Wednesday, September 19, 2018

Wheel Z10: Zoya PixieDust Textures

I'm coming to you this time from an airport hotel despite being on yet another road trip, no airplanes involved. I ended up here because the hotel I have stayed at in the past a few exits down the freeway left (or got kicked out of) the chain that I try to collect all my points from. Regardless of where I am or why, I've got a slice of time right now between other activities to write up some words to go with some photos I took before I left home. Today it's Nail Wheel Wednesday with Zoya PixieDust textured polishes.



(all two coats, no topcoat)

1. Zoya Pixie Dust Ginni [I think these chunkier ones work better with topcoat but since they're designed to be textured, I left them bare for this wheel]
2. Zoya Pixie Dust Arlo
3. Zoya Pixie Dust Miranda
4. Zoya Pixie Dust Chyna
5. Zoya Pixie Dust Carter [love this one so much]
6. Zoya Pixie Dust Thea
7. Zoya Pixie Dust Liberty
8. Zoya Pixie Dust Nori
9. Zoya Pixie Dust Sunshine
10. Zoya Pixie Dust Nyx
11. Zoya Pixie Dust Chita
12. Zoya Pixie Dust Vega
13. Zoya Pixie Dust Vespa
14. Zoya Pixie Dust London
15. Zoya Pixie Dust Dahlia
16. Zoya Pixie Dust Imogen
17. Zoya Pixie Dust Cosmo
18. Zoya Pixie Dust Lux
19. Zoya Pixie Dust Bar
20. Zoya Pixie Dust Godiva


Bottles 1 through 6:



7 through 13:


14 through 20:

















Monday, September 10, 2018

Almost Autumn Displays

Time once again to clear out my display photo folders. Since my last display post, I've once again hunted for nail polish in several states, not just the one I live in and the one next door where a lot of my friends are. It's been a busy summer of travel for me, for sure.

As expected, fall collections are in stores now, and the Halloween specialities are also starting to show up. What I haven't seen are the Revlon polishes for the Shoot the Moon collection. I asked in a Facebook group, and no one else seems to have seen them in the wild, either. I've found no swatches online (some of the makeup from the collection, yes, but not the polishes), and the only bottle shot I've seen is one found by a blog reader (thanks, Dawn!) on the revlonliveboldly.com page (not secure so I'm not linking) that could be a Photoshop creation for all I know. I inquired to Revlon via their main website but so far haven't gotten a response. One person in a Facebook group I'm in got told by Revlon that the polishes were sold out, which seems unlikely ... if they were ever in stores, there would be some sign of them somewhere online.

I've yet to see a display for the China Glaze fall collection that a) was organized so I felt I could see what all the colors were or b) had the collection name on it (it's Ready to Wear). I saw it first at Sally Beauty, in a display which had some of the holos in it, too, and some Gelaze shades.

China Glaze nail polish display

Then I found this shelf at Fred Meyer and took the time to pull out one of each color to line up in front; I think this is all the shades. Left to right: Throwing Suede, Mustard the Courage, Swatch Out, Aut-umm I Need That, Chic Happens, Pleather Weather, Sample Sizing Me Up, Central Parka, Vest Friends, You Don't Know Jacket, Pay It Fashion Forward, Haute Blooded.

China Glaze fall Ready to Wear nail polish display

Ulta did have a labeled display of the fake nails (sorry, "Pre-Glued Designer Nails") for China Glaze Ready to Wear. There were two designs, both in medium length almond shape. One was a rusty brown magnetic look and the other black with gold spatter.

China Glaze fall 2018 ready to wear nails

I was keeping an eye out for the new colors of Essence Out of Space Stories and found them at the Fred Meyer closest to my house (which is about an hour and a half away; thus is the price I pay to live on a beautiful mountain with a beautiful lake nearby). They were in a display called Holo Wow!, which has mostly makeup in it, but also the two nail polishes: Mermaid of the Galaxy (turquoise/teal) and Guardians of the Unicorn (lilac). As I mentioned last time, I'd heard these were also showing up at Meijer, but I did not see them there when I was in Meijer country in Illinois.

Essence Holo Wow display

Essie's fall collection is Say It Ain't Soho, which I saw first at Rite Aid. Shades here: Empire Shade of Mind, Booties on Broadway, Say It Ain't Soho, Stop Drop & Shop, It Takes a West Village, and Fall for NYC.

Essie fall Say It Aint Soho nail polish display

At Ulta, Say It Ain't Soho was fitted into a section of the regular display.

Essie fall Say It Aint Soho nail polish display

On the end of the nail polish display unit at Ulta, there were Essie Gel Couture shades in the Avant-Garde collection. Interestingly, this was a different assortment than I'd seen in the Avant-Garde display at Rite Aid that I shared in my last display post. Top to bottom: Avant Garment, Exhibit A-Line, Bold Boundaries, Set the Seam, What's the Stitch, and Dye-Mentions. The only two here that were also at Rie Aid are Bold Boundaries and Dye-Mentions.

Essie Gel Couture nail polish display Avant-Garde

Sally Beauty has a Finger Paints Holographic collection, which actually appears to be mostly holo polishes (though I've heard the rainbows are better in the bottle than on the nail). Front row: Red Rocket, Cosmic Chaos, Fantom Fuchsia (not holo). Back row: Pixie Dust, Majestic, Solar Flare.

Finger Paints Holographic collection nail polish display

Not only was there nothing new in the nail polish sections at the Five Below stores I went to on my last couple trips, the sections themselves were shrinking. Bins that used to be full of polish now have random beauty products in them. One of the ladies in the Five Below polish group I'm in on Facebook said a sales associate told her they're phasing out polish entirely. That makes me sad.

Five Below nail polish display

Fred Meyer had a display of Fright Night Claw Polish. This lineup is very similar to the one I saw last year at Meijer. Front row, left to right: Ghouls Night Out (red microglitter), Where My Witches At? (lime green, probably glow in the dark), Gettin Witchy With It (black creme), Creepin it Real (bright purple), Ghostest with the Mostest (white ghost glitter), I'm Here for the Boos (off white, likely glow in the dark). Tucked in the other rows are a couple additional colors: Skull & Crossbones (black, orange, and white skull and crossbones glitter; this is the one not a carryover from 2017) and Polk-a-dots (black and orange round glitter).

Fright Night Claw Polish nail polish display

Ghostest with the Mostest detail:

Fright Night Ghostest with the Mostest nail polish

Skull & Crossbones detail:

Fright Night Skull and Crossbones nail polish

Polk-a-dots detail:

Fright Night Polk-a-dots nail polish

I found the Fright Night Halloween fake nails at Rite Aid. Top row: Elegant (matte black), Red Velvet (red flocked), Claws (shiny black). Bottom row: Spider Web (black/red/white spiders and webs), Black Widow (red with black spiders and webs), Poison (white with black skulls and crossbones).

Fright Night fake nails Halloween display

Walgreens had the Kiss Halloween display with fake nails and nail art stickers.

Kiss Halloween display nails and nail art

Sally Beauty was the first place I saw OPI's fall collection, Peru. (Or Perú, as it's shown on this display.) Left to right: Suzi Will Quechua Later, Don't Toot My Flute, Grandma Kissed a Gaucho, Yes My Condor Can-do, Como se Llama, I Love You Just Be-Cusco, Machu Peach-u, Somewhere Over the Rainbow Mountains, Seven Wonders of OPI, Lima Tell You About This Color, My Solar Clock is Ticking, Alpaca My Bags.

OPI fall Peru nail polish display

Tucked into the upper right of the display are four Infinite Shine primers: Ridge Filling, Strengthening, Conditioning, and Brightening. A different Sally store had these pulled out on their own:

OPI Infinite Shine primers display

There are three Sally Beauty exclusive shades for OPI Peru: Take a Hike on the Inca Trail, Spice of Peruvian Life, You Crossed the Nazca Line. (There are also some Ulta exclusives but I haven't seen them yet; my closest Ulta has been a dead zone for polish recently.)

OPI Peru fall nail polish display

At Ulta, Peru was tucked into the main display, both on an end with regular and Inifinite Shine formulas (see below) and on the side (not pictured because it's backlit and I don't have time to figure out how to get that to show up nicely).

OPI Peru fall nail polish display

There are three Ulta exclusive Peru colors, which were either mostly sold out or mostly not yet stocked when I saw the display: Andean Culture Club, I Archeologically Dig You, Ayahuasca Made Me Do It.

OPI Peru fall nail polish display

NW Beauty had this display of the regular formula shades for Peru:

OPI Peru fall nail polish display

The mini sets have Suzi Will Quechua Later, Grandma Kissed a Gaucho, Somewhere Over the Rainbow Mountains, and Como se Llama.

OPI Peru mini nail polish set

NW Beauty also had an Infinite Shine display for Peru, which I was only able to snap a photo of because another customer asked a question and drew the sales associate away from the front counter:

OPI Peru fall nail polish display

Looking at the swatch stick for this collection at NW Beauty, I was uninspired. While I can appreciate that OPI needs to have reds and pinks to appeal to the masses, and that lots of folks don't have eleventy billion creme polishes already like I do, and that these colors do appear in the landscapes of Peru (and autumn in the US is spring in Peru so that could be why this reads more like spring to me), I really, really wish the collection looked more like the bright textiles in the photos on the display—where's the yellow and orange, or a rich brown shimmer? I might pick up a couple if I see them on clearance later but I'm not excited.

OPI Peru fall nail polish

Rite Aid was in the process of setting up their Halloween section when I was there this past Saturday (seems rather late by recent standards), but they had put out one display of Pumpkin polishes called Cast a Spell. There were three shades here, all made in the USA and distributed by Pacific World Corp.: Boo-tiful (black and white glitter), Fantastic (black creme), and Creep It Real (orange creme). The display calls these "Spellbinding Nail Polish" and "Groundbreaking Nail Polish". I don't think either of those are true, but it's always fun to see the pumpkins back.

Pumpkin nail polish display

At Fred Meyer, I saw the Sally Hansen Miracle Gel Sunset Splash display. I'd seen all of these shades before in other displays, including core displays (even though the display says "limited edition"). Slots, left to right: Sundown Socialite (sold out), La Vida Lilac, Metro Midnight, Hunger Flames (core), Malibu Peach (core, times 2), Electric Pop (core, times 2), Topcoat (times 2).

Sally Hansen Miracle Gel Sunset Splash nail polish display

Also at Fred Meyer, they had a Sally Hansen Color Therapy display called Therapy Head to Taupe with some limited edition colors in it. Starting at back left: Dusty Plum, Pink and Harmony, Falling Deep, Bronze Reflection, Cashmere Calm, and Diffused Light. There's also cuticle oil and top coat in the display.

Sally Hansen Color Therapy Therapy Head to Toe nail polish display

At Walgreens, I saw a Sally Hansen Midnight Maven display for Halloween. This has core shades of Xtreme Wear plus three nail art pens.

Sally Hansen Midnight Maven nail polish display

The most exciting and unexpected thing I saw this round was a Sally Hansen Miracle Gel standee display in a Walgreens that's off my usual path but which I might have to make an effort to get to more often, as this is the second time they've had something I've not seen anywhere else. This "Create a Swirled Effect" display has two Miracle Gel Color Whirl polishes which appear to be like the OPI Black Spotted a lot of us were crazy to get our hands on when it first came out. It also has some limited edition base color shades to layer them over, as well as some core colors.

Sally Hansen Miracle Gell Color Whirl nail polish display

The top rows have the LE shades (topcoat is not LE, obviously): Make It Nice, Good Cheer-y, Frosted Berries, Marble-lous, Steampunk, Top Coat. Core shades in bottom rows: Beet Pray Love, Can't Beet Royalty, Wine Stock, Shhh-immer, Terra-Coppa, Get Mod, Adrenaline Crush.

Sally Hansen Miracle Gel Color Whirl nail polish display

Rite Aid had a Halloween Lip Smacker Disney Tsum Tsum display with four Smackers polishes that looked very similar to last year's. Shades here: Skellington, King of Halloween, Sorceress of the Sea, and Mistress of All Evil. All but King of Halloween seem to be reissues from 2017, which I swatched last fall. There was an orange creme last year, with Sally from Nightmare Before Christmas on it; the King of Halloween we have this year with Jack is a brighter shade than Sally was. I didn't buy it because a) have a lifetime supply of orange cremes in my stash and b) I am annoyed that they did two of the same male character and got rid of the female character from the same movie.

Lip Smackers Halloween Disney Tsum Tsum nail polish display

Summer's not quite over, as I came across one more display variation of the SinfulColors Vanessa Hudgens collection. This Ombre All Day display at Walgreens had boxed sets of three colors from the collection: Beet Goes On, About Last Night, and My Tribe. The back of the box has directions to make an ombre manicure with them (I'd call it a gradient, but that wouldn't rhyme with "all day" so I see why they went with "ombre").

SinfulColors Vanessa Hudgens nail polish display

A Meijer store in Illinois was the first place I saw SinfulColors Radical Mattes display for fall. As often with these big sidekicks, it looked like a jumble of random colors at first, so I spent some time getting the top row and the first two slots in the second row filled with the new shades, three of which have "limited time" stickers on the caps and the other seven which have "matte finish" or "matte top coat" stickers. I left the rest of them mixed up, which I think means I'm making progress with my compulsions.

SinfulColors Radical Mattes nail polish display

Top row: Shout (LE, not matte), Spark (LE, not matte), Rise Up, Brave, Fearless, Roar, Renegade, Rebel Yell, Defiant. Second row: Spirited (LE, not matte), Radical Matte Top Coat. The SinfulColors website doesn't show any collections past Wild at Heart, the summer neon shimmers, so I don't know if the three new shades without matte finish stickers are part of this collection or belong somewhere else; their shade numbers are consecutive and come after the shade numbers for the mattes. Other shades in this display, in no particular order: Acapella Ella, You Goji, Coco Bae, Gogo Girl, Hush Money, Tokyo Pearl, Forbitten Fruit, Soul Mate, Tempest, Fearless, Lie-lac, Ruby Ruby, Vacation Time, Rorange, Pink Smart, Hazard, The Full Monte, Dancing Nails, Endless Blue, Thimbleberry, Unicorns R Real.

SinfulColors Radical Mattes nail polish display

I saw a small display for Radical Mattes at Walgreens. Colors here (all new except as noted): Easy Going (not new), Fearless, Rise Up, Radical Matte Top Coat, Brave, Defiant, Renegade, Rebel Yell, Roar.

SinfulColors Radical Mattes nail polish display

So far, the only place I've seen SinfulColors' 2018 Halloween colors is Walgreens. The Conjured Color display has these shades, including three new ones: Cream Pink, Courtney Orange, Glow in the Dark, Witch Please (new), Bitten, Spellbound (new), Let Me Go, Bad Witch (new), Black on Black. This particular display also had Devil's Stare and Let's Talk tucked behind the other polishes, not in slots. A different Walgreens had Let's Talk in the slots in from and Let Me Go tucked behind, no Devil's Stare. So I'm not sure what this is really supposed to have in it. At least the three new shades have been consistent store to store.

SinfulColors Conjured Color Halloween nail polish display

I'm off on yet another trip soon, so unfortunately won't have time to swatch the polishes I grabbed from these displays for a while. Who knew retirement would be so busy? Not me.

Wednesday, September 5, 2018

Wheel Y10: Glitters from Oopsie Daisies

Another set of glitters for Nail Wheel Wednesday this week. These are from long-closed (four years is long in the indie world, right?) brand Oopsie Daisies, previously seen on Wheel L10 and Wheel K10 (and I have maybe half a wheel's worth left still to go that I'll match up with another brand at some point). These are mostly toppers.

Oopsie Daisies glitter nail polish

(all have clear topcoat in addition to glitter coats noted below)

1. Oopsie Daisies Zeus (2 coats over neutral base) [the square glitters decided to stay mostly in the bottle this time]
2. Oopsie Daisies Love Notes (3) [there are pink heart glitters in here but they're mostly hiding in my photo as I didn't notice they were off to the sides of the tip here]
3. Oopsie Daisies Cherry Blossoms (3)
4. Oopsie Daisies Psykick (3)
5. Oopsie Daisies Apple Picking (3) [such an autumnal feel to this one]
6. Oopsie Daisies Carols by Candlelight (3)
7. Oopsie Daisies Fir (3)
8. Oopsie Daisies Four Leaf Fortune (3)
9. Oopsie Daisies Electric Lemonade (3) [fooled me in the bottle; thought it had green in it, but nope]
10. Oopsie Daisies Calla Lily (2)
11. Oopsie Daisies Keepin' It Kosher (2)
12. Oopsie Daisies Starstorm Omega (2) [so many shapes of silver and silver holo glitter; I love it]
13. Oopsie Daisies Fairy Tale Wishes (2) [I can't think of another polish I have with lilac star glitter in it]
14. Oopsie Daisies Miss Behavin' (2) [so many purple glitters, plus white satin hearts; another favorite of mine]
15. Oopsie Daisies Unlikely Hero (2) [interesting color combination and one I haven't seen much]
16. Oopsie Daisies Cosmic Ruins (2) [would have been nice to fit this on the colored base wheel L10, but no space there]
17. Oopsie Daisies Festivus for the Rest of Us (2) [love the accents of pink and lilac and mint in here]
18. Oopsie Daisies Mod (2) [not just another black and white glitter; the grey in here makes it special]
19. Oopsie Daisies Night Owl (2)
20. Oopsie Daisies Bubble Monkey (2) [pink hearts are unexpected but great accent in this mix]


Bottles 1 through 5:

Oopsie Daisies glitter nail polish

6 through 10:
Oopsie Daisies glitter nail polish

11 through 15:

Oopsie Daisies glitter nail polish

16 through 20:

Oopsie Daisies glitter nail polish

Oopsie Daisies glitter nail polish

Oopsie Daisies glitter nail polish

Oopsie Daisies glitter nail polish

Oopsie Daisies glitter nail polish

Oopsie Daisies glitter nail polish

Oopsie Daisies glitter nail polish

Oopsie Daisies glitter nail polish