Salon Perfect Drop Dead Gore-geous Swatches

Nail Wheel Wednesday is taking a break today so I can post the swatches of the Salon Perfect Halloween polishes before Halloween is over. (I know being a better swatcher means being a more timely swatcher; I just don't seem to be able to manage it these days. Guess this blog is more of a historical document.)

There were five new shades released in this year's Halloween display: Ashes to Ashes, Shapeshifter, Under Her Spell, Lust at First Bite, and Dust to Dust.



Shapeshifter is an orange scattered holographic shimmer (perhaps a case could be made for calling it a weak linear holo, too). I did two coats, though it was nicely opaque and one thick coat might have been sufficient. In the indirect illumination of the lightbox, there are no rainbows.





In direct indoor light, some hints of holo start to show:



In sunlight, more colors appear:



I also bought Too Cute to Spook from the display; it's an orange glitter that's been re-released which I missed last year. I did a rough glitter gradient with it over Shapeshifter and rather liked the result (I did add clear topcoat, too).







Ashes to Ashes is the other holographic finish in this group; I swatched it next in case the sun decided to try and hide later. This is a two-coat dark grey almost black shimmer that in the lightbox displays no holo effect.





In direct indoor light, though, the rainbows do appear:



In sunlight, wow, so many colors:





Ashes to Ashes got the rough glitter gradient treatment with Lust a First Bite, a gold glitter. This has clear topcoat on it as well.





Under Her Spell, a light purple shimmer, looked so sheer in the bottle that I put down a base of Pure Ice Your Majesty, a blue-leaning purple shimmer, on three of my nails before I opened it. My index finger has three coats of Under Her Spell alone, and it's hard to see it's there. Two coats of it over the purple adds a delicate pink and gold shimmer.





You know I love layering, so I tried some more bases under this one, too. Top to bottom: three coats over a white French tip, two coats over OPI Care to Danse (pale pink jelly), two coats over China Glaze Plur-ple (medium purple creme), and two coats over black creme. I really liked it over black; it shimmered in purple, gold, and pink.





Since I was in layering mode, I tried Dust to Dust over a variety of bases as well. This one has black, silver, and holo glitter in a clear base, but it's so densely packed that it doesn't layer as well as I'd hoped. Top to bottom, one coat of Dust to Dust over: Revlon Silver Base, Salon Perfect Shapeshifter, Salon Perfect Ashes to Ashes, Funky Fingers Dark Knight. I had to add clear topcoat as this one was a bit bumpy on its own.





The colors from the holo glitter popped in direct indoor light:



Nine Lives is another re-release I got from the display; it's a black with gold shimmer that covers in two coats.





It seemed natural to try the gold from this year, Lust at First Bite, over Nine Lives. I slicked on one coat of Lust at First Bite on my middle through pinky fingers, which pretty much obscured the base color.





I'm glad I picked these up. I'm also glad that some brands are still putting out limited and holiday editions.

Halloween Season Nails of the Day

This month, I've managed to wear three Halloween holiday designs of Sally Hansen Salon Effects strips from my hoard. I feel a little sad to be using them up, as there aren't any new ones coming out, definitely not from Sally Hansen, who doesn't even have non-seasonal strips anymore, nor have I seen any seasonal strips from Incoco at Walgreens like I used to—not all stores had them, but they were around if I hunted and now they're not. Color Street (an Incoco brand) has Halloween designs but I'm uncomfortable with the multi-level marketing direct sales business model. Oh well. Maybe by the time I deplete my stash, the cycle will have come around again and more strips will be in stores.

Ghoulie Girl, with a tiled design of ghosts in traditional white and innovative orange accented in black, was first up earlier this month.



Not too long after applying the ghosts, I tore off part of the strip on one of my thumbnails (yes, still haven't broken myself of the habit of using them as tools) and was able to cover up the problem by using a piece of one of the leftover strip ends (which I usually save at least until I take the strips off), stuck on with clear polish and then topcoated.



Batty for You came next; this has black bats on a rich warm purple background that has a slight shimmer to it.



I was planning to (and did) wear these to a party a couple days after I applied them, so for extra assurance they'd still look good, I added Sally Hansen Diamond Flash top coat to them. Since the strips were shiny on their own, the topcoat didn't change the look but did seem to keep the strips in good shape a bit longer than usual.



I'm finishing up the month with Patch-o-Lanterns, which has black and orange jack o' lantern faces.



I've had these last ones on for almost a week at this point and the tips are looking a little worn, so I think I'll add a black funky French later today so they look good for the actual holiday.

Wheel D11: Black Light Polishes

Since I had the LA Colors Glows bottles out to swatch, and fifteen is almost enough for a full wheel, I went ahead and found some more black light polishes and painted one. Except I could only find four more, so filled it out with a glow in the dark one that was in the vicinity. That was not my best decision ever but I can give that polish another shot on a different wheel someday, surrounded by other glow in the dark shades.



Under black light:




1. LA Colors Color Craze Glows Energy (3 coats)
2. LA Colors Color Craze Glows Vapor (3)
3. LA Colors Color Craze Glows Gleaming (3)
4. LA Colors Color Craze Glows Luminous (3)
5. LA Colors Color Craze Glows Ionize (3)
6. LA Colors Color Craze Glows Radiation (3)
7. LA Colors Color Craze Glows Fluorescent (3)
8. LA Colors Color Craze Glows Lucent (2)
9. LA Colors Color Craze Glows Nuclear (2)
10. LA Colors Color Craze Glows Wave Length (2)
11. LA Colors Color Craze Glows Ultra Violet (3)
12. LA Colors Color Craze Glows Electric (3)
13. LA Colors Color Craze Glows Radio Active (2)
14. LA Colors Color Craze Glows Spectrum (2)
15. LA Colors Color Craze Glows X-Ray (2)
16. Salon Perfect Glow All Out (3) [yeah, I don't know what I was thinking putting this on here, but I guess I now know that black light does nothing for glow in the dark polishes]
17. NYC New York Color Demon Glow Top Coat (2 coats over white and black bases)
18. Ulta Color Enhancing Top Coat (2, over white and black bases)
19. Cabaret Black Light Magic (2, over white and black bases)
20. Claire's Black Light unlabled purple glitter (3) [should have put topcoat on this one as it's a bit bumpy without it; seems to have lost any black light glow it once had]


Bottles 1 through 5:



6 through 10:


11 through 15:



16 through 20:




















I didn't take detail pics under black light ... my last post has all the LA Colors shades that way, and I think the black light wheel shot shows the others well enough (especially if you click to see it full size).

L.A. Colors Color Craze Glows Skittles Swatches

When I was display hunting over the past several weeks, I got sucked into collecting all the shades of L.A. Colors Glows I came across, which eventually turned out to be fifteen of them. At 98 cents a bottle, it was a cheap indulgence, and I'd not seen black light polishes in some of these colors before. Justification complete.

I lack the motivation to sit down and swatch fifteen colors at once, but I knew where my black light bulb was, so Skittles swatches it would be. I began with the quietest shades, all cremes: Energy (white), Vapor (tan), Lucent (seafoam green), and Nuclear (blue).



Top to bottom in same order as the bottles above—Energy was three coats and the others were two:



Under black light, Energy glowed by far the most. The other three were very similar looking, with Vapor being maybe a touch more pink than the other two.



Next up was the tropical quartet of Luminous (coral pink), Ionize (orange), Radiation (neon yellow), and Fluorescent (lime). Again, all cremes.



I did three coats of all but Fluorescent, which was two. Ionize showed a phantom dirt line; I will experiment with using a base under it next time, either white to make it pop or neutral to just cover my nail line.



These four popped quite nicely under black light:



Because 15 polishes divided by four fingers doesn't come out even, this next group of cremes has a repeat in it. I figure it helps show the difference between the two pinks. Left to right: Luminous (coral pink), Gleaming (watermelon pink), Radio Active (red), and Electric (red violet).



I did three coats of Luminous and Gleaming (though both could probably be two if I went thick with them) and two of Radio Active and Electric.



Luminous is the glow winner of this group under black light; the others are far more muted.



Finally we have our cool/dark cool quartet, with Ultra Violet (purple), Wave Length (blue, and the only shimmer), X-Ray (blue black), and Spectrum (darkest red).



I did three coats of Ultra Violet (maybe could have stopped at two but I was on a roll) and two of the others. Wave Length does show some brushstrokes but they're not too prominent.



Another angle so you can see the shimmer better (and maybe spot the subtle difference betweent the two essentially black shades):



Under the black light, these were interesting though not brightly glowing.



I don't spend much time at parties these days, and those I do go to rarely have black light, but now I'm more than ready if the occasion presents itself. I was a bit disappointed that so many of these didn't glow all that much but that wasn't really surprising; there's a reason we don't often see black and teal and other deeper colors in black light formulas.