Halloween Season Nails

In recent weeks I've done a bunch of things instead of writing here as much as I intended, including patching drywall and painting an entire closet and part of a ceiling as well as packing a bunch more boxes. All the while, my nails were adorned with Sally Hansen Salon Effects nail polish strips in designs from past Halloween collections (I don't think there was one this year, which makes me wonder if they're phasing out this product line like so many others before it—Magical Nail Makeup, Nail Prisms, Lacquer Shine, to name three).

First up was Wishnets, a black on red fishnet design, a half a package of which I had hanging around, possibly from 2012 when I last wore them. This mani almost wasn't; the first two strips I tried (from a sealed pack) were so sticky and fragile that I ripped them when I removed them from the backing. I wasn't prepared for that; had assumed I could put them on in the fifteen minutes before I left for a party as I have other times, but that wasn't happening this time. I actually went out with only my thumbs adorned with the strips. No one said anything, whether because it was so dark in the party space or they were being polite, I don't know. The next day, I sat down and tried again, and lo and behold, the overnight exposure to air firmed up the strips enough that they applied as easily as I've come to expect.



Next up was Spun for You, which has black spiderwebs on a silver base. These were also leftovers, likely from 2011. Based on my experience with the Wishnets strips of similar age, I took these out of the sealed pack a few hours before I wanted to use them and they behaved fine when I applied them. I'm not sure why the strips would get more sticky over the years while sealed up but that seems to be what happens. At least now I know how to deal with it, just need to plan ahead. And given how many boxes I have in my stash, that's good to know.



I had visions of doing yet another Halloween look, but priming and painting took priority. I will be so glad when we've got the house on the market and all I have to do is keep it clean and get out when there's a showing. Maybe that'll mean more regular blogging. Maybe not. I'm not giving up regardless.

Hope those of you who celebrate had a happy Halloween!

September and October Displays

When I published my last display post at the end of August, I had every intention of not letting too much time pass before my next one. Yeah, right. It's been nearly two months. And unfortunately it's not like I've been making my rounds and taking display pics and just not posting them; I've been slacking on the display hunting as well. I know there are ones I've missed, and you'll see that some I came upon way late, long after they were picked over. I wish I could promise to do better, but my schedule continues to be unpredictable with demands on my time that prevent me from wallowing in my love of nail polish the way I'd hoped to when I stopped working. I know, I know—very much first world problems over here. Enough of my blathering; on to the displays!

Rite Aid had a four-polish Bonita Nail-o-ween set with nail stickers.



Bonita Tickled Pink looks more like a spring collection to me, but it just showed up at Rite Aid. Left to right: Tulips Wonder, Blooming Orchig, Summer Punch, Tickled Pink, Cherry Blossom, Deep in Love.



Another display for the Bonita Gel-On line appeared at Rite Aid. Six shades here: One and Only, Tech Savvy, Feelin' Lucky, Hollywood High-Rise, Purple Craze, Bleau Bar. (Yeah, the display says "bleau", not "bleu".)



The limited edition Allure & Butter London colors were displayed on the top of the Butter end cap at Ulta: I'm on the List, Disco Nap, Nude Stilettos, Statement Piece, It's Vintage, Lust or Must, Violet's Revenge, The Sweet Spot, So Major, and Front Row (the last four only in duo kits).



The China Glaze Ghouls' Night Out display for Halloween was pretty sparsely populated by the time I saw it at Sally Beauty. I'm sure other bloggers have thoroughly covered these by now.



Way back when I was still on vacation in Idaho, I spotted the Essence Love & Sound display at Fred Meyer. Knowing I'll have access to Essence when I move somewhat makes up for no longer having Meijer and Five Below stores like I do here in Michigan. This display has four "desert matt" polishes (a fine textured matte finish): Blue-chella, Glastonberry, Make Life a Festival, and Feel the Vibe. I was so very very tempted to scoop these up, but mindful of the eleven Helmers plus overflow at home, I resisted.



Halloween means a variety of Fantasy Makers displays at various stores. Here's one from Rite Aid:



The tombstone polishes this year are Glo' Money Glo' Problems (glow in the dark), Bloody Marie (red), Whiteout (white), Black as Knight (black).



Nail applique stickers (from another display configuration that had all four designs): Queen of the Dead (skulls and flowers), Snow Queen (snowflakes), Egyptian Queen (crocodile), Window Queen (spiders and webs).



FingerPaints did a collection of minis for Halloween, only two shades of which were left by the time I spotted them at Sally Beauty: Candy Corn and Under Your Spell.



Some Walgreens got the Halloween collection of Incoco nail polish strips: Witching Hour (orange/black), Ghoul Friends (skulls/flowers), Mischief Makers (jack o' lanterns), Wicked Web (spider webs), Going Batty (purple/black), and Spooktacular (ghosts).



The L'Oreal Chateau Royal collection doesn't look especially autumnal to me, but here it is: Vineyard Blush, Wine Spritzer, High Spirits, Pinot Purple, Wicked Wine, Sangria Splash, and Pass the Vino.



I saw Orly In the Mix at Sally Beauty. Six shades here, best viewed on the swatch rectangle, as the display hides half of them: Freestyle, Electropop, Turn It Up, Off Beat, Indie, Midnight Show.

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There is another Orly Color Blast Disney collection at Walgreens, this time for Villains: Ursula, the Evil Queen, and Maleficent. As with previous collections, these all look like Orly shades rebottled. Ursula is on the left; I think it's very unfortunate that there is no purple here. Single bottles on top are Fathons Below and Sinister Sea Witch; duos in front are Flotsam and Jetsam (something I didn't get the name of with Power Hungry) and Poor Unfortunate Souls (Sign the Scrolls with Have We Got a Deal. Evil Queen in the middle gets individual bottles of Take a Bite and Queen's Crown with duos Royalty (Bring Me Her Heart with Magic Mirror) and Magic Spell (Extreme Vanity with Sleeping Death). Maleficent on the right has bottles of Diablo and Mistress of All Evil and duos Dragon's Wrath (Univited Guest with Cast My Spell) and Evil Sorceress (Touch the Spindle with Ageless Sleep).



Rite Aid once again had the Phantom Frights Halloween displays, including the pumpkins (ridged bottles again; Meijer never got these this year that I saw). All of the shades looked like things I'd seen before; I think this is the first year in a long while that I bought no new pumpkins.







It feels like it's been a while since I saw something new from Revlon, so I was happy to spot the Fiery Temptress display with two nail colors: Untamed and Uninhibited.



Sally Hansen has eight limited edition shades of Xtreme wear in the Fall into Color display: Femme Feather, Heritage Red, Out for Oxblood, Fall Flare, Strike Gold, Hard Cider, Boho Blue, and Gypsy Jade.



There are six LE Insta Dri shades in the Mani in a Minute display: Misty Rose, Mauvelous, Wicked Wine (two slots), Wild Iris, Cerise Spark (two slots), Emerald Express. (There is another Mani in a Minute display with additional Insta Dri colors, none LE, and nail art supplies; you may run into that at CVS).



There are also fifteen limited edition colors of Sally Hansen Complete Salon manicure in the Runway Collection display for New York Fashion Week Fall 2015. Front row: Gold Glass, Yummy Yam, Winter Sky, Beige Glass, Rose Glass. Middle row: The Last Adventure, Maasai Red, Candied Apple, Leaf Peeper, Violet Glass. Back row: Clean Slate, Lady T, Midnight Affair, Spring Moss, Rendez-nonoo.



As per usual, SinfulColors has a bunch of stuff out. The Oh Snap collection is described as "runway colors with vintage flair". Left to right: Rose Dust (repromote), Plum Luck (new), Ink Positive (new), No Filter (new), 24/7 (times 2; one of these slots should be Retro Rosie, a new shade, and the other should be Clear Top Coat, but apparently this store ran out of those and stocked with excess 24/7), Purple Haze (new), Antique Your Interest (new).



In all the Walgreens I hit up looking for one, I never saw a complete display of SinfulColors Truly Madly Sparkly. This one below was the closest. Left to right: Starlet Fever (new), Sinfl Sunrise (new, but belongs to 3D Glitter collection, which I never found the display for anywhere; this slot should be filled with Let Me Go, a core shade), Teal Midnight (new), Interstellar (new), Snow and Teal (new), Hit the Dance Glow (new), Palm Breezy, Just Glisten (new).



There's a variety of Halloween displays from SinfulColors. Rite Aid had Dressed to Kill. Left to right: Glow in the Dark, Splatter Spell, Courtney Orange, Starry Night, Ruby Ruby, Let's Talk, Glow in the Dark, Clear Coat. These are all either repromotes or core colors.



Meijer had a gigantic Dressed to Kill display with a different assortment of colors. Left to right: Happy Ending, Black on Black, Let's Talk, Courtney Orange, Snow Me White, Glow in the Dark (whole center section), GoGo Girl, Copper Pot, Starry Night, Skele-bration (new), Splatter Spell, Aubergine.



Walgreens has You Glow Girl, either in the corner cap as seen below or in a sidekick. The new colors here are Skele-bration and Go Batty, a sky blue glow in the dark with shaped glitter. The others all looked to be core or repromotes. The corner cap has glow in the dark nail stickers but the sidekick I saw did not. (There were other full nail stickers in a Target display I saw online but not in person).





Wet 'n' Wild Here's to the Wild Ones has six MegaLast limited edition shades, most of which look very very similar to LE shades from prior years. Left to right: Thrift Shopaholic, Gettin' Inked, Stop and Mel-the-Roses, Pop-Up Bluetique, I Moss Have It, and Keep Vinyl Alive.



There are some limited edition shades in the top section of the Whim display at Ulta. Left to right: Tall Dark & Rich, Cable Knit, Press Tour, Faux Real, Statement Maker, th-INK, Midnight Mischief, Fallen Sunset, Crackling Embers, #Trending.



Ulta has been keeping pretty timely with their Zoya stocks lately. Focus & Flair for fall was there at the end of summer. Top row: Tris, Cinnamon, Aggie, Ember, Giada, Estelle. Bottom row: Charli, Desiree, Hannah, Janelle, Lidia, Sia. You can see I'm off my game here: I didn't even notice several of the bottles were wrong way round until I pulled this pic up to crop and watermark it.



Zoya Naked Manicure popped up at Ulta before I'd really seen much about it online. Top: Pink (to brighten; no surprise it's sold out as muggles love pink), Buff (to warm), Nude (to soften), Mauve (to deepen), Lavender (to correct yellow), White (to correct free edge). Bottom: Naked Base, Satin Seal Topcoat, Glossy Seal Topcoat.



And of course, since Christmas starts earlier and earlier, I've already seen some winter holiday displays, but I just don't want to encourage that sort of thing, so will save those to post after Halloween.

Recent NOTD: Ministry of Beauty Ultra-Reflect Nails, Take Three

When I came back from vacation last month with those two broken nails (as documented in this post), I filed down the others into shorties, which meant it was a perfect time to dip into my stash of shorter fake nails. I turned for the third time to Ministry of Beauty Ultra-Reflect nails, which I stocked up on back when they were sold at Meijer stores. I wore the olive multichrome and white iridescent earlier this year and didn't want to repeat, so chose the lavender iridescent this time.



Because my own nails were shorter this time, I was able to snug the base of the fakes closer to my cuticles, which minimized the gaps from the squarer shape of the base on the fakes.





The above two pictures were shot in regular room light next to a window. After a day's wear, I got out my lightbox and took the two shots below.





I got so many comments and compliments on these; they're very eye catching. I like the adhesive tabs that come with them because they're very thin, but they aren't quite as sticky as I'd like; I had to reattach a few nails during the week I wore them (to be fair to the tabs, the nails that came loose are the ones I most like to use to pry and scrape at things, which I know I should not do but I need to have some bad habits to keep me from being too perfect, right?). The iridescent finish is a thin coating that will start to come off if you use your nails hard or scrape your nail against something sharp. Below see my right thumbnail after four or five days during which I packed many boxes of stuff in the I hope ending soon quest to get our house ready to list for sale.



To wrap up, here's a shot I took at Home Depot, where we went to look for new carpet for some of our rooms, again with an eye toward getting the house ready to sell.



It appears that ebay is the best place to get these now that they've disappeared from Meijer. I wish I could tell you more than that, but the Ministry of Beauty Twitter feed hasn't been updated since 2013 and their website I'm not even going to link because trying to go there makes my antivirus software pop up an alert. The back of the package says the nails were made in Korea, so that's a lead I intend to follow up more on at some point. So far, that just lead me to a shopping site which offered various beauty products, including a whole category called "Hairs".

Glitters from Native War Paints

When I shared the Native War Paints Holographics the other week, I mentioned I'd gotten more from the brand I'd share later. Later is now. Today I have two glitters, starting with Wise Cracking Waitress, a purple jelly filled with black, blue, and purple glitter with a scattering of silver holo microglitter. I layered one coat of it over the purple holo, Ribbons and Bows, then added clear topcoat. This one could have been made for me especially, combining so many things I like: purple, jelly, glitter. The black glitter adds more interest without standing out too much like black glitter can do sometimes. I've layered it, but it could be worn on its own.





The second glitter, Small and Han-some, has a holo base packed with small and micro glitter in mostly blue and copper.



It's not necessarily meant to be a layering polish, but I did not let that stop me from putting two coats of it plus clear topcoat over a red shimmer base, Nicole by OPI Always a Classic Coca Cola. Here's the red on its own:



And the combination; so warm and pretty and perfect for autumn—





Look at the holo popping in direct low light:



Both of these glitters are still available direct from Native War Paints. There are a lot of newer polishes, too, many of which I want but am restraining myself from buying because now that I have all my Helmers and overflow in one place I see how truly enormous my stash is. I haven't gone on a no buy because that no work for me, but I have slowed way down in the acquisitions area.

Funky Fingers Halloween 2015

Just when I was starting to get back into some sort of blogging rhytmn, I threw myself off again by taking a long weekend trip to Madison to support my friend Jen at the launch of her second book, Future Perfect, a young adult novel that addresses body image and self-acceptance. (Which I will be reading even though I am an old adult.) I was so busy having fun that I didn't even do my nails all weekend. They're still bare but for treatment this morning. Before that, though, I did get a little swatching done, so do have content now that I'm back home.

I've written before about the randomness of the nail polish sections at Five Below, where often there's no signage for collections or there is but it doesn't necessarily match up with the polishes displayed with it. This means I have no idea if the two new Funky Fingers glow in the dark glitters that showed up recently are a collection unto themselves or if there will be more coming later. I figured I'd just go ahead and swatch them. If more show up, I'll deal with it then.

First up is Gourdgeous, a pale orange with orange and neon yellow glitter in various sizes.



This one is quite sheer; at three coats the base color barely tinted my nails. It also required dabbing to get the bigger glitters out of the bottle.



Charged up under normal room light, it glows yellow when when those lights get turned off, with dark spots where the orange glitter is (the yellow glitter doesn't contrast with the yellow glow so seems to disappear in the dark).



The other new glow in the dark polish from Funky Fingers this season is R U Afraid of the Dark, which has a blue grey base with black and neon lime green glitter in a mix of sizes.



This one was also sheer, but not nearly as much as Gourdgeous. Three coats left me with a hint of visible nail line rather than a very obvious one. Dabbing was again necessary to coax the bigger glitters out. Once out, the glitter does lay pretty flat on the nail; I didn't use topcoat for this or the previous swatch.



This one gives a more speckled appearance in the dark because both colors of glitter show up against the glow, which is the same yellow as Gourdgeous glows.



I also tried these as toppers, using two of the fall Sally Hansen Complete Salon Manicure creme shades as bases. Yummy Yam is a butterscotch color, while Spring Moss is a greyed teal. Both covered in two coats.



I added two coats of the Funky Fingers, Gourdgeous on Yummy Yam and R U Afraid of the Dark on Spring Moss.



These did still glow layered like this, with one fewer coat than when I wore them alone. I just failed to get any decent photos.

When it comes time to destash, Gourdgeous is going; the color is not so flattering to me and I wouldn't wear it alone, unlike R U Afraid of the Dark, which I like both alone and layered. They're both fun to look at and have equally strong glow in the dark effects.