Wheel G10: Shimmery Toppers

You may have noticed Nail Wheel Wednesday, and indeed the whole blog, took last week off. That wasn't my intention, but my intention was seriously unrealistic given that Mr. K and I drove to Salt Lake City and then on to Steamboat Springs (yes, we left skiing to go skiing—that's how much we like our friends we met up with) and while I had my laptop with me, I never got it out; first we were in a hotel with the worst wifi, then we were staying in a small condo with other people where there wasn't really any good work space. If we do this again next year, I'll just announce I'm taking a break.

I'm back now, with a wheel of shimmery toppers I painted before I left. Most of these are from the CND effects line, which I was way into for a while.



(all two coats over half black base)

1. CND Plum Truffle Sparkle [okay, this is really a microglitter topper, but I wanted all the CND on one wheel]
2. CND Amethyst Sparkle [this had dried out significantly, so I thinned but it's still likely thicker than it should be]
3. CND Raspberry Sparkle
4. CND Crimson Sparkle [I will have to remember this one come autumn; it reminds me of fall color]
5. CND Sapphire Sparkle
6. CND Teal Sparkle
7. CND Sheer 24K Sparkle [hmm, maybe should have saved this for a flakie topper wheel]
8. CND Scarlet Shimmer
9. CND Lavender Pearl
10. CND Perfectly Bare Shimmer [unusual how this one turned the black base brown]
11. CND Emerald Shimmer
12. Creative Nail Design Turquoise Tint
13. Pure Ice Shimmer-wing Iris
14. Pure Ice Oh Baby
15. Pure Ice Shimmer-wing Jasmine
16. Essie Luxeffects Pure Pearlfection
17. Confetti Tiara
18. China Glaze Travel in Color
19. Deborah Lippmann Bring on the Bling
20. Finger Paints Sparkle Top Coat


Bottles 1 through 5:



6 through 10:


11 through 15:



16 through 20:

Wheel K8: Glitters from Wet 'n' Wild and Confetti

Today I've got glitters from 2011 & 2012. The whole Wet 'n' Wild Sparks & Stripes collection is here (summer 2012), as are the glitters from On the Prowl (fall 2011) and Mermaids Cove (summer 2011), along with the entire Party Rocks group (winter 2012). The three Confetti colors are from the Sparkle & Shine collection (winter 2012).



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

1. Wet 'n' Wild FastDry Stars & Stripes (2 coats) [Sparks & Stripes collection]
2. Wet 'n' Wild FastDry The Star of the Show (2) [Party Rocks; must have had some Stars & Stripes leftover from the summer]
3. Wet 'n' Wild FastDry Teasy Peasy (3) [Party Rocks]
4. Wet 'n' Wild FastDry Can Can You Hang the Mistletoe (3) [Party Rocks]
5. Wet 'n' Wild FastDry Bling It On (3) [Party Rocks]
6. Wet 'n' Wild FastDry Happy Holidaze (3) [Party Rocks]
7. Wet 'n' Wild FastDry Atlantis (3) [Mermaids Cove]
8. Wet 'n' Wild FastDry Light With Caution (3) [Sparks & Stripes collection]
9. Wet 'n' Wild FastDry cougar Attack (2) [On the Prowl]
10. Wet 'n' Wild FastDry Dancer is the Best Reindeer (3) [Party Rocks]
11. Wet 'n' Wild FastDry Correction Tape (3) [On the Prowl]
12. Wet 'n' Wild FastDry Beautiful But Dangerous (3) [Sparks & Stripes collection]
13. Wet 'n' Wild FastDry Behind Closed Doors (2) [On the Prowl]
14. Wet 'n' Wild FastDry Explosions After Dark (2) [Sparks & Stripes collection]
15. Wet 'n' Wild FastDry School of Pyrotechnics (2) [Sparks & Stripes collection]
16. Wet 'n' Wild FastDry Spontaneous Combustion (2) [Sparks & Stripes collection]
17. Wet 'n' Wild FastDry Tangled in My Web (2) [On the Prowl]
18. Confetti Champagne and Caviar (3)
19. Confetti I'm Gonna Party All Night Long (3)
20. Confetti Dragonfly (3)

Bottles 1 through 6:



7 through 12:



13 through 17:



18 through 20:


















Destash notes: Some obvious ones here, like I don't need both 1 & 2, and I'm sure I have close enoughs for a lot of these from other brands. The one that will leave my stash last is 8, which wins with its unusual and well thought out color mix.

Wheel Q6: Glitters from Love My Nails and Others

One of the patriotic glitters I used for my 4th of July mani was from Love My Nails; I found it by flipping through my nail wheels looking for appropriate color combinations, so it seemed only right that this edition of Nail Wheel Wednesday feature the very wheel I spotted it on, which just happens to be in my backlog. This wheel is dominated by Love My Nails glitters, which used to be available at WalMart—I want to say I bought most of mine around 4 years ago—but now seems to be only online. I found one site selling them for 9.99 a bottle, which is about five times the price I recall them being when they were in stores.



(all three coats except as noted below; ones marked with * required more fishing for glitter than I'd prefer)

1. Love My Nails Crystal
2. Love My Nails Pink Surprise [the diamond shaped glitters were the big draw in this one; at the time I bought it, there were very few diamond glitters to be had]
3. Love My Nails Star Bright *
4. Love My Nails Dazzling
5. Love My Nails Pretty in Pink
6. Love My Nails Crazy for You *
7. Love My Nails Diva (4 coats) [note the stealth bar glitter in here]
8. Love My Nails Glory [the bars in this are a bit long for me but as infrequently as I'll wear it, I can deal; it does look festive and explode-y like fireworks]
9. Love My Nails Mardi Gras [looks like a lot of these glitters aren't holding their color]
10. Love My Nails Cosmos *
11. Love My Nails Violets Are Blue *
12. Love My Nails Blue for You *
13. Love My Nails All That [this blew my mind at the time—square glitter!—and holds up great even now]
14. Confetti Tazmanian Devil [I never could resist a multi-colored glitter]
15. Confetti Pink Confetti
16. Confetti Party Palace Blue
17. Pixel Extreme High Frequency [same idea as Party Palace Blue but a little less glittery and a touch greener]
18. Pixel Oh Wow
19. RL Glamour Pink [the smattering of holo hexes in here really make this much more interesting than the plain rose glitter I thought it was at first; I do not know what RL stands for, if anything, as I got this in a swap and it's the only one I have from this brand]
20. Fing'rs unlabelled light blue bear [the only bear bottle in my stash]

Bottles 1 through 7:


8 through 13:


14 through 16:


17 through 20:




















A lot of these would benefit from being layered over a dark color. Maybe that'll be one of my retirement projects when the time comes—painting glitter wheels with different color bases.

Black Friday Displays

I took yesterday off from the internet to spend the day celebrating Thanksgiving at a big family gathering, which means today is Black Friday, craziest shopping day of the year. I am not one to get up in the middle of the night to go stand in line waiting for a store to open so I can jostle with a crowd to grab the best deals, so my Black Friday strategy is to wach the commericals so I know which places to avoid if I do go out. Since it is a big shopping weekend, though, I figured today was a good time to share some things I've seen in various stores since my last display post.

There are plenty of seasonal collections out now, but before we look at those, I want to show you a new core line I hadn't heard anything about before it popped up in drugstores around here: Cover Girl Outlast. Left to right below: Tickled Pink, Vio-last, Constant Candy, Lasting Love, Grapevine, Smokey Taupe, Constant Caribbean, Black Diamond, Toasted Almond, Forever Frosted, Pink-finity, Forever Festive, Wine Stain, Golden Opportunity, Crystal Clear. These were priced at $5.99 at Walgreens and Rite Aid (the only places I've seen them so far). That seems like significantly more than the Cover Girl Boundless Color were selling for before they were discontinued.



I've also seen a slimmer display of Outlast, which had the same colors as the wide one.



Most of the displays I'm running across lately are glitzy glittery holiday ones, but there are still some fall collections straggling in. At Ulta, there was what looks like an autumn collection from Piggy Polish, called Busy Being Fabulous. Shades here: Teal the End of Time, You've Got to Know When to Gold 'Em, Busy Being Fabulous, Fancy, and Wine Down.



Nutra Nail Gel Perfect Fall for You collection has six colors: Snapdragon, Cocoa, Latte, Smitten, Enamored, and Spellbound.



Ulta Professional When the Knight Comes might be meant for fall or holiday; I'm not sure. I do know it has these colors: Crown Jewels, Suitor of Armor, Joust Exiled, Pauper Etiquette, Inline for the Crown, and Whatever Floats Your Moat.



Essence Breaking Dawn Part 2 is tied in with a fall movie release; I was quite surprised to see that Ulta got this one at all, much less in a fairly timely manner. Four polish shades in here: Jacob's Protection, A Piece of Forever, Edward's Love, and Alice Had a Vision Again.



Moving on from fall to winter, I first saw the Essie Winter 2012 polishes at Target, in one of their typical cardboard endcap shelf displays.



I later saw the collection at Rite Aid. Left to right: Leading Lady, She's Pampered, Snap Happy, Butler Please, Where's My Chauffeur, and Beyond Cozy.



My Walgreens had a smaller display with only four of the colors.



Bed, Bath & Beyond had the collection in a tall, skinny floor display.



Ulta had what at first glance I thought was a messed up display of the collection, missing the cool tones, but on closer inspection this turned out to be something else entirely: old shades grouped together for the holidays. Left to right: Carnival, Scarlet O'Hara, Jag-u-are, Golden Nuggets, Bungle Jungle, and Silver Bullions.



Moving on to more holiday stuff ... what feels like ages ago, I shared a L'Oreal Diamond Collection display with three glitter polishes in it (which I've since swatched). Well, there's another Diamond Collection display that has six polishes in it—three shimmers I hadn't seen before plus the three glitters I had—and three different sets of Nail Lingerie nails strips. Polishes left to right: So Chic, Drop Dead Gorgeous, Lifetime Love, The Bigger the Better, Fancy Me, Sparklicious. Strips left to right: Statement Piece, Bling Addict, Razzle Be Dazzle.



CVS has Confetti Sparkle & Shine for the holidays. There are six colors here: a turquoise glitter I couldn't read the name of because the black lettering on the label got lost in all the glitz, Under the Mistletoe (turquoise shimmer), Time 2B Dazzling (yellow green shimmer I'm pretty sure I've seen from them before with a different name), Tis the Season to be Jolly (purple shimmer), Champagne and Caviar (gold glitter), Five Golden Rings (gold shimmer), I'm Gonna Party All Night Long (red glitter), Better Late Than Never (red shimmer).



Rite Aid has the Julie G holiday collection, five colors jammed into a display that has slots for four. There's Ornamental (gold), Gift Wrapped (berry), Under Mistletoe (green, and the label does say just "Under Mistletoe", no "the" in there), Big Red Bow (red), and Light It Up (multi glitter).



Meijer has the Studio M holiday display, Every Color on Your Wishlist. As usual, this is a mix of core colors, repromotes, and Color Club rebabels—which exactly are which I haven't taken the time to figure out. Top row: Firecracker, Dazzle Me, Funfetti, Sparks Fly, Poparazzi, Stargazer, Glitterati, Kaleidescope. Second row: Special Effects, Slammin Red, Naughty & Nice, Red-ical Gypsy, Drama Queen, Gel-ous, Happy Hunter, Wish Upon a Rockstar. Third Row: Foil Me Once, Ego Trip, Holiday Splendor, Blue Funk, Jingle Jangle, Lust, Magnetism, Wonderland. Last row: Gingerbread, Antiquated, Nouveau Vintage, Ms. Hautie, Hip Hop, Purple Medallion, What a Drag, Sex Symbol.



Maybelline has released eight Color Show glitters in the Sequins collection: Lavender Sparks (lilac), Gold's Night Out (gold), Cocktail Dress (black/red), Sapphire Masquerade (blurple), Silver Gleam (silver), Ruby Rhinestones (red), Seaquins (teal), and Rose Bling (rose).



The Nutra Nail Gel Perfect holiday collection is Bling It On: Purple Luxe, Gold Strike, Emerald City, Ruby Slippers, Blue Bling, and Silver Screen (a Smitten from the fall display appears to have snuck into this display; frustrates me that I didn't notice 'til now).



Finger Paints seasonal offering is Holiday of Wonders. Six colors here: Sparkle and Snowflake (silver holo microglitter), Hollydazzle (red shimmer), Midnight Sleigh Ride (blue shimmer), Merry Mistletoe (green shimmer), Elves Bells (gold holo microglitter), and Santa's Magic (silver holo hex glitter). The photo of this isn't so great--the colors look warmer and brighter than they should.



Piggy Polish appears to have a couple different holiday displays. Shiver Me Tinsel has three glitters: Shiver Me Tinsel, Wishes & Dreams, To All a Gold Night.



Piggy Polish Blame it on the Mistletoe has three orangey-red hued polishes: Go Play in the Sleigh, Holly Days & Christmas Plays, Blame it on the Mistletoe.



I almost missed the Butter London holiday stuff at my Ulta because it wasn't on the endcap where they usually stock the brand but in an aisle nearby. There are six colors here, but my store only had five of them available on their own; the sixth was just in a two-pack with a lip gloss. Shades are: Scuppered (bronze), Scallywag (turquoise), Jack the Lad (deep green), Fiddlesticks (fuchsia), Fairy Cake (silver scattered holo), and Shambolic (purple).



Orly is offering Naughty or Nice for the holiday season: Devil May Care, Miss Conduct, Halo, Unlawful, Angel Eyes, and Torrid.



China Glaze has Holiday Joy. That includes tweleve polishes, which I am way too tired to list at this point but I'm sure you can find the details elsewhere. I saw these in a small display at Sally Beauty and a larger one at Ulta. It was easier to see the colors in the Ulta display, but it didn't have the cute puppy photo.





There are twelve shades in OPI Skyfall, too, plus the $30 Man with a Golden Gun real gold topcoat. I've seen various displays of these at various Ultas, some of them completely sold out. I will have swatches of all but the gold topcoat sometime in the next few weeks, so I'll name them then.









Color Club has a restrained six colors in the Winter Affair scented polish collection. The colors, as seen at Sally Beauty are: Berry and Bright (red shimmer), Ho-Ho-Holly (green shimmer), Glitter Wonderland (purple shimmer), Snow-flakes (flakie topcoat), Winter Affair (gold foil), and Gift of Sparkle (blue foil). I say "as seen at Sally" because I've read that the last two colors are only at Sally—everywhere else the collection is sold, Gift of Sparkle and Winter Affair are different colors.



The holiday collection from Wet 'n' Wild, Party Rocks, is all glitters. I have only seen the display in one CVS so far, so either it's not getting wide distribution or most stores aren't putting it out until later. There are six FastDry colors here: Can-Can You Hang the Mistletoe (pink), Teasy Peasy (silver), Happy Holidaze (turquoise), Dancer is the Best Reindeer (purple), Bling It On (blue), The Star of the Show (silver holo stars).



While I haven't seen the Party Rocks display anywhere but that one CVS, I have seen the polishes in Walgreens at the bottom of a sidekick display called "Best in Show".



Finally, the last display I saw before I headed out of town for the holiday weekend: Essie Repstyle. I don't recall hearing that Essie was going to do magnetics, yet there they were in Rite Aid. It's strange to see Essie bottles with such a wide cap, but it is a sleek solution to having a decent size magnet. There are six colors: Lil Boa Peep, Repstyle, Crocadilly, Snake It Up, Sssssexy, Snake Rattle and Roll



There will be more displays to share before too long, but right now it's time for me to step away from the computer and enjoy some more family time.