Bon, Give 'Em the Greenlight, Bombshell, Goldilocks, Skylight, Diva After Dark, Sapphire Flare, Show Stopper, and Salt Water Taffy.





I also saw a shelf top display with makeup and just the three pastel polishes: Bon Bon, Salt Water Taffy, and Skylight.



In my last display post, I shared the Sally Hansen Texture Two Ways display with the Satin Glam and Sugar Shimmer colors. Well, there's also a Texture Three Ways display with those same colors plus four new Salon Effects designs (I guess that texture is "smooth"). The Salon Effects are Disk-o Queen (gold glitter with plum half moon), Horse A-round (black/white zebra with black half moon), Red My Tulips (cool gold with red petals at base), and Side Swiped (light peach with black swoop at base). I saw this at Rite Aid.





These new Salon Effects are also in a separate display called Fast Fashion with a French Twist.



These Salon Effects boxes are printed rather than having a window the actual strips show through, which I get, as the strips have the base design on both ends so you can use whichever end fits your nail better (or use one strip for two nails if you've got shorties). So yeah, I understand putting an image of the finished mani on the box. What I don't get is not necessarily having that image match what the strips look like in real life. Peeking inside the Disk-o Queen box, we find that the gold part is not gold and holographic glitter but just gold glitter and the plum part is not a creme finish but rather a microglitter/shimmer.



Meijer had a Sally Hansen Insta Dri display with six limited edition colors: Purpelling (purple), Revobluetion (blue), Love Train (pink), In the Groove (green), Dreamsicle (orange), and Glow With It (yellow).



Meijer also had the Studio M Valentines display, Roses Are Red. Top row: Mamba, What a Drag, Wing Fling, Endless, Candy Cane, Neon Pink, Covered in Diamonds, Purple Medallion. Bottom row: Hot Like Lava (missing, this is a warm pink foil finish), Neon Pink (same as above), Slammin' Red, Red-ical Gypsy, French Tip, Foil Me Once, Blue Funk, Gold Links. Most of these are core or repromotes; the ones I hadn't seen before were Wing Fling (same as Color Club by same name), Candy Cane, Mamba, and Endless.



There's a Jesse's Girl/Julie G Valentines display at Rite Aid, The Perfect Pair, with three Julie G polish colors and coordinating lip colors from Jesse's Girl. Polishes, left to right: Fred, Anthony, and Romeo.



I don't think that Sinful intended Tough Love to be a Valentines offering, but my Rite Aid had it near the Julie G display in a sort of "hearts and love and pink" section. This display is wider than the typical Sinful offering, with 11 slots. The five on the left are "Hardcore Metals", all repromotes as far as I can tell: Gold Medal, Triple Platinum, Red Eye, Blue Steel, and Simply Silver. There's a clear in the middle slot (Clear Coat), then five "Leathery Finishes": Cold Leather, Laced Up, Black Cherry, Get It On, and Taupe It Off. Black Cherry and Taupe It Off seem to be new; the other three on this side are repromotes.



I shared the Wet 'n' Wild Mega Rocks standalone display at CVS last time, but this time wanted to share the sidekick display at Walgreens that includes those colors, mostly because it also has that great matte top coat from my recent comparison post.







I'd shared the OPI Gwen Stefani display from Sally Beauty last display post; since then I saw them at Ulta, in a dedicated display (not just a standard rack with a Gwen Stefani card slid in the top).



Ulta also had a separate display with Over & Over A-Gwen, a boxed set with a red polish and Swarovski Elements (studs and crystals).



What was new at Sally Beauty were the FingerPaints flakies in the Kaleidoscope display. These look very similar in the bottle, but there are five shades here: Colorful Dream, Abstract Attraction, Symmetrical Symphony, Psychedelic Hue, and Vivid Reflection. There were some bottles of Black Expressionism tucked in back for layering purposes.



Walgreens is the first place I've seen Essie Resort Fling, with four colors: Resort Fling, Cocktails & Coconuts, Under the Twilight, and Find Me an Oasis.



L.A. Girl Splatter is a collection of eight white plus color glitters that's popped up at Rite Aid. Left to right: Sparkle, Sprinkle, Splash, Splat, Sputter, Spatter, Speckle, and Spotted.



And now, finally, we come to displays I saw on vacation. At a Rite Aid in Idaho, I saw a Pretty Woman display called Splatter on Some Color, with similar white/color glitter mixes to the L.A. Girl ones. These had much less playful names; left to right, it's Purple, Pink, Light Blue, Green, Black & White, Light Green, Red/White/Gold, and Royal Blue. I hope these show up around me, as I didn't buy any but looking at the photo now wish I had.



I can't recall the last time I was in a WalMart near home, but I did stop at one while I was out of town. They had a Salon Perfect display called Love Lashes and Lacquer that seemed to be their Valentines offering. There were seven polish colors: One Love, Hearts a Flutter, Touchy Feely, Loves Me Loves Me Not, Cosmic Black, He's With Me, and In Love. The first four were labelled Limited Edition; the others are apparently core.





WalMart also had a Sally Hansen endcap display that I almost passed by because at first glance it looked like stuff I'd already seen: Nail Art pens, Satin Glam, Fuzzy Coat, etc.



But in amongst all the familiar things, there was a section with top coats. I'd seen the Big Matte and Big Shiny ones in the nail art displays, but hadn't seen the Big Smoky, Big Crackle, Big Glitter, or Big Shimmer ones before. The names of the sparkly ones in the bottom row are MeteorLight, Blue Moonlight, Twinkle Snows, and Goldi-Flecks.



My most anticipated stop on my vacation shopping trip was Fred Meyer, which we don't have in Michigan at all. There, they had Essence Metal Glam, which had three foil finish polishes—Steel-ing the Scene, Petal to the Metal, and Gold Digger—as well as a gold topper.



Fred Meyer also has a wider selection of L.A. Colors than my stores here carry. Most interesting this time were the Flash Pop dual-ended combos, which I recognized from seeing one over at my friend Lizzy's Place. Left to right: Mad Duo, So Postmodern, Expressionism, Pop Artsy, Flaunt It, Flashing Lights, Pinksicle, Peri-twinkle, Fireworks, Electro, Sweet Serenity, Tropical Bay, and Happy. I'd be happy if they just put the glitters in single color bottles.



Finally, they had a Revlon display that I expect will or has shown up here at home but which I hadn't seen before, another collaboration with Marchesa which had a set of nail strips and three polish colors amongst other makeup. The strips were the Crown Jewels design from the previous Marchesa/Revlon display. The polishes had gold scrolling designs on the handles. Shades are Valentine (this is a core color as far as I know), Grey Suede (also not new, but here it looks more peachy than I remember it being), and Chameleon (new shade, yet another Chanel Peridot lookalike).



The day I took my shopping trip in Idaho, I drove back up the mountain road as the sun was setting and just had to pull off at my favorite turn to enjoy the view of the lake at twilight, so I'll leave you with just one more photo for today.