Wheel M6: Glitters from Revlon, Shades of the Season, Petites, and City Color

At this point, most of my backlog of painted but unposted nail wheels are glitter, so no time like today to keep chipping away at that. This wheel starts with colors from Revlon, which can do nice, if sometimes quite Deborah Lippmann derivative, glitters when they want to, and did do a lot of great ones back in the day in the Street Wear line, though the two here are of the quite, shimmer base variety rather than glitter bombs. The next chunk of colors are from Shades of the Season, a brand I only ever see sold in sets at CVS during Christmas time. For a brand like that, there are some decent colors; the glitter/shimmer combos are especially nice. I filled the rest of the wheel with glitters from Rite Aid, my only source for Petites and City Color, though I haven't seen new shades from either line in a while.



(all have one layer of topcoat over the glitter coats noted below)

1. Revlon Blue Mosaic (4 coats) [seems like I could have stopped at 3 coats since this is not going to build up to full coverage anyway]
2. Revlon Whimsical (3) [remember when lots of us were stalking this one?]
3. Revlon Starry Pink (3)
4. Revlon Sparkling (3)
5. Revlon Top Speed Glitz & Glam (2) [so nice and dense]
6. Revlon Facets of Fuchsia (3)
7. Revlon Street Wear Slip (3)
8. Revlon Street Wear Prince Charming (2)
9. Shades of the Season unlabelled iridescent(3) [needs to be layered over something dark]
10. Shades of the Season unlabelled silver (3)
11. Shades of the Season unlabelled blue (3) [looks like a close cousin of Sinful Colors Hottie]
12. Shades of the Season unlabelled green (3)
13. Shades of the Season unlabelled red (3)
14. Shades of the Season unlabelled rose (3)
15. Shades of the Season unlabelled pink (3)
16. Shades of the Season unlabelled orchid (3) [this appears to be a long lost sister of Orchid Seemed Like a Good Idea at the Time]
17. Petites Color Fever Pink Diamond (2) [if you liked Revlon Sparkling but wished it had denser glitter, this is just the thing]
18. Petites Color Fever Galaxy (3) [with a name like Galaxy, I don't think it should be red, but maybe that's what out there in space]
19. Petites Black Amethyst (2)
20. City Color Reddish Purple (3) [yep, that's really what it's called]

Bottles 1 through 6:


7 and 8:


9 through 12:


13 through 16:


17 through 20:

Time to Go Shopping

I think I might need to put myself on a schedule for display posts because somehow I never seem to manage to do one until my photo folder is filled to overflowing (well, it would be overflowing if it were a real folder rather than a computer file, but you know what I mean). I get paid twice a month; maybe a shopping post twice a month makes sense, too. For today, though, settle in for a long journey with me through stores in four states.

Let's start in Michigan at a Walgreens. This particular store had the Black Radiance Girls Rock collection I shared in my last display post, but this one was setup correctly instead of having the cardboard shoved underneath the polishes.



Moving on to Rite Aid (still in Michigan, as we will be for the rest of this entry with a handful of exceptions, which I will note when we get to them), there were two new displays from City Color. The first is called Masquerade. That has some crazy long false eyelashes and four polish colors in square bottles (a shape they've used before, which with this brand isn't a given). I didn't see any shades names on these.



There were no shade names on the bottles in the other City Color display, either. This one's called Flutter, and has eight colors in rose shaped bottles.



On the shelf below the City Color roses was L'Oreal New York Nudes, six skintone shades ranging from pale to dark. Left to right: Park Avenue Luncheon, Broadway Boogie, Til the Sun Comes Up, Hudson Sunset, Downtown Chic, and Brownie Points. The display says these are limited edition, which seems odd for colors that might otherwise become staples in one's nail polish wardrobe. We all need good underwear, after all.



Next to the nudes was the four-color version of the Essie Stylenomics collection for fall 2012. Left to right: Head Mistress, Stylenomics, Skirting the Issue, and Miss Fancy Pants.



At this point, I went back to Illinois to visit my mom. In a Jewel-Osco where I'd gone to pick up a few things before I went back to the hospital, I saw the Maybelline Fall 2012 Scene on the Runway display for the first time. There are six polish colors here: Boho Gold (olive/green duochrome), Auburn Ablaze (deep orangey red shimmer), Downtown Brown (warm brown with green shimmer), Metal Icon (brown/silver metallic), Avante Green (green/lime duochrome), Pink Cosmo (gold/pink duochrome).



Later that weekend, I was in a Meijer doing grocery shopping for my mom's return home. I tried to take a photo of the six-shade version of the Essie Yogaga display when I discovered my camera wasn't working and had to resort to using my phone, which made the colors warmer than they should be. Left to right: Gym Dandy, Marathin, Boxer Shorts, Pilates Hottie, Yogaga, and Spinning Again.



Back at Mom's house, I discovered my camera didn't just need a battery charge, it was broken. It'd been having some issues, bad enough that I'd done some poking around looking for a replacement, so I went out and bought a new camera when I picked up Mom's prescriptions later that day. I used that new camera to shoot the Wet 'n' Wild Fergie display that I spotted at a Meijer back in Michigan on my drive home (I figure if I'm going to stop for a bathroom break, I might as well do it in a place that also sells nail polish). This is the five-row version that eluded me for so long when I was searching Walgreens after the line debuted. The difference is Meijer has put $2.99 price stickers over all the $3.49 ones that come preprinted on the display.



At Ulta, OPI Germany had arrived. I won't rehash the color list here since there are swatches all over, including in my OPI Germany post.



Also at Ulta, the six-color version of Essie Stylenomics. Left to right: Stylenomics, Miss Fancy Pants, Don't Sweater It, Head Mistress, Recessionista, and Skirting the Issue.



Continuing our wander around Ulta, here's the Piggy Polish Fall Softly display. These three colors don't say autumn to me. Left to right: When Leaves Leave, Goodbye Blue Sky, and Autumn Acoustics.



I believe all three of these are re-named re-promotes. Why do I say this? Because I could see the old color name stickers under the new ones. Based on that, I'd say if you've got Blue Me Away, you don't need Autumn Acoustics. Same with Goodbye Blue Sky, which used to be known as Tic Tac TOES. I couldn't quite make out what was under When Leaves Leave; it might be Coral Reef, something that starts with Co anyway.



Time to go back to Walgreens and see if there's anything new. And lo, there is—Sinful Hot Flash. As usual with Sinful, I don't know if these are new colors or repromotes or what, but I am sure there are eight of them: Super Nova, Heavy Metal, Gone Platinum, Hot Hot Heat, Precious Metal, Zincing of You, Hot Wired, and Moss Have.



Walgreens also had a big Maybelline display that included the six fall limited edition polishes.



On my pre-Labor Day trip out west, I of course did some polish shopping. When I met up with the lady behind Lilacquer Polishes, one of the things we did was go to a nail supply store. There was a lot to look at there, but I didn't want to be obnoxious about taking too many photos, so just snapped one of the China Glaze Magnetix II display, which I'd never seen before (I've since seen it at Sally Beauty back here at home). I left a lot of the background here so you can get a taste for how very much stuff there was in that store. Six colors here: Con-fused (green), Sparks Will Fly (blue), Get Charged (purple), Positively in Love (pink), Gold Fusion (gold), Bond-tastic (orange). There's also a new magnet in this display, with three new for China Glaze designs: concentric circles, a nine-patch grid (to this quilter's eye), and vertical lines.



While in Washington and Idaho, I also got the chance to visit a couple different Fred Meyer stores (which are only in the northwest U.S. and are not to be confused with Meijer stores, which are only in the midwest U.S., though it would be easy to mix them up since the names are similar and they both sell the same sorts of things). Fred Meyer seems to have gotten rid of LA Girl line since my last visit, but I got over that quick when I saw what they'd added: Essence. The section was twice as wide as the one at Ulta and had not just the Colour & Go line (in the new bottle style) but crackle and magnetics and nail art toppers and double ended duos and stickers and stamping plats and a space for a limited edition display (in this instance, Marble Mania). I was incredibly tempted to buy one of each polish, but managed talk myself down.









Of course Fred Meyer had other displays, too. There was a L'Oreal New York Nudes that included not just the polish but lip stuff, too.



They had one of the seasonal Sally Hansen groupings of Hard as Nails core colors. This was called Seaside Shades and contained Rock Star, Frozen Solid, Made in Jade, Stonewall, Sticks and Stones, and Die Hard Fan.



I was intrigued by the Absolute Magnetic ring magnet display. This had four magnet designs but no polish, nor did the display make it clear that you'd need magnetic polish for the designs to show up; it just says "hold magnet over wet polish". If they'd had a design I didn't have from someone else already, I would have bought one, but they didn't so I didn't.



At Northwest Beauty Supply, which was in the same building as Fred Meyer, I saw my first Nubar display in person.



After I got back from Idaho, I had only not many days at home before I headed to Illinois to check up on my Mom, and I didn't spot any new displays in that short time. I don't remember if I even went into any drugstores that week. Maybe not. It seems implausible, but I think it might be true. Mom is doing so well that I heeded her wishes and started my drive home earlier in the day than I'd planned (she was worried about me getting home too late). I took advantage of that extra time to swing into Chicago proper to check out the flagship concept Walgreens store that Alli McBally tipped me off about in a comment last month. I was so jazzed about it that I took a shot of the building:



This Walgreens is definitely not like any other one I've been to. It's two floors, for one thing. The first floor is a food market, with a lot of fresh stuff. I zoomed by that part to get on the escalator to where the beauty stuff was. At first, it seemed similar to any Walgreens, with the familiar drugstore brands. But then I got to the higher end brands. There was this display with Essie and OPI, just like Alli said there'd be.



Next to that, there was the first GOSH display I've seen in real life. I was puzzled by the polish bottles being in there upside down. Sure, you can see the colors better, but that invites polish to drip into the threads and stick the bottle shut. Ladies who live where GOSH is common, is this the done thing in a GOSH display?



There was more GOSH on the other side of the display, too:



At this point in my visit, a sales associate appeared from behind the display and told me "no pictures". She said it was corporate policy and was not swayed by my trying to chat her up about how excited I was to see my first GOSH display and all the other things this store had. From then on, she watched me like I was a corporate spy or shoplifter or both. I did manage to sneak one more photo, of the tini beauty section, another brand I'd never seen in a store before, mostly to see if I could get away with it—if I couldn't, I figured I'd at least have a good story about getting thrown out of a Walgreens.



It felt like I was pressing my luck, so I didn't try to document the other displays, which is sad because there was the biggest and prettiest Pop Beauty one I'd ever seen, and one of The Balm, which I'd never seen anywhere. There might have been a couple more, but I was feeling so unwelcome by that point that I put back the two GOSH I'd been carrying around and left the store without buying anything. That's sad, because I feel like I'm the perfect customer for that store—I buy tons of polish and they have tons of it I don't already own. I'm not sure if I never want to go back or want to try again to see if I get a friendlier sales associate. I wonder whether I should write Walgreens to see if I can get permission to take photos (obviously they sometimes allow it, because I found a whole gallery about the first floor on eater.com). I know it's their right to not allow photos. I also know there are better ways the sales associate could have handled the situation that didn't leave me feeling so iffy about going back. Ah well, it's not like I can't get polish seventy hundred other places. In fact, I walked down the street from that Walgreens to Sephora, which was a lot more comfortable (had more customers, too). I'm not a huge fan of the nail bar, as the lighting from below makes it hard to see the polish, but the sales associates left me alone to play when I told them I wasn't in need of help.



Let's end today's journey here. I do have more displays to share, but since many of them are Halloween themed and I'm planning a Halloween giveaway, I'll save them for next week or the week after (depending on when I get organized for the contest). Thanks for reading this far and have a great weekend!

New Year, New Displays

When I posted my last round of display photos, I was looking forward to seeing the Revlon ColorStay relaunch. I have now seen it (or rather, seen them) but before that, I saw some other things—many things, so settle in.

Just before Christmas, my Meijer put out a mini display with five colors of Sally Hansen Complete Salon Manicure. They put it in a dark cave of shelf, so it might be hard to see in the photo, but this is labeled "new shades", not limited edition.



Left to right in the bottles, the shades are Good to Grape, Greige Gardens, Cherry Cherry Bang Bang, Hidden Treasure (more about that in a minute), and Bittersweet. (The first two are switched from the order of the swatch ovals on the bottom of the display but I didn't move them because the guy who'd just put out the display was about five feet away from me and we'd chatted about how he'd been drafted to work in health and beauty that morning so I didn't want to be all "oh, no no, these are in the wrong place".)

So about this new Hidden Treasure—Sally, what are you smokin'?! It's bad enough you re-used the name, but to re-use a name that originally belonged to such a special, highly sought after polish as the original flakie Hidden Treasure—that's just wrong. If you like the name so much, why not give us back the flakie? Other companies are doing flakies right now, so surely the raw ingredients are out there.

In fact, Finger Paints has just done a collection of flakies called Special Effects. The first time I saw it, I had to snap a photo with my phone; I'd left my camera at home because I didn't really expect to see these out on Christmas Eve since they weren't slated to be released until January. (Given how much newer my phone is than my camera, I maybe should take all my photos with it, but I'm not as fast with the adjustments on the phone so might be too obvious futzing around in the stores with it.)



I've since seen the Special Effects display again at a different Sally store, this time with a card next to it showing how to apply these over black, which I think is an excellent idea, since if you're not a nail person, you won't necessarily look at the flakies and know what you're getting. There are five different ones here: Flashy (orange/green), Flecked (green/blue), Motley (blue/purple), Asylum (red/blue/orange), and Twisted (blue/green/red/orange).



Another thing I had to take pictures of with my phone was a L'Oreal display at CVS. Now those brushed gold caps in the holiday collection display I saw in November make more sense—it's a re-launch.



There are many, many colors here, way more than I recall being in the line in its most recent iteration before this. They were arranged in four groups: Trend Setter, Iconic Muse, Femme Fatale, and Hopeless Romantic.



Trend Setter has Tweet Me (yellow), Boozy Bunch (orange), Check Me Out (bright pink), Penthouse Pink (pale pink, which doesn't seem too trendy to me), Club Prive (minty teal), and VIP Status (deep greyed green).



Iconic Muse has Violet Vixen (the berry from the holiday display), Paparazzi Pleaser (medium purple), Safari Chic (dusty green), Now You Sea Me (turquoise), Jet Set to Paris (blue), After Hours (navy), Greycian Goddess (grey), Stroke of Midnight (charcoal, from holiday), and Because You're Worth It (gold, from holiday).



Femme Fatale has Tangerine Crush (soft orange), L'Orange (orange), Devil Wears Red (red), He Red My Mind (red), Caught Red-Handed (yep, red), Rendezvous (also red), Red Tote (slightly dark red), Haute Couture Red (very dark red), and Breaking Curfew (vampy plum, last one from the holiday display).



Hopeless Romantic has One Stop Base (clear blue), Top of the Line (clear), I Will (soft white), Satin Sheets (ivory), How Romantic (pale peachy pink), Wishful Pinking (slighty darker peachy pink), Sweet Nothings (peach), I Pink I'm In Love (warm pink), Pink Me Up (pink), Walk on the Beach (palest peach), Versailles Romance (pale orange), Mauvelous (dusty peach, not mauve at all to my eye), Smell the Roses (rose pink), Spice Things Up (orange pink), Charmed I'm Sure (rose gold), Greyt Expectations (pale mauve), Eiffel for You (taupe), Butterfly Kisses (purple pink).

I later saw these new L'Oreals at Meijer, built into the core display in the regular L'Oreal section in the aisle.



Target also had new L'Oreals in an aisle rather than on an end, but their display didn't have all the colors:



What Target did have on an end was Essie. The Luxe Effects we've seen before, plus Play Date (2012 Go Overboard collection), Meet Me at Sunset (2011 Braziliant Collection), Sand Tropez (2011 A French Affair), Smokin' Hot (2010 Winter collection; nice to see this again!), Armed and Ready (2012 Go Overboard collection), and Go Overboard (2012 Go Overboard collection).



The Nicole by OPI Kardashian collection has started showing up at places other than Wal Mart. I've seen them at Ulta (all the colors), Meijer (all the colors), and Target (only some of the colors). I am only going to include one photo, because I am still uncomfortable with the whole idea of this collection. (I did push aside my discomfort long enough to buy some of the colors at Meijer, figuring if I was supporting fame whores by so doing, I was also supporting a Michigan-based retail company and perhaps the two balanced each other out.)



Meijer also had the Valentine's Day display for Studio M, Fall in Love with Color. This is the usual mix of core colors and re-promotes with a few new colors. The one that interested me the most was Fame & Fortune, which looked like a red version of Color Club Covered in Diamonds. Top row, left to right: French Tip, Date Night Red, Slammin Red, Drama Queen, Foil Me Once, Hot Like Lava, All That Razz, Falling in Louvre. Bottom row: Tru Passion, Neon Pink, Neon Pink (again), Pinking of You, Passionately Yours, Fame & Fortune, Dance for France, Clearly in Love.





Meijer is the only place so far that I've seen the Wet 'n' Wild Megalast re-launch displays. Most of these colors are the same sort of classic pinks and reds that dominated the old lineup, but there are a few new shades that looked interesting to me. Top display, left to right: On a Trip, Tropicalia, I Need a Refresh-Mint, Heatwave, Disturbia, Candy-licious, Haze of Love, Wet Cement, I Red a Good Book. Bottom display: Break the Ice, Private Viewing, Sugar Coat, Through the Grapevine, On a Trip, Undercover, I Need a Refresh-Mint, I Red a Good Book, Wet Cement.



Rite Aid had a new City Color display with yet another bottle shape. None of these called to me, though the rose design on the top of the bottle was a nice touch.





Rite Aid also had the saddest thing for a polish hunter to see—a completely empty display of something I'd never seen there before and would have very much liked to have bought: L.A. Girl Glitter Addict. I am hoping that if I go back, more bottles will appear. It could happen—I've seen that sort of thing other places.



Walgreens had a Sally Hansen display with a whole mix of things in it. The center section was stuff I'd seen before: some of the new Salon Effects plus the Smooth and Perfect colors.



On the sides, there were what looked like new colors for other lines. Insta Dri had four: In a Flash, Pumped Up Pink, Vigorous Violet, and Gone Grey.



Four new Xtreme Wears, too: Coral Reef, Pink Satin, Violet Voltage, and Golden-I.



There were eight colors of Diamond Strength that I hadn't seen before, which I thought was odd since in most stores, the newly re-lauched bottles haven't even made it to the core display yet. Top row: Something Blue, Bride to Be, Together Forever, Sweetie Pie. Bottom: Princess Cut, Something New, Heart to Heart, Black Tie.



And now, finally, the Revlon ColorStay re-launch. The old ColorStay line was a favorite of mine, even though the no-basecoat thing made me nervous and the way they made you buy the color in a set with the special topcoat meant there was always topcoat leftover since the colors weren't usually one-coaters. This time around, the colors are more interesting, the topcoat is sold separately, and the is a base coat. I first saw these at Walgreens just after the first of the year; they were at the bottom of a larger ColorStay display with eye makeup taking up most of the space. Colors in the front: Base Coat, Top Coat, Pale Cashmere, Calla Lily, Provence, Passionate Pink, Cafe Pink, Wild Strawberry, Delicious, Sorbet, Buttercup, Marmalade, Red Carpet, Velvet Rope, Fall Mood, Cayenne. In the back: Sequin, Coastal Surf, Indigo Night, Spanish Moss, Stormy Night, French Roast, Rain Forest, Bonsai, Amethyst, Rich Raspberry, Bold Sangria, Stiletto, Blue Slate, Midnight, Bare Bones, Vintage Rose.



Other places I've seen this line at haven't had all the colors. CVS had a display with 28 shades (including the two slots for top coat):



Meijer had a 20-slot display:



Also saw 10 of the colors on an end display at Target. I hope at some point all the stores will get all the colors in the core displays so I can get the ones I want at my convenience (and on sale; these are more expensive than even the Top Speed Revlons).

If you're still reading, congratulations for making through. Given the accelerated pace of retail season, I expect to be back before too long with a bunch of spring displays. Oh, and if you're a completist, go back and read the addendum to yesterday's entry; I found more information on those Milani glitters.