Last Displays of 2014

As I write this, I'm not 100% sure this will be my last display post of the year, only 99.9% sure. Looking at my schedule the rest of the month, my shopping opportunities therein, and the fact that most brands got their holiday collections and gift sets out weeks if not months ago, I just don't think I'll be spotting a lot new in the next two weeks. That said, I have spotted a lot of stuff that didn't make it in to my last display post.

My friend Mel had spotted some Bonita sets at her Kmart, so I stopped at mine to see what I could see. I did find three Bonita sets, but none of them were the same as the ones Mel found. The sets had names—Royalty, Essence, and Timeless—but the six polishes in each did not seem to. I think I'd rather have seen the sets Mel found and posted on her blog, Delicious Color; those seem to have more glitter and vibrant colors.



Cover Girl has some new shades in their Outlast line, which I saw first in a sidekick display at Bed Bath & Beyond.



First trio looks like spring to me: Totally Tulip, Petal Power, and Daisy Bloom.



Second trio has jewel toned shimmers: Teal on Fire, Fuchsia Flare, and Emerald Blaze. These all show hints of duochrome in the bottle.



There was also a display with some Lip Lava glosses and the three dark shimmer polishes:



At the same Kmart where I saw the Bonita, they had Elegant Touch fake nails for the holiday in two Christmas designs, Snow Globe and Christmas Jumper (meaning sweater).



Walking through the Christmas section at CVS looking for window clings to decorate my office, I ran across an Essie display like I'd never seen before: a narrow strip with plastic pockets for bottles of Toggle to the Top.



Five Below had two kinds of Glam Chick mini sets in sticks: one was shimmers and one was glitters.



Kiss and imPress have holiday designs of their press on nails, featuring lots of glitter. I saw these at Bed Bath & Beyond.



Kiss also has some Disney Jasmine nail art kits out, with glitter, decals, gems, tools, and fake nails; I saw them at Walgreens. Magic Carpet has iridescent pink, turquoise, red, and gold glitter. Free Spirit has pink, iridescent purple, silver, and gold. Genie's Lamp has turquoise, more turquoise, iridescent purple, and gold. Whole New World (not pictured) has magenta, blue, gold, and iridescent white glitter (I saw it later).



There are several nail art gift sets with mini polishes and other supplies from LA Colors—Glitter Bash, Bowtastic, and Candy Stripes; there's also an 18-color mini polish set called ColorBonanza. I've seen these most often at Walgreens.





Also, Walgreens has LA Colors sets with four full-size polishes and design tips to make different looks: Marble Effect, Cosmic Effect, and Mosaic Effect.



Here is something I had given up on ever seeing in a store: the Milani Textured Creams from fall of 2013. I ran across this at Kmart. Five of the six shades were there: Gracious Green, Lovely Lavender, Velvety Violet, Mystery Mauve, Beautiful Bordeaux (sold out), and Charming Carmine. I would swear I was at that Kmart earlier this year and these weren't there then. Very strange.



Ulta had some Nicole by OPI mini sets. Holiday Glimmer has Hearts on fire, A Heart of Gold, Mer-maid for Each Other, Cement the Deal, and Plum to Your Senses. Holiday Glamour has Bashful Not-So-Much, Believe It Do It, Please Red-cycle, Teal Me Something New, and Oh That's Just Grape.





In addition to the snowman, ice cream, and jeweled top polishes from Ornaments, Rite Aid also has some tubes of scented mini polishes from them, one more glittery than the other.



A Walgreens I don't usually go to had a Piggy Paint display. I was not tempted by these since they are because they're nontoxic and odorless and such, and I like my polishes full of chemicals because I'm convinced that's what makes them dry fast and wear well. I can understand the appeal in getting these for kids, though. Colors here: Fairy Fabulous, Forever Fancy, Girls Rule, Jazz It Up, Mer-Maid in the Shade, and Sometimes Sweet.



Those Sally Hansen Insta Dri shades I swatched the other day came from this display, which I spotted at Rite Aid and which also has a new kind of Salon Effects nail strips. Insta Dri colors are: front—In Nude-tral, Making Mauves, Ablazing; back—Leapin' Lilac, Set Sail, Re-teal Therapy. The Salon Effects are not nail polish strips, but instead are "fabric effect" nail stickers, similar to the lace ones that came out in the fall display which had the Complete Salon Runway Collection colors) These stickers are not in a flat pack like those but rather in shallow boxes. There are six designs: Goldwork (hot pink wool lattice), Lacey Does It (black lace), Thread Lightly (ivory lace), Fab-ric (chevron stripe velvet), Faux Real (animal print velvet), Black to Basic (black wool lattice).



Bed Bath & Beyond had a Sally Hansen Patent Gloss & Luxe Lace display, with four shiny cremes and four matte glitters. This was labeled limited edition, unlike the Velvet Texture from last time. I don't know about you, but if I were adding to my core lines, I'd do these cremes and glitters before the textures, but Sally Hansen didn't ask me. Why don't they ever ask me anything? I could tell them so much. The Patent Gloss colors are Vinyl, Chic, Moto, and Slick. Luxe Lace has Intimate, Crochet, Eyelet, and Ruffle.



Also at BBB, I saw this Sally Hansen display with new 18K Gold Nail Hardener and Cuticle Eraser and new Gel Shine 3D topcoat. I don't understand any of this. The real gold topcoats we saw from OPI and others made some sense; at least with those you got to see the gold before throwing it away with the pad you use to remove it after wearing. With this hardener and cuticle eraser, you're just wasting gold as far as I can see. I've never heard of gold having any nail hardening or cuticle erasing properties. Gold is a soft metal, right? As for the gel shine topcoat, Sally Hansen has approximately four dozen different topcoats already, so why add one more? Color me confused.



CVS had a tall narrow floor display with a subset of the latest lines from Sally Hansen. Salon Effects: Goldwork, Lacey Does It, Faux Real, and Black to Basic. Insta Dri: In Nude-tral, Making Mauves, Ablazing, Leapin' Lilac. Velvet Texure: Velveteen, Velour, Lavish. Luxe Lace: Crochet, Eyelet, Ruffle. Patent Gloss: Vinyl, Chic, Moto.



I've seen a variety of Wet 'n' Wild gift sets for the holidays. CVS had these mini nine-packs, with three each of Wild Shine, Fast Dry, and MegaLast—all looked to be stuff available in full size in the core displays.



CVS also had these Color Icon Holiday Nail Cubes with four of the colors from the Ice Baby collection (second release, it looks like): 24 Carats, Rockin' Rubies, Back Alley Deals, It's All in the Cut.



Family Dollar (which I rarely go into but it happened to be next to a toy store I went to for gift ideas for my grand nieces and nephew) had two Wet 'n' Wild sets I haven't seen elsewhere, a Wild Shine set and a Color Icon set with a nail dryer.





Rite Aid had a MegaLast minis gift set.



In addition to all the stuff pictured above, I've also seen a fair few polish sets at Meijer aimed at young girls, with tie ins to characters like Hello Kitty or Minnie Mouse or the Disney princesses. The bottles are cute and the colors often quite appealing, but I resist buying because I'm pretty sure the polish is the not durable not toxic kind which just frustrates me when I try to use it. Still, some are so cute it's tempting to get them just to display the bottles. Not that I display bottles.







There were even more gift sets for grown ups—minis from Essie and OPI, full size bottles from China Glaze, mixed trios from Nails Inc.—but by the time I saw those at Ulta and Sally Beauty, I was burned out on repackaged shades so they're not getting blog time. I'm actually glad the sets were nothing unique, as there's so much else to see I'm not sure I could handle more new stuff. I hope January is quieter as far as polish releases. Well, I say that now. By a week into the new year, I'll probably be more than ready for something fresh.