Minsk Haul the Second

Yep, still catching up. Today I have polishes from my second trip to Belarus last September, the one that I included in my Geographically Diverse Displays post this past fall.

I wanted to buy most of the Catrice colors I saw, but narrowed it down to just four so I could get other brands, too. Left to right: PLUMdogMillionaire, Stardust, Berry Potter & Plumbledore, Kitch Me If You Can.



I got two Eveline miniMAX shades, 413 and 402. I had a few others from the brand in my stash from swaps, but none from this line.



MILV was a new-to-me brand; I got three of them: 27, 36, and 73.



Two LuxVisage colors jumped into my basket: 508 and 138.



Did I say two LuxVisage? I meant six. I also grabbed two from the Flirt line, 306 and 307, and two Defile, 104 and 105.



No, wait, I meant nine LuxVisage, as I also got three from the Sahara textured line, colors I hadn't picked up on my previous trip: 60, 58, and 59.



Okay, really I meant 14 LuxVisage, because I decided I also needed to add to my Hi Tech and Galactic purchases from the earlier visit. Numbers on these are 25, 215, 207, 204, and 208.



I'd gotten two Belor Design polishes on my spring trip, but neither were in the Podium Gel Effect line, so I got two of those, 119 and 120.



I added to my Novelty Cosmetics collection with three more of the Mix Beads & Sticks glitters: 807, 815, and 817.



I also got four more Novelty Cosmetics from I guess the core line, as they had no special labels on the handles: 532, 530, 533, and 156. These and the three above cost the equivalent of US$1.75.



Max Factor Glossfinity isn't a line I've ever seen in the States, so I got two pretty green ones: Vivacious Lime and Aqua Marine.



Another two Dona Mirelle polishes came home with me to join their peers already in my stash: Opti Grow Magnet in MG15 and
Matt Color in M21.



I got two more of what I had been calling the R Crown brand but have since learned is Relouis. Judging by the design on the caps, these are crackle polishes, and heaven knows I have more than enough of those, but I didn't have any from Belarus, and these looked like pretty shimmers if they weren't actually crackles. I had to look at these closely to verify that they really did say "Graffi collection" on them, not "Graffiti".



Essence of course I have plenty of, but the selection I can easily get at home is limited, so I grabbed some ones I hadn't seen before, including this half dozen Colour & Go shades: Hey Nude (which I wore for a full mani last year), Be My Lucky Star, Galactic Glam, Headphones On, Over the Rainbow, and Purple Sugar.



Also got a trio of other Essence: Effect Metal Sugar in Skyfall, Beach Cruisers I Heart Summer Break, and Holo Jewels Bejeweled.



All the polishes above were in open displays, so I could just grab what I liked and go to the checkout. These last couple groups were in the mall kiosks behind glass, which meant getting my hands on them was more complicated. Thank goodness for having charades experience and a digital camera; using both of those things I managed to communicate what I wanted and in which colors. I chose three Golden Rose Carnival shades: 12, 11, and 13.



Five Dance Legends came home with me: Lumos 1019 and 1018, Rio 15, Sahara Crystal 20 and 17.



So far I've only had time to play with a fraction of these. I used the two Podium Gel Effect polishes as a base for the LuxVisage Hi Tech bar glitter (that one was only US$1.59). I'm still not 100% comforatable with bar glitter but it is definitely interesting to look at. It was two coats of the cremes (the darker was nearly a one-coater) plus two of the glitter (some dabbing was required) plus clear topcoat.



I did LuxVisage Defile 105 as a base for Golden Rose Carnival 12, leaving an accent nail un-glittered.



I did two textures next, LuxVisage Sahara in 60 with 58 on an accent nail. I liked 58, the gold, better than the purple, which surprised me.



Adding topcoat made me like the purple more, but the gold got pretty, too, and it was more glittery than the purple.



I forgot about my slight disappointment at the purple texture when I got the Dona Mirelle Matt Color 21 on my nails. I love this.



Much as I wanted to keep admiring the matte blue, I also wanted to try one of the Dance Legends, so I added the Rio glitter on top of the matte. It was flat enough that I didn't need to add topcoat. It totally took that sophisticated blue into the fun zone.



I don't want to say the visit I bought all these polishes on was my last trip to Belarus, though I fear it may have been. I'd love to go back, but it doesn't seem like work will be sending me again, and I'm not sure how or when I'd go about getting there as a tourist. I'll put that on the increasingly long list of things I'll look into after I retire.

Minsk Haul the First

Today I return to the department of things I should have posted a long time ago, namely the haul from my first trip to Minsk at the end of April. Of course some of those polishes have made it to this blog already, but others have waited patiently for their moment to at least get in a bottle shot. Today is that day.

Let's start with the IsaDora: Bronze Patina, two Sugar Crush textures (Ocean Crush, Purple Crush), and three Magnetic Nails (Electric Light, Magnetic Mania, Steel My Heart). I swatched the Sugar Crush in my Textures from Foreign Lands post. I swatched the others in A Quartet from IsaDora.



I had some IsaDora in my stash before my trip, but none of this next brand, Dona Mirelle (or pretty much any of the other brands to come). Left to right: Opti Grow Magnet MG06, Opti Grow Magnet MG05 (in a different bottle style for some reason), Opti Grow Thermo 105, Opti Grow & color 115, Nano Technology unknown pink shimmer (the label was illegible).



I usually peel price tags off, but these I left on because it's just so exotic to me to see prices in the tens of thousands on small items. That 37,250 Belarusian rubles on the leftmost bottle was approximately US$3.75; not bad for a magnetic. The labels on the back are interesting, too, though probably if I could read them they'd be less so.



I bought more LuxVisage than any other brand. They were inexpensive and had a lot of textures and glitters to choose from. Here are the colors I chose from the Sahara (texture) and Galactic (metallic glitter) lines: 55, 65, 67, 206, 212. You can see the Sahara ones on my nails in the same post linked above for the IsaDora textures.



And the LuxVisage Hi-Tech (matte glitter) shades: 10, 12, 18, 19.



The LCN colors I saw weren't as adventurous as the LuxVisage ones, but I did like the cute little square bottles. I got five of these: FD4 Sealed With a Kiss, 246 Mystic Mint, G10 Disco Fever (I had to look up the names online for all but this, which had the English name printed on the label), 203 Azure Blue, 337 Green Emerald. Green Emerald got to be in the Polish Revolution Literary Wast Land swatches as a base for one of those lovely glitters.



One of the ladies in the office told me Belor Design was based in Belarus, so I definitely wanted to get some of their colors. I would have gotten more but the displays I saw were chock full of only pinks and reds and other traditional colors which I'm already crazy overstocked with. I'm not sure where the Maxi Color brand comes from, but I'd never seen it before so grabbed a couple of those, too. Left to right: Belor Design Podium 71, Belor Design Classic 19, Maxi Color Aromatic 04, Maxi Color Style 108. Two of these were in my Minsk Quartet post earlier a few months back.



I like to buy at least two of any brand I get (so I don't have oddballs; not sure why that should matter). I could only find one Vivienne Sabo Noctuelle but got it anyway since I also like variety in my stash and didn't have any of this brand. I'm not sure what this holo silver bar glitter is called, but I'm glad it's in my collection. I got three from Relouis (I finally figured out that's what the brand is called; the bottles only have an "R" on them): 03, 01, 421 (I would love to track down 02 someday, but don't think that's going to happen). Two of the Relouis glitters are also in that Minsk Quartet post linked above.



I was charmed by the "mix beads & sticks" stickers on some of the Novelty Cosmetics glitter polish bottles, so grabbed two of them, 805 and 541. I also got one Maybelline, even though on a normal day I drive by approximately four dozen stores which carry Maybelline. But those stores don't have the Colorama line, so I'd never seen this delicate lilac with translucent microglitter. The price of 27,500 rubles sealed it—I needed it to come home with me.



In addition to the swatches linked previously, I was able to get a few more of these on my nails (but not all; that may need to be a new rule—no hauling until I've swatched all of the previous one, but I'm not sure how that would work in practice; trip hauling is easy, but what constitutes a haul at home? A week's worth of purchases both online and off? Maybe when I hire my stash assistant she or he can figure it out for me.)

Here's three coats of Belor Design Podium shade 19. I chose this one from among the whites and pinks and reds and wines on offer because the gold shimmer made it just a touch more interesting (the internet tells me there are a couple purples and a blue in this line but I sure didn't see it in the store in Minsk where I got this).





With the gold shimmer, the Belor Design seemed like a good base for the gold and black LuxVisage Galactic 212. I added one coat of the glitter plus clear topcoat.





The LuxVisage Hi-Tech in the bright bases looked sheer, so I put on some undies first, both skintone and white. Top to bottom: OPI Samoan Sand plus three coats of LuxVisage Hi-Tech 18, Sally Hansen Whirlwind White plus 18, white plus three coats LuxVisage Hi-Tech 19, Samoan Sand plus 19.





I tried the two Dona Mirelle magnetics together. The purple, MG06, was less well behaved than the blue, MG05. I'm not sure what that was about, or how I managed to get two different shades of purple out of MG06. Not enough shaking of the purple maybe? Or perhaps the bottle style change is significant. Regardless, the blue had a much nicer, more sparkly finish, and I got better results from the magnet. The purple can always be a base color for glitter or shimmer or something if I can't get it to work nicely with the magnet the next time I try.





The Dona Mirelle Thermo 105 was quite interesting. It's a delicate periwinkle blue with pink shimmer. When I first put it on, I wasn't seeing much color change at my tips, but it was a very pretty color nonetheless.



I ran cold water over my hand and saw a darker blue shade emerge.



As my hand warmed the polish, I got the two-tone effect I'd been expecting.



In sun, I saw something unexpected; the periwinkle looked more purple than blue and some gold shimmer appeared in addition to the pink.



I was quite fascinated with this one. It seems like it's sheer enough that it might be a good layering polish, too.

The last one I have to share today is LCN 337 Green Emerald on its own at two coats.



I liked the shimmer in Green Emerald most in direct low light:



The problem with looking at these pictures is it makes me want to go back to Minsk. Right now, I have no return trip on the schedule and not sure one is in the cards, either. Fortunately I still have my haul from trip number two to swatch, so that will help some.

Geographically Diverse Displays

As promised yesterday, today I have displays I came across in my recent travels, starting with Houston, where I was glad to be able to meet up with my friend Mel, who writes Delicious Color. She very kindly indulged my desire to go to an HEB store. The main thing I saw there that I can't get here were the Orchid polishes, of which there were multiple displays (and a sale going on, so I picked up several colors to bring home with me).

All About the Bling had Funky Monkey, Wine-O, Seemed Like a Good Idea at the Time, High Maintenance, You Can't Afford Me, Hot Mess, He Loves Me I Love Him Not, and Bling It On.



Top Picks contained Lone Star Blue, Cougarville, Black Tie Affair, Go Bananas, Orange You Glad I'm Here, The Teal Thing, Sugar and Spice and Nothing Nice, and Steel Guitar.



Show Your Team Spirit had You Complete Me Top Coat, Orange You Glad You're From Texas, I Bleed Maroon, Grass Stains, MVP, Playmaker, Coin Toss, and Black Tie Affair.



Many Shades of Blue held Robin's Egg, The Teal Thing, Off the Deep End, Teal Me A Secret, Royal Engagement, Starry Night, Lone Star Blue, and When Lightning Strikes.



Oui Bit French was comprised of Love at First White, Glass of Bubbly, I Met Him in Prism, Bedazzled, Pretty in Pink, French Kiss, Barely There, and Mother of Pearl.



HEB also had Minnie and Hello Kitty polish in bottles with elaborate tops which I'd never seen anywhere else before. Despite the adorableness of the bottles, I didn't buy any because it said it was non-toxic and peelable, which generally means the polish is for play, not for a grown up to wear for a full mani and expect it to hold up.



Not even a week after I got home from Houston, I left for my return trip to Minsk. As before, most of my time was spent working or sleeping, and this time I had a male colleague traveling with me, but I still managed to make some time for nail polish shopping. The stock in the places I looked at last time was pretty similar to what I saw on my last visit, though there were enough new things to pique my interest. A couple of the mall kiosks had glittery Golden Rose colors:









Given the disappearance of the old version of Sally Hansen Pacific Blue stateside, I got a little thrill when I saw a bottle in the mall in Minsk:



On my last visit, the Dance Legend colors I saw were pretty much limited to plain cremes and shimmers but this time there were some glitters and textures on offer:







I was pleased with myself that I managed to buy some of the Golden Rose and some of the Dance Legend from the kiosks even though neither of the ladies I had to talk to spoke English, and I don't speak or read Russian—there was a lot of pointing and pantomiming painting my nails, and I even took photos at one place so I could point at those. Happy as that made me, I was equally thrilled to find a cosmetics store with open stock that I hadn't been to on my last trip even though it was fairly close to the hotel. At first I thought it was a perfume store, since that's what I could mostly see as I walked by one night.



Something made me look more closely, though, and you can imagine how my heart beat faster when I saw a big Essence display, right out in an aisle where anyone could look at and pick up the polish regardless of any language barrier.



The store was closed for the day but you can bet I took a photo of the sign on the door so I'd know when to go back (fortunately hours are posted in numerals same as here so I knew what they meant, though it got a little confusing when places had different schedules on different days of the week). And go back I did, to find a veritable jackpot of polish. The Essence display I'd spied through the window turned out to have a whole second side to it, with even more Colour & Go colors, some Nail Art toppers, and a sadly picked over Beach Cruisers display.



I was in such a frenzy that I failed to take a photo of that whole first side, but I did get this detail shot with the Nail Candies and Cracking colors.



I was in a frenzy because everywhere I turned, there was more polish, most of it brands I hadn't seen (or hadn't seen up close) before, like the Podium Gel Effect by BelorDesign.



I think maybe something got lost in translation with the Happy Nails Trend Color line, as I saw only pinks and red and mauves, which are classic colors, not so much trendy, but maybe the other shades had sold out already.



I have seen Rimmel polish before, of course, but not the Brit Manicure line.



Max Factor hasn't sold polish in the States in I don't know how long, but there were plenty of shades in this Glossfinity display in Minsk.



I have never ever seen a Catrice display in person before, despite having many of their colors thanks to kind laides who have swapped with me over the years. Faced with this bounty, my brain nearly shorted out; it was a struggle to decide which I could take home with me given how many other pretties I also wanted.



It did help somewhat that the featured collection was Une, Deux, Trois, which is all cremes in shades I feel I have an excess of already.



There was a huge Eveline display with both a Colour Instant line of polish and one called miniMAX in amongst a lot of other makeup; to the left you can see part of a bowl of polishes which is where the LuxVisage colors were (I shared some of those in the display post from my previous trip and in swatches during Texture Week).



Finally, there was a spinning rack with polishes and nail art decals from MILV, another new-to-me brand.





I have no idea what the sales associates at the register thought of me buying so much nail stuff at this last store—we didn't share enough common words to discuss it, which maybe is for the best. They seemed amused, if anything, which is fine by me. I did buy some more typcial souvenirs on my trip, like chocolate and handcrafted items, but the bulk of my spending was on polish, which I do hope to swatch at some point, though I can't promise it will be soon.