IKEA Mini-Meet the Second

While I have not recovered my blog posting mojo, my motivation to meet up with my nail polish ladies is unabated. This past Saturday, I went to the second Michigan Nail Girls (and Guys, though we're still waiting for our first guy) IKEA meet. Yes, IKEA on a Saturday. It wasn't nearly as crazy and crowded as you might be thinking.

As I had when I met up with Julie, I did a mani for this event inspired by the colors in the shirt I planned to wear. Because I am still not back into the swing of things, I only have room light photos of this combination.



My index finger has SinfulColors A-Crush (from one of the fall displays I haven't even done a post about yet) topped with CinaPro Nail Sugar Jelly Bean (which I bought at a Sally Beauty in Florida when I was with Julie; I've not seen this shade up here in Michigan). My middle and ring are Pure Ice Grape Crush (purchased on my drive to Florida) topped with Jelly Bean. Pinky and thumb got Morgan Taylor Sapphires, Rubies, and Emeralds, Oh My (bought at one of the nail supply stores Julie took me to; I don't see any emeralds in it).







Again because I haven't quite settled into a new routine, I didn't write down how many coats of each polish I used. I did at least take the worst bottle shot ever so I'd be able to remember what I used: Tratamiento Curativo de Uñas, OPI Ridge Filler, the colors, and Diamond Dry topcoat. I do know it took two coats of topcoat to smooth the CinaPro.



I put that second coat of topcoat on just before I headed out the door to IKEA to meet up with the ladies. As usually happens with events like this, the number of people who RSVPed as attending on Facebook was more than the number who showed up. Still, attendance was up one from the first IKEA meet, so it's gaining momentum as a meetup location. Despite it being Saturday at lunchtime, we were able to get a table in the cafe (thanks, Tracey!) and eat and hang out and chat for a couple hours. My hand (@thekarend on Instagram) is at bottom center in the group mani shot below; moving clockwise, it's @kzoobeergirl, @honeybee_nails, @nailsbymercedes, Mercedes' adorable little sister who is only three so not yet on IG, @jamylyn_nails, and our hostess this time, @traceyloveslacquer.



I wasn't organized enough to have brought any polishes to swap, yet I still managed to come home with some thanks to the generosity of several of the ladies. And yes, that is Zoya Monet you see there, so I don't need to be sad anymore that I broke my bottle.



I've yet to have a bad time at a nail polish meetup, so whenever I can fit one in, I will. I'm looking forward to IKEA round 3 one day; people always need more Helmers, right?

CinaPro Nail Sugar, Take Two

Last summer, I swatched eight glitters from the CinaPro Nail Sugar line, which had appeared at various Sally Beauty stores I frequent. At the end of that post, I remarked that per a press release I'd found online there were two more colors in the collection. At that time, I had no idea where to find them. A little while back, I was browsing the Loxa Beauty website for Morgan Taylor colors since I've yet to find them in any stores around me (they're probably in one of the pro stores; I never was tempted to get a fake ID to drink when I was teenager, but I do admit to idle thoughts about getting a fake cosmetology license). Of course I looked at what other polish they had, and there were the elusive CinaPro Nail Sugars. They were expensive, $13.98 a bottle (compared to under $10 for the ones at Sally), but I really wanted to complete my set so I ordered them along with the Morgan Taylor colors I wanted. The two shades I was missing were Creamcicle (I'm guessing they can't spell it Creamsicle due to trademark issues) and Salt Water Taffy.



The bottles above have a bit more of a story behind them than I'd planned for; when I opened the shipping box when they arrived, I smelled polish; one of the Morgan Taylor bottles in my order had broken and gotten purple shimmer all over. I was able to clean up the intact Morgan Taylor bottles pretty well, but the handles of the CinaPro colors did not take kindly to acetone and deformed and got sticky and basically glued themselves to the glass. The good news is that I emailed Loxa Beauty explaining what happened, and customer service sent out replacements for the broken bottle as well as the two CinaPros right away. I was very impressed by their quick response; in just a few days I had my new bottles safe and sound.

Creamcicle was described in the press release that alerted me to its existence as an "orange jelly base with fine particles of orange and gold". Hmm, not quite, unless they were using "fine" to mean "attractive" rather than "small in size". This has medium gold metallic hexes, small copper metallic hexes, and small soft orange and vanilla matte bars in an not especially orange jelly base.



I swatched Creamcicle on its own and over three different base colors. Top to bottom: 2 coats of Creamcicle alone, Morgan Taylor My Carriage Awaits plus 1 coat Creamcicle, Morgan Taylor Watch Your Step Sister plus 1 coat Creamcicle, Bonita Prima Donna plus 1 coat Creamcicle. I did one coat of clear topcoat on all nails; two would have been better to really smooth things out. Due to the way the light is hitting the metallic glitter, some of them look dark, but they are not; they're all gold or copper.









The second CinaPro, Salt Water Taffy, was described in the press release as "a clear jelly base with fine silver glitters". It has a clear base, yes, but there is no silver to be seen, just white and blue matte glitter. The white is in the form of hexes from very tiny to rather large, while the blue is all small bars. I took the same approach to swatching this as with Creamcicle: on its own and over three bases. Top to bottom: 2 coats of Salt Water Taffy alone, Sally Hansen Complete Salon Manicure Highway to Heaven plus 1 coat of Salt Water Taffy, Sally Hansen Complete Salon Manicure Teesta Turquoise plus 1 coat of Salt Water Taffy, Sally Hansen Complete Salon Manicure Dark Denim plus 1 coat of Salt Water Taffy. All have one lyaer of clear topcoat and as with Creamcicle, two would have been better.







The glitter payoff for both of these is excellent, though I wouldn't wear either of them alone (I like to layer anyway). Getting the largest white hexes out of Salt Water Taffy was a bit of an exercise, but that's to be expected with that scale of glitter. I'm happy to have completed my Nail Sugar set with these two. It's fun to have a more obscure set like these (Googling "cinapro nail sugar"—with the quotes—gets me well under a thousand results, compared to over two thousand for "sally hansen luxe lace").

Cinapro Nail Sugar

One of the things that showed up at Sally Beauty this summer was the Cinapro Nail Sugar Liquid Nail Art display, which was in my early July display post. All the displays I saw had eight colors of what looked to be chunky glitters, all with lights in the caps. Initially I only bought a couple of the colors to try but on subsequent trips to Sally as the summer went on, I eventually accumulated the whole set.



Golden Ticket has gold shimmer and microglitter combined with small and medium rose pink hex glitter in a clear base. I swatched this at three coats on its own. I didn't add topcoat, and it was just a tiny bit bumpy; with "sugar" in the name, I was expecting more texture. The gold was very shiny and metallic looking, with the pink glitter seeming to float on top of it. This could be worn alone; at some angles I thought I spied a hint of visible nail line but the gold was so blingy it distracted me from any VNL concerns.





I admit I did not try the light in the cap until I'd already put on my polish the old fashioned way, using the light in the room to see where I was putting the brush. The bulb is in a slim bumped out section along the side of the cap, and is turned on by clicking a push button switch on the top of the cap. It does put out a fair bit of illumination, though it can cast odd shadows if you don't take care to hold the cap so the light is not coming from behind the brush as you look at it. I did not try using it in a dark room, as I can't imagine what situation I'd be in where I would need to do a mani in the dark (people had best not be cracking these open in places like movie theaters). It's a fun feature, but not especially useful as far I'm concerned.



Cotton Candy has a sheer pink base packed with various sizes of iridescent glitter. I swatched this at three coats alone on my ring finger and two coats over NYC Lafayette Pink, a pink creme, on my other fingers. This could be worn alone, but I liked it better layered as a toppper.





Cotton Candy bears a slight resemblance to Zoya Harper from this summer's Bubby collection, so I did a comparison. Left to right (3 coats each): Cotton Candy, Harper, Cotton Candy, Harper. You can see that Cotton Candy is the more blingy sister in the pair, with much more dense and colorful glitter. Harper's distinguishing characteristic is her gold shimmer, which Cotton Candy does not have.



Hyperactive has various sizes of lime green and holographic glitter in a sheer green base. I layered 3 coats of it over SinfulColors Solar Flux, the yellow creme from this summer's Silk + Satin collection. I also added topcoat because I decided I was just being lazy not topcoating these Cinapros.





I decided that three of the colors would look good over the same base, and might look good layered with each other, too, so I put down two coats of Butter London Dahling, a deep dusty pink creme. On my index finger, I added two coats of Cherry Cola, which has small and medium red glitter in a clear base. On my middle finger, I did one coat of Sugar Rush, a multi-colored glitter mix in a clear base (the multi colors are silver, gold, green, blue, and hot pink). I topped my ring finger with one coat of Black Licorice, a silver and black glitter mix also in a clear base. On my pinky, I did one coat of each of the three glitters. I slicked clear topcoat over everything, then utterly failed to take even one photo where all four nails are in focus at the same time.



I think putting all three glitters together was one glitter too many. I think any pair of them would have been great, but I didn't take the time to experiment with that.



I did take the time to do a bunch of detail shots of this look before I moved on:







Rock Candy has small purple square glitter with larger black, silver, and pink hex glitters in a very sheer purple base. I did four coats of it by itself on my ring finger for an accent nail, while on my other digits, I did two coats of Rock Candy over NYC Robin's Egg Blue, a pale turquoise blue creme. I put topcoat over everything, too. I thought this would be my favorite because purple, but on the nail I felt the hexes dominated the mix too much.





I noticed that the last polish, Sweet Tooth, was showing some duochrome in the bottle, so I laid down a black creme base (Wet 'n' Wild Black Creme, my go to black) on all but my ring finger accent nail, the better to bring out any duo there was. I did two coats of Sweet Tooth over the black and three coats of it alone on my ring finger. All nails then got clear topcoat. Sweet Tooth has white shimmer as well as blue/purple shimmer and microglitter plus medium and large blue glitter in a clear base. I was very pleased to see that the color shift I spotted in the bottle also showed up on my nails, even the one where I did not use black underneath. I think is is similar to Ciate Risky Business, but I've only seen that one at Sephora, I've not tried it on my nails.







Mostly Sweet Tooth shifted between purple and blue, with the blue glitter popping more or less depending on what the base was doing. But look at this craziness when I turned the lights down low—pink and green came to join the party, too. I was fascinated with this. I mean, I've seen multichromes before, but never expected this polish would bust out so many colors, especially since none of the other ones in the collection were nearly so complex.



Apparently (apparent from a press release I found online) there are two other colors in this collection: Creamsicle, described as "orange jelly base with fine particles of orange and gold" and Salt Water Taffy, "a clear jelly base with fine silver glitters". Where one would get those I have no idea, as all the Sally stores I've been to only have the eight shades I swatched. I'm okay with missing silver glitter in a clear base, but the orange one sounds interesting.

These Nail Sugars are the first Cinapro polishes I've ever seen, much less tried. I can't find a price for these online; I think they were in the 8 dollar range at Sally Beauty with the card and monthly coupon.

Early July Displays

It's been three weeks since my last display post so it feels like the time is right to go through my folders and share what I've seen since then, continuing with the alphabetical by brand system that's been working well for me since I started it several display posts back.

First up, Bonita, with the Blooming Colors display I saw at Rite Aid (RA continues to be the only place I've ever seen this brand). There are eight shades here: Fall and Catch, #pink, Juvia, Spring Violet (was this supposed to be a spring display, put out before the one that showed up in April?), Creaamson (don't get this name at all—a play on cream, maybe? but this is bright yellow, not creamy), Honey Me (would have been a better name for that yellow), Frosty (wait, that's a winter name), Miss Piggy (I think the pink should have had this name; this one could be #coral).



Rite Aid also had a Bonita display, You Mint a Lot to Me, with a different bottle style (and a lower price—$1.49 versus the $2.49 for the previous ones, quite a deal considering these are .4 oz. compared to the .5 oz. of the others). Six colors here: Good Lookin' Out, This Beach is Bombay, Banana-Ana, Tag You're It, You Mint a Lot to Me, and Flaming Juan.



I'm conflicted about sharing these next two Rite Aid finds. On the one hand, I saw them, and don't know how long they'll be around if you see them and want to track them down. On the other hand, they're HALLOWEEN polishes. HALLOWEEN! That's months away. It would be nice to be able to celebrate Independence Day tomorrow before I start getting Halloween shoved in my face. Sigh.

So there's this Bonita Nail-o-ween set, which has four polishes (lime, orange, black, and white; the first two are glow in the dark) plus nail stickers.



Then there's the Bonita Witches Ball display, which has six colors in the square Salon line: Too Cute to Spook, Cocktails and Carving, Wicked Good Time, Lacquer Treats, Eat Drink and Be Scary (cute name), and Dying to Party.



At Sally Beauty last night, I saw a China Glaze collection I hadn't heard anything about, The Giver. Apparently it's movie tie-in for a film that's out August 15th. There are twelve shades here. Front row, left to right: Intelligence Integrity & Courage, New Birth, The Outer Edge, Five Rules, Friends Forever Right?, Seeing Red. Back row: History of the World, Capacity to See Beyond, Givers Theme, Boundary of Memory, Release, Community. Givers Theme and Boundary of Memory are microglitters; the rest are cremes (or maybe subtle shimmers, I didn't take that close a look once I saw no sparkles).



The next new display I saw at Sally's was a brand I'd never heard of before: Cinapro. The Nail Sugar display had eight shades of "liquid nail art", by which I think they mean "chunky glitters". These have a light in the cap, like those Lise Watier ones I tried to buy in Canada.



I was somwhat distressed by the way these were displayed cap down; that seems an ideal way to leak polish into the threads and get the bottles stuck shut, but oh well. The shades are: Cherry Cola (red), Hyperactive (lime), Sweet Tooth (blue), Golden Ticket (gold), Sugar Rush (silver/multi), Cotton Candy (pink), Black Licorice (black/silver), and Rock Candy (purple).



Based on the swatch sticks next to the display, some of the Cinapros can be worn alone and some are layering polishes.



The Essie summer collection, Haute in the Heat, is pretty much everywhere at this point. There's a four-color shelf top display I saw at Rite Aid (and later at Walgreens and CVS, though the one at CVS had a black plastic base rather than the white). Shades here are Strut Your Stuff (blue), Ruffles & Feathers (green), Haute in the Heat (red), and Urban Jungle (bone).



Ulta had a six-color shelf top display for Haute in the Heat. The two additional colors here are Fierce No Fear (brown) and Roarrrrange (orange).



Bed Bath & Beyond had a six-color freestanding tower.



At one CVS, I found all six colors of Haute in the Heat in the Nail Bar (I hope I caught them in the middle of resetting the section, because I had to peek around behind a big Rimmel floor display to see this end of the Nail Bar).



At a different CVS, I found not the shelf top display or the Nail Bar, but a tiny six-color sidekick. I'm starting to feel like I'm hunting Pokemon as I come across all these variations—gotta catch 'em all.



In their continuing quest to see how many FingerPaints they can get me to buy, Sally Beauty put out the Enchanted Mermaid display, with four shades: Underwater Enchantress, Tails of Love, Sailor's Lure, and Sea Temptress. (Yeah, I should have made sure all the bottles were facing front before I snapped the photo, but I was too eager to grab these and take them home.)



There's a Five Below in the same strip as three of the four Ulta stores I frequent (in two cases, they're right next door to each other), so I stopped by even though I'd just been there and wasn't expecting to see anything new because I hadn't heard of anything new or seen anything new on their website. But there was something new: a Frostbitten collection. There are three colors here (this particular store for some reason had the third one in an unlabelled bin nowhere near the first two), all glitters: Anna (white with magenta and blue), Elsa (icy blue and white), and Olaf (white). Does Disney know about this?



Last display post, I had the Maybelline Color Show Jewels that Bed Bath & Beyond put out earlier than other stores (and later I swatched them). Those have since shown up at Ulta, along with the Veil Detail display of Color Show Veils. The display calls these "textured top coats" but so did the Jewels one and those were pretty much just layering glitters. Five shades here: Teal Beam, Amethyst Aura, Blue Glaze, Rose Mirage, and Crystal Disguise.



The same CVS that had the tall slim Essie sidekick had a tall slim Maybelline display with both the Jewels and the Veils; this one highlights the Textured Top Coats concept.



When I swatched the Nicole by OPI Seize the Summer colors, I hadn't seen them in stores yet. Now I have. Bed Bath & Beyond had a shelf top display; left to right: Leapink for Joy, Shaved Nice, The Coral of the Story, and Lay It on the Lime.



I also saw the NOPI colors in a CVS Nail Bar.



Rite Aid had the NYC New York Color City Samba display, with eight shades of polish, plus three nail art stripers and three lip glosses. The polish shades are: Ocean Blue, Jacaranda Flower, Palm on the Beach, Amazon Green, Copabanana, Sweet Melon, Tropicoral, and Carnival Red (bright red, hidden behind the lipgloss in the photo).



The OPI Coca-Cola collection has hit my Ulta stores. At every single one, the red creme was sold out before I got there (and at a couple, the black/red glitter was gone, too); maybe they'll restock. I love that the display incorporates the shape of the ribbon from the Coca-Cola logo.



The red creme was available in the mini set; the 10 Pack of Style has eight of the nine colors from the collection (the orange/red/gold glitter is missing) plus Nail Envy and Top Coat.



Ulta also had the OPI Ford Mustang collection, released to coincide with the 50th anniversar of this iconic car. These have pony overwrap on the caps, which is a nice touch (until it peels off, I suppose). There are six shades here: Race Red, Angel with a Leadfoot (white), 50 Years of Style (gold), Queen of the Road (charcoal), Girls Love Ponies (bright pink, about which I have things to say but will do so later when I swatch these), and The Sky's My Limit. The mini set (not pictured), called the Pony pack, has four of the colors (red, gold, white, pink).



Sally Hansen apparently has a compulsive need to introduce a new line every month or so; I saw the latest one at Walgreens this morning: Miracle Gel. This is their entry into the "no light needed but you do have to have this special topcoat" gel market, like Revlon's Colorstay Gel Envy or L'Oreal's Gel Lacque. You can buy the polish and the top coat separately for $9.99 each or get a kit that has both for $15.99, though there are a fewer color selections in the kits.



Ms. Hansen didn't go easy on us completist collectors with this line; there are 35 shades here. Colors, top row: Birthday Suit, Bare Dare, How Nude, Truffle Shuffle, Pink Cadillaquer, Rosie Riviter (their spelling, not mine), Pinky Rings, Pink Up, Pretty Piggy. Second row: Pink Tank, All Chalked Up, B Girl, Greyfitti, Street Flair, Camo Queen, Grey Matters, Electra-cute, Shock Wave. Third row: Short Cir-cute, Hydro Electric, Sugar Fix, Malibu Peach, Lemon Heaven, Smartease, Meet My Thistle, Creme de la Creme, Get Mod. Bottom row: Blacky O, Twiggy, Game of Chromes, Too Haute, Super Charge, Combustealble, Hunger Flames, Purplexed. The bottles at the ends of the rows with the white caps are the top coat.

No wait, there are more than 35 shades, because some of the kits have colors that aren't in the individual bottle sections. Gah, Sally why you do this to me? Kits here are: Birthday Suit, Pink Cadillaquer, Pretty Piggy, B Girl, Street Flair, Shock Wave, Redgy, Style Maker, Tidal Wave, Dig Fig, Red Eye, and Wine Stock. You know what else? There are even more shades on the Sally Hansen website than are in this display. I think it might be best if I just pretend this line doesn't exist.

In the same Walgreens where I saw the gel line, I also saw a sidekick with Sally Hansen Complete Salon Manicure colors called Lights + Brights. Some of these shades looked familiar because they're core but some looked new. Top row: Clear'd for Takeoff, Shell We Dance, Pink a Card, Sweet Talker, Arm Candy. Second row: Hello Sunshine (new), Jaded, Peach of Cake, Sheer Ecstasy, Almost Almond. Third row: Summer Lovin' (new), Back to the Fuchsia, Get Juiced, Firey Island, Beach Redy (new). Bottom row: Blue Crush (new), Leis-y Days (new), Summertime (new), Searsucker (new), Mermaid's Tale.



We'll wrap up today with SinfulColors, which has released a bunch of new displays as per usual. Let's start with the two that have the fewest new colors in them. Walgreens has Light It Up, which has six polishes and three nail art stripers. Polish shades are: Hottie, Decadent, Pride, Endless Blue, Energetic Red, and Teal the End (new).



Rite Aid has a similar display called Get Schooled Art Major with different colors. Polishes here (none new): Fig, Ruby Ruby, Let's Meet, Big Daddy, Blue Crushin, Clear Coat. The only color that gave me pause here was Let's Meet, which I remembered as being more shimmery than the bottles here.



Walgreens has Practice Your Accents, which is mostly not new colors, either. Left to right: Clear Coat, Thimbleberry, Cream Pink, Cool Gray, Beige of Honor (new), Beaches and Cream (new), Ruby Ruby, Calypso. I later saw this display with Island Coral and Tempest (light purple) instead of Thimbleberry and Cool Gray, so I'm not sure what's actually supposed to be in here.



There are SinfulColors displays with mostly new stuff, too. I saw Silk + Satin at Walgreens. This has six new "silk" finish colors, displayed with Clear Coat to use to turn the silk to shiny satin according to the photos on the display. Color here (all new except the clear): Silver Solution, Prime Purple, Pipaya, Real Teal, Matte About Blue, Solar Flux. I don't know if these are matte finish or satin finish or what, but I plan to swatch and find out.



Rite Aid had Go Full Throttle, which has five new rubberized finish colors plus three previously released shades. Left to right: Race Rubber (new), Red Tried (new), Rubber Ball (new), Burn Rubber (new), Casablanca, Rain Rubber (new), Snow Me White, Gold Medal.



The last new thing is SinfulColors Declare Your Style, a sidekick I saw at Walgreens.



This has several sections, the most interesting of which was the top one, Color Mixology, which had SinfulShine shades, some of which I don't recall seeing before. Left to right: Shine Annie (new), Too Cool for Pool (new), Sea Glisten (new), Royal Flush, Spitfire, Most Sinful, Picante, Banananpeal.



The second section, Leather Bound, had the rubberized ones from Go Full Throttle plus Clear Coat. The bottom three sections were all previously released colors as far as I could tell.

And that wraps up today's shopping trip. I'm off work tomorrow but may pop in to post an Independece Day mani, should I actually manage to do the one I have planned. I might skip that in favor of going to store locations I don't usually get so, ad I'm keeping an eye out for a couple display I know are coming but which I haven't seen yet: SinfulColors OMGeode and Sally Hansen Xtreme Wear pastels.