Summer Vacation Displays

Yes, it's been a month since I last posted. I was overly optimistic about what I could get done between my long trip and the shorter one I got back from earlier this week. But now I've managed to get through all the display photos I took on the long trip. I didn't document the shade names for these as I was limited in the time I could spend browsing in stores. Speaking of stores, I only went to ones I came across, so it was all Boots and Superdrug locations in London, Birmingham, and Southampton.

I'd never seen a Barry M display in person before this one. It was mostly filled with Gelly shades, but there were treatments in the upper left and lower right. The bottom row had a few Hi Vis shades.

 

The same store had a little section with six Gelly shades, at least one of which was in the bigger section shown above, so I'm not sure what this was about ... seasonal collection of repromotes maybe. I did note the shade names here: All in One Basecoat Topcoat and Nail Hardener, Espresso, Chai Latte, Raspberry Ripple, Grape Soda, Pistachio, Pineapple Punch.

 

A Superdrug in Southampton had a wider selection of Barry M. This display had In a Flash quick dry colors on the left side, with Hi Viz neon color on the top right, with Velvet matte shades, Gelly Rose Tinted collection, and some glitters below that in the right hand side.

 

That same Superdrug also had a big display with Gelly colors and top/base/treatments. It was so big I didn't get it all in the frame of the photo ... ooops.

 

There were six more Gelly shades featured in that Superdrug in a separate display section. These weren't the same six as in the Boots in London, so not sure what's going on there.

 

 

I admit I was sorely tempted by the Boots brand fake nails, but resisted as I knew I had lots of sets of other brands at home.

 

I'd never heard of the Collection brand before, and only ran into one display for it. The top two rows were Spotlight Shine colors and the bottom two were Gel Effect.
Like the Boots fake nails, I was also tempted by the Elegant Touch ones, as I can't get that brand at home, but again, even though fakes are easier to use up than polish, I really need to use what I already have. (I was not tempted by the Kiss nails, as I have easy access to those.)

 

Essie isn't hard to find at home but it was still interesting to see the displays in England. This one at Superdrug had mini bottles, a line called Love by Essie that I don't recall seeing before (it's plant based), a bunch of shades in the regular line, a smaller selection of Gel Couture, and top/base/treatments.

 

At Boots, the display was similar, but had more shades and instead of the Love line, had an Expressie section.

 

A different Boots had a trending shades section above their main Essie display. This had Ballet Slippers, Birthday Girl (sold out), Cute as a Button, Lilacism, Salt Water Happy, and Mint Candy Apple.

 

I only saw a Kiko display once, at what I thought of as the fancy Boots (it was at least twice as big as any of the others I went into). This had removers, top/base/treatments, and shades from the Power Pro and Smart lines.

 

The only Makeup Academy polishes I saw were in this standing display with neon makeup for summmer.

 

I miss the days when Maybelline had lots of polish releases, so many with interesting colors and finishes. I saw two lines from them in England, both with a fairly tame selection of shades. Here's the Super Stay:

 

And the Fast Gel:

 

I have a soft spot for Max Factor as it was a brand my mom used. Their presence in the US seems to have faded a lot since then but it seems going strong in England. This display had three lines of nail polish: Nailfinity (longwear gel-like colour without a UV lamp), Miracle Pure Nail (plant-based and 100% vegan), and Masterpiece Xpress Quick Dry (60 seconds high shine rich colour).

 

A different store had this arrangement of Nailfinity and Masterpiece Xpress:

 

That store's stock of Miracle Pure Nail appeared to be a limited edition collection from Priyanka Chopra Jonas, with her name printed on the labels. I did get these shade names. Top row: Sparkling Light, Sunrise Glow, Radiant Rose, Vanilla Spice. Bottom: Winter Sunset, Daring Cherry, Bold Rosewood, Starry Night.

 

Like Collection, I hadn't heard of the My Mood brand before I saw the display. This was arranged by groups: Need a Top Up (glitters), Nude Mood (a range of skintone cremes), Nail the Dream (shimmery pastels), Next Level Neon (neons plus a white base), On the Brightside (seems a few pastels snuck into this part), Cult Classics (surprised the blue was here and not with brights), Treatments (bases, topcoat, oil), and Power Couples (pairs of compatible shades).

 

A closer look at the glitters, which almost made me break my no buying polish rule for this trip:

 

The Nails Inc display I saw had two rows of Plant Power shades (vegan and halal-friendly) on top with the traditional line below (neons, nudes, pastels, pinks, glitters, top/base/treatments) along with a row of the 45 Seconds Speedy Gloss shades.

 

The polish in the Revolution display at Superdrug had neons in round bottles and high gloss shades in squar ones.

 

At Boots, the Revolution polishes were not showcased as well but they had more varieties: Express Nails, Neon/Candy Nails, Gel Effect, and Nail Care.

 

This Rimmel display had Super Gel colors in the top rows and 60 Seconds Super Shine below with a few Glitter Bomb shades as well.

 

At another store they had a Rimmel Nail Bar section with a wider range of shades, including a couple glitter top coats. These were mostly 60 Seconds Super Shine with four rows of Super Gel in the upper right.

 

My old friend Sally Hansen had some represention over the pond. At Superdrug, they had a selection of Good Kind Pure, Miracle Gel, Insta Dri, and treatments.

 

At a Boots, they had a similar assortment of Sally Hansen.

 

I am still amazed that I managed to not buy any nail polish on my trip. Whenever I got tempted, I'd remind myself of the many many many beautiful untrieds waiting for me at home. I did buy three concealers and a foundation (and sunscreen and a few other things I used on the trip), and have bought a few polishes since I've been home, so as always I'm a work in progress.

Even More Displays

Yep, it's another display post. Last time, we saw some sets designed for gift giving; this time, I have more.

Ulta has a 10-mini set from OPI called The Top Ten. Colors included: Alpine Snow, Bubble Bath, Tickle My France-y, Kiss Me on My Tulips, Red Lights Ahead ... Where, Big Apple Red, I'm Not Really a Waitress, You Don't Know Jacques, Vampsterdam, Lincoln Park After Dark. It's a nice range of basic, classic colors.



At Target, they had a 14-piece set from Elf. Most of these are safe/classic colors, too, but there were a few more daring selections, including some glitter. The bottles are on the small side, but the packaging is large.



At Rite Aid, I spotted this 18-mini set of L.A. Colors Color Craze. It has some basic cremes and shimmers, too, and also some wilder colors and glitters. It's priced at $9.99, which is decent. I had to raise my eyebrows at the "value $45" on the label. Really, L.A. Colors? You think your minis are worth $2.50 each? I don't believe I've ever paid that much for a full size bottle (indeed, I have full size bottles of most of the glitters in this set, most of which I got at Dollar Tree for a buck each).



At CVS, I saw another 18-piece mini set from Color Theory. The bottles and colors look quite a lot like the L.A. Colors Color Craze set, and this is also priced at $9.99, but this set is valued at only $30. Curious.



I could probably fill up a whole post with brands like Color Theory that only seem to show up at the holidays for the purpose of selling gift sets, but there's so much else I want to get to. I do want to share one set that I found particularly interesting, from Color Concept; it's the Deck Your Nails Nail Art Collection, which has what I thought was a great variety of stuff: polishes, nail art stripers, decals, stickers, rhinestones, and stencils, along with instructions and some basic tools. For someone who was interested in nail art but didn't know where to start, this could be a great introduction.



In addition to a lot of gift sets, there seem to be a lot of nail strips in stores lately. I'd seen the Sally Hansen Salon Effects French Mani ones in the CVS Nail HQ before, but a recent visit to Ulta was the first time I'd seen a standalone display with them. There are eight of these: Excusez Moi (peach with white tip), French Twist (pink with white tip), Silver Lining (silver glitter tip), Pink Macaroon (pink glitter tip), Gold Cabaret (gold glitter tip), Polka Party (fuchisa dots on white tip), Noir Boudoir (black tip), Steel the Night (silver tip). I am curious about these, as it seems like the length of the strip will matter, unlike the other designs that they already have in this line.



Maybelline is in the nail strip game now, too, with eight designs under the Color Show line: Fierce in Fuchsia (hot pink snakeskin), Cheetahchic (black and silver cheetah), Sapphire Jewels (navy/silver/blue geometric), Divine Crocodile (green/white croc), Resort Couture (hot pink/black/grey chevrons), Metal Prisms (silver/gold/black/white geometric), Wild Reptile (orange/black geometric snakeskin), Midnight Lace (black/silver lace). I've seen these at CVS and Walgreens.



Kiss Nail Dress has some limited edition designs for winter (judging by the snowflakes on the display background, though what hot pink cheetah print has to do with winter I'm not sure). There are six designs here, though what they're called, I don't know because the fronts of the packages just have codes and I was too lazy to pick them up to see if they had names on the back. This display was at Rite Aid; I've also seen Kiss at Walgreens.





I also saw a display of French or Full strips from Kiss Nail Dress; these are designed so you can get two looks out of each strip, either a tip or a full nail decal. (This particular display had the hot pink winter cheetah shoved into it, too.)





Sally Beauty had holiday strip designs from Trendy and Bling.





Ulta had an Elegant Touch display with nail wraps plus kits of fake nails with strips designed to only cover part of the nail ("bespoke nail art" is what they called this combination).





At Bed Bath & Beyond, they had something called Tat-Toes, with some wild designs. These were $14.99, which seemed steep, but the package said it was 3 applications, so that's more reasonable per mani then.



There's stuff in the non-set, non-strip category as well. Rite Aid had a display of four colors of Mirror Nail from Hedy's ma.nish.ma: Gold Reflections, Silver Reflections, Blue Reflections, and Pink Reflections. In the bottle, these look like foil-y shimmers; the display photo hints at some duochrome tendencies.



Ulta finally got Zoya Ornate (link is to the swatches I did last month).



I shared the mini set of the Ulta OPI holiday exclusives last time; this time I've got the full size bottles, which they put out when the latest sale started. Last Minute Shopper is the berry red; Skip the Gift Wrap is green, and Gift Cards for Everyone is blue-leaning purple.



Ulta also had a Piggy Polish display that puzzled me. It was called Where Stars Rest and had three polishes in it: Far More than Rubies (a rose glitter that looked very much like the one they put out for breast cancer month), Glitter Me Timbers (a lime shimmer), and Three Cheers and a Tiger (orange bar glitter). I'm puzzled because a) there's no polish called where Stars Rest, and there's usually a polish that matches the name on these displays, b) these colors don't coordinate, nor do the names (though the last two are sort of nautical, I guess), and c) two of them look like Halloween colors, which should have been out a couple months back but weren't. I'd think this was a random assortment assembled from leftovers from other displays, but I've never seen any of these names before. Of course the Piggy Polish website is no help—their front page shows summer colors from I'm not sure which year.



In the category of solving a problem I don't have, there's Nail Pak from Duality Cosmetics. These are chubby bottles of polish that have a file and nail polish remover pads in their base. I don't find it hard to keep track of my remover and file, but I sure would find it hard to store these oversized bottles in my Helmer. I also exI took a photo of one next to a full-size China Glaze bottle so you can see the difference.





Because I apparently hadn't spent enough money at Sally's getting Christmas polishes, they put out new stuff to tempt me. First, there's China Glaze Cirque du Soleil, a 12-color collection.



I was still pondering which Cirque polishes I might need when I spotted the Seche Collage glittery topcoat on a nearby shelf. Purple AND glittery? You know I bought that immediately.



Finally, when I was making a tour of Rite Aids to make sure I hadn't missed any snowman polish colors, I found this new display from Revlon, Bubble Gum Days/Urban Nights. Eleven colors here (left to right): Optimistic, Sheer Sweetie, Bubbly, Heavenly, Enchanting, Girly, Urban, Trendy, Ritzy, Eclectic, Iconic. The urban side also has a matte top coat. In the back, there's Nail Brightener, Treat & Boost, and Cuticle Softener. Heavenly looks like another Lippmann dupe, while Ritzy appears to be a re-issue of Just Add Sparkle.



See anything that piques your interest? Or are you all shopped out already for the season?