Showing posts with label b: cq. Show all posts
Showing posts with label b: cq. Show all posts

Tuesday, September 6, 2011

Recent NOTD: CQ Vintage

I reached for CQ Vintage, an pale pinky beige creme, because I was ready for something quiet after the bright purple glitter sandwich. Light as this one is, I was surprised to only need two coats of it.





This wore quite well for me with my usual base and top coats, but by day five, I was bored as bored could be with it and had to add something, so I turned to crack, wonderful crack. I used one of the 2012 by Cherimoya colors I'd picked up at Walgreens, Mayan, a rosy brown creme crackle. EverythingsDiamond had commented on the display post that she'd tried one and it smelled awful, and hoo boy, she was right. Mayan was old school stinky; it's probably got all sorts of throwback chemicals in it. It dried matte-ish; here's a pre-cleanup shot so you can see the finish without top coat:



I added the crack in a hotel room, and because I'd flown there, I didn't have my acetone and cleanup brush. What I did have was something else I'd found at Walgreens recently, and which the TSA allowed on the plane: L.A. Colors Nail Polish Remover Pads. These come in various fruit scents; I got Melon, but there were also Lemon, Grape, Peach, and Pear in the display I saw, and cherryculture.com has Strawberry as well. These are acetone-free, so I wasn't too sure how well they'd work for me (I love acetone for how fast it is). To use them for cleanup, I grabbed the pad with my tweezers so I wouldn't mess up my polish, and it actually worked pretty well.





I added a layer of topcoat after cleanup and wore the combination another few days.





I'm glad I decided to bring along the crack and stuff on my trip. Now if I could only figure out a travel lightbox solution, I'd be all set.

Friday, April 1, 2011

Spring Displays, Round 2

Spring weather still hasn't settled in around here, but more and more spring-colored polishes are showing up in stores. Since my last display post, I've seen a bunch more. A big bunch, so grab your favorite beverage and maybe a snack as well to fortify yourself to get through this post.

The first one in this batch to show up was City Colors, which I've only seen at Rite Aid. These bottles don't seem to have color names on them; there's hot pink, yellow, mint, light pink, light but a touch more purpley pink, and coral. I haven't bought any of these (yet, anyway), though I have had the mint (it's a shimmer) in my hand and put it back in the display more than once. The chunky caps do come off to reveal a slimmer cap underneath, just like the pricey brands where I first saw that feature.



Rite Aid is also the only place around here that carries CQ and Petites, both from Scherer. I've not seen table displays for these brands before, but there are some out now. These don't say "limited edition" on them, and some are core colors I've seen before; I'm assuming there's no rush to buy these, so I haven't. The CQ display holds these shades (left to right, front to back): Pink Candy, Coral Pink, Candy Grape, Purple Passion, Tahitian Green, Golden Green, Rustic Dream, Slate, Peachy Keen, and Mystical. The Petites one has these: Daze, Pink Diamond, Peach Blush, 24K Gold, Figi, Cream Rose, Periwinkle, Solar, Vintage Gray, and Electric Indigo (which is neither).





I don't recall seeing table displays from NYC (New York Color) before, either. The limited edition Expert Last display has fourteen shades (left to right, front to back): Timeless Tangerine, Teal Til the End, Long Time Lavender, Perpetual Peony, Midnight Amethyst, Late Night Lilac, Hint of Mint, I Heart New York, Cotton Candy, Lingering Lingerie, Platinum Card, Gramercy Glitz, Persistent Putty, and Lemon Cream.



Wet 'n' Wild has limited edition Wild Shine and MegaLast polishes on offer. The Wild Shine collection is called Sweet Spot and has candy-named colors similar to last year's offering. Only six shades this year, though: Toss Me a Lifesavers (lime), Easy Peasy Lemonhead Squeezy (yellow),
Nerds Need Love Too (blue), Don't Be a Dum Dum (teal), Made from 100% Cotton Candy (pink), and Candy Corn on the Cob (orange). I don't think any of these are exact dupes of core line colors, though some are really close, like Don't Be a Dum Dum which is a slightly more blue version of Caribbean Frost. I got a few of these (but not the pink, I'm on a no-buy for pinks and reds right now) because at 99 cents I won't feel bad if they end up being dupes for things I already have.



The MegaLast collection is called Bloom, and consists of six pastels: Laughing Lilac (purple), Sunburst (orange), Collecting Pollen (yellow), Garden Hose (green), Bird Bath (blue), and Cherry Blossom (pink, not shown below, as it was sold out of that display and replaced with more yellow). I got a few of these, too (amazingly, I left the purple there).



But wait, there are more limited edition MegaLasts, sold in two sets of five colors each. Since one has some pinks in it and one has some reds, I could not get these under the terms of my current no-buy agreement with myself.



Meijer had some cute Easter polishes last year, round bottles from Blue Cross with eggs, flowers, chicks, and those sorts of things printed on them. This year they've got Egg Hunt polishes from Hoof Hands: mini nail polishes packaged in see-through plastic eggs. Six colors here: Fields of Green (lime), Crystal Seas (turquoise blue), Ditty Dottin (coral), Butterfly Flutter (purple), a yellow whose name I did not note down, and Lovely Ladybug (medium pink). So far I've held strong against these, too. I'm pretty sure that won't last, though, because they have designs printed on the caps, and I am a sucker for details like that.





Also at Meijer, I spotted an Easter Studio M display. It's got some shades I recognize from the core display, some that look like re-releases from prior seasonal display, and some that might actually be new (but are likely Color Club dupes). Left to right, top to bottom: Who's That Girl, Hoppin' Hot, Neon Caution, Jade, Spring Is In the Air, Shy Girl, Sweet Dreams, Painted Eggs, On the Hunt, Total Wow, Punked, Vintage Couture, Cute Chick, Kind of Fluffy, Tru Passion, Plum Perfection, Jelly Bean Dream, Boom-Boom-Boom, Basket Case, For Love or Bunny, Pink Glitter, Frenzy (two slots for this one, guess they're way overstocked on this color), and Plum Dazzle. I picked up a couple of the greens and blues that looked new to me, as well as a couple of the purples (I am nowhere near ready to declare a no-buy on purples). I was happy to see Who's That Girl grammatically correct on the display, even though the bottle labels haven't been fixed.





The only new Borghese display I've seen recently has limited edition Rapido polishes in six colors: Romanzo Pink, Capriccio Blue, Castello Blue (which has a touch of grey in it), Fantastico Lime, Felice Tangerine, and Incantato Purple. I grabbed a coupon off the display and bought Castsello Blue but am waiting for a sale to buy any more of these.



Maybelline has soft shades for spring. There are eight pastels in the all-polish display—Lilac Luster, Firefly (with a name like that I'd expect greenish yellow but it's peachy) , Sunlight, Pink Halo, Blue Brilliance, and Pink Glimpse—and two neutrals in the makeup display—a white and a pale peach. (Edited 15-Apr-2011 to add: the white is called Brilliant Sparkle and the peach is Pink Prism.) I bought the blue and purple, of course. I've seen these at Walgreens, Rite Aid, Meijer, and Ulta.





I'm anxiously awaiting the new Sally Hansen Complete Salon colors, but in the meantime, she's trying to distract me with limited edition Insta Dri colors: Peachy Breeze, Fuchsia Flare, Chartreuse Chase, Jade Jump, Blue-Away, Snappy Sprinkles, Raspberry Race, and Pink Blink. I had to get Snappy Sprinkles because a) glitter and b) I am very, very curious to see how the combination of rose pink and lime works on the nail.



My Ulta has Zoya Intimate, but it took them so long to put it out that I'd already ordered the colors I wanted direct from Zoya. Six colors here: Dannii, Jules, Gemma, Caitlin, Dove, and Marley. I got, um, all of them.



Finally, not a new display, but one that amused me quite a lot. Back when the Katy Perry OPIs first came out, I never ever managed to see a display with Black Shatter in it. All the other colors, sure, but no crack. Last time I was at Ulta, it was exactly the reverse, and I had to laugh. If I'd known this would happen, I wouldn't have scrambled to swap for it—I tried a couple dead ends before a friend came through for me. Faced with this bounty, how could I not pick up a couple bottles to pay it forward?



If you made it all the way down here, I salute your stamina and thank you very much for reading!

Thursday, January 27, 2011

Paradoxal and Friends

I keep talking about de-duping my stash, yet I continue to acquire polishes that I know are likely dupes or near dupes to things I already have. Case in point, I bought Chanel Paradoxal fairly soon after it was released, yet that did not stop me from asking Lucy to get me Barry M Dusky Mauve when we did our swap, nor did it stop me from buying Revlon Perplex pretty much the minute I first saw it. I finally had a chance to swatch the copycats alongside the real thing recently. I know plenty of people have already done this, but I like to see for myself and figure more pictures means more information or at least confirmation available out in the world wide web.

First up, the Barry M. In the bottle, it looks very much like the Chanel.



On the nail (two coats for each), they continue to look very much alike. Very, very much alike, in a variety of lighting conditions. Bravo, Barry M!


Lightbox, top to bottom: Paradoxal, Dusky Mauve, Paradoxal, Dusky Mauve.



Room light, top to bottom: Paradoxal, Dusky Mauve.



Flash, top to bottom: Paradoxal, Dusky Mauve, Paradoxal, Dusky Mauve.


Next up, the Revlon. In the bottle, it looks pretty close, but not quite as close as the Barry M did.



On the nail (again two coats for each), it's same story as the bottles: close, but not quite. Bright light brings them closest to each other in appearance.


Lightbox, top to bottom: Paradoxal, Perplex, Paradoxal, Perplex.



Room light, top to bottom: Perplex, Paradoxal.



Flash, top to bottom: Paradoxal, Perplex.


The Revlon definitely leans more purple than the Chanel, and that's a fine thing as far as I'm concerned.

And finally, not at all a dupe but a polish I picked up because the brown and purple shimmer combination it had going on reminded me a bit of Paradoxal. CQ is a brand made by Scherer, the company that also makes Petites, Petites Color Fever, and Chameleon polishes. This particular shade is called Shimmering Bark; it's much warmer than Paradoxal but seems distantly related somehow.



Since I already had Paradoxal on two fingers, I went ahead and did a comparison even though I knew from the bottles that these were not close.




I don't need to tell you which is which, do I?


One big difference between Shimmering Bark and Paradoxal is Shimmering Bark is much more sheer; I used four coats of it versus two for Paradoxal. Hello, layering polish.