A Little Later Than Mid-February Displays

For a change, it hasn't been way too long since my last display post, at least not judging by the number of photos piled up in my folder to be posted. Maybe it's just a slow time for new polish.

Butter London gets us kicked off with their Spring 2015 collection, High Tea, which I saw at Ulta, in the now usual spot down the aisle instead of on the top shelf above the core polish display on the endcap where they used to be and where I was more likely to see them. The confusing thing here is that while I expected six polishes based on the press release, and there are six polishes here, they aren't all the same colors as promised in the press release. Instead of Cheers, a yellow creme, this display has Doily, a milky pastel pink with white glitter topper that was part of the Sweet Somethings collection for Bridal 2014. And it's not a mistake in shelving, since Doily is on the printed card attached to the shelf. The other colors are Tiddly, Ruby Murray, Kip, High Tea, and Sloane Ranger. Sloane Ranger is not new, either, but the others I don't recall seeing before. There's a tutorial on the display showing how to doan ombre mani (by which they mean gradient) using something called the Butter London Ombre Brush, which seems to be a really fat, flat brush. I actually think I might have one of those; I should look.



One of the things keeping me busy this month was a trip to Idaho, during which I both skied and worked yet still managed to make some time to hunt for displays. Fred Meyer had the Essence Like an Unforgettable Kiss display, with four polishes amongst the other makeup: Always on My Mint, Pink Me, Nothing But Lovestoned, You Let my Heart Skip a Beat.



As of my last display post, I was on the hunt for a proper Essie Cashmere Matte display, and I did find one, at a Walgreens a little outside my normal shopping grounds. The bottles weren't arranged properly but I did not have time to fix them (I was on my way out of town for a girls' weekend). As as aside, when I am queen of the universe, there will be a zero tolerance policy for testing colors on a display. I don't care what the excuse is, do this in my world and you'll be banned from retail stores until you prove you can behave yourself, and that will be a high bar to get over.



Here's how that display should have been arranged, as seen a couple weeks later at a Bed Bath & Beyond:



I also saw Cashmere Matte in the salon bottles at Ulta.



The Ulta display had a card next to it with a nail art idea:



Ulta also had the Essie resort collection, Suite Retreat. Four colors here: Suite Retreat, Stones 'n' Roses, Time for Me Time, and Cocoa Karma.



There were three nail art ideas for this collection:



I ventured into Walmart, not expecting much since new displays have been scarce there in recent months, but found a relatively unmolested endcap with Nail'd It Nail Lacquer colors from Flower in it. These seemed to be a mix of new colors as well as some that were in the original line launch (you can see those displays in this 2013 display post). Top row: Quick Dry Top Coat, Rose Gold Top Coat, Gold Top Coat, Make My Daylily, Pansy Shmansy. Second row: Thistle or That (old), Good Bud-dy (old), Aster Place, First Bloom (old), Budding Romance (old). (Remaining rows were repeats of the first two).



At a Walgreens in Idaho, I saw something I'd never seen before: an Incoco Nail Polish Applique display. This was called Love Story and by the time I got there, had four designs left: Sweet Surprise, Hello Sweetheart, Love is in the Air, and First Crush. (The missing ones, based on the photos on the display, were Love Spell and Sealed with a Kiss.) These were smaller packages with fewer strips than the ones I've tried via review samples and online ordering and had a lower price. Now that I'm looking at this photo again, I'm wishing I'd bought more than the one set I grabbed.



I swung by Bed Bath & Beyond and saw a new L'Oreal display, Haute Florals, which looks very spring-like. It's got six base shades and a floral glitter topper. Left to right: Wispy Clouds, Spring Showers, Hint of Lavender, Violette, Rose Symphony, Sweet Nectar, and Garden Bouquet (times 2).



Here's a closer look at Garden Bouquet:



Maybelline Rebel Bloom showed up at Bed Bath & Beyond. The first display had polishes and something I hadn't seen from the brand before: nail art stripers called "Nail Laser Liner". The stripers in front: Custom Coral, Purple Play, and Onyx Improv. The polishes in back: Beach Blossom and Rose Candy. The polish bottles have a pretty floral design printed on them, too.



The bigger Maybelline Rebel Bloom display has eye and lip cosmetics and an expanded selection of polishes: Beach Blossom, Rose Candy, Fiery Tulip, and Purple Madness.



The OPI Hawaii collection has popped up at Ulta. Twelve shades here, starting at top left, skipping over topcoats and basecoats: That's Hula-rious, My Gecko Does Tricks, This Color's Making Waves, Pineapples Have Peelings Too, Do You Take Lei Away, Is Mai Tai Crooked, Aloha from OPI, Go with the Lava Flow, Suzi Shops & Island Hops, Just Lanai-ing Around, Hellow Hawaii Ya, Lost My Bikini in Molokini.



Sally Beauty had a much smaller OPI Hawaii display.



Rimmel has a Rita Ora collection display out with size polishes as wel as some lipcolor. The polishes: Blindfold Me Blue, Rita Rouge, Let's Get Nude, Pillow Talk, Pop Art Top Coat, Oragasm, and Raw as Night. I saw this at Fred Meyer in Idaho and at Kmart here in Michigan.



Sally Hansen keeps pumping out new colors. The Colors That Soar display has eight limited edition Xtreme Wear shades: Social Butterfly, Sweet Nectar, Fan Appeal, Cuteapillar, Fly By, Wing It, Painted Lady, and Monarch-y. I saw this first at Fred Meyer on my travels and later back here at home in Michigan at a CVS.



When I posted the SinfulColors Kiss My I'm Stylish St. Patrick's Day display last time, I remarked that there was no Irish Green in it. Well, I found the display at another store (Walgreens instead of KMart) where there was Irish Green included. Lineup here was two slots for Green Ocean (looking like they were slightly different dye lots or something), Irish Green, 2 slots for Shamrockin', two slots for Snow Me White, and then the red Sugar Sugar, which seemed an odd choice for this theme but I suppose it does coordinate with the model's lips.



As if two different assortments of polishes for this same display weren't enough, there's also a variant in which the Shamrockin' glitter is different. All the displays I've seen in Michigan have the version I swatched, with green metallic glitter in the mix. Well, out in Idaho I saw both that version and the lighter, no green metallic glitter, one in different stores. I don't get it. Why release two versions at the same time with the same name? I'd given up on seeing the light version and begged a friend to buy me a bottle before I left for Idaho, which I think made this version appear in my path finally.



Back home in Michigan, I found the SinfulColors About Blooming Time display, which has three Bloomblast milky glitters and some repromotes: Petal Be the Day (Bloomblast), Tempest, Flower Power (Bloomblast), Sail La Vie, Engergetic Red, Cream Pink, Cloud 9, and Standing Bloom Only (Bloomblast).



Ulta had the Zoya Naturel Satins (for 2015 Transitional, which I guess is a season now; not sure if it comes before or after Resort season—or maybe Essie just takes off for a resort to avoid being around for transitional). Sorry, I got distracted there. Six shades here are Tove, Brittany, Ana, Leah, Rowan, and Sage.



I was hoping to see Orly spring by now but Sally Beauty didn't have it yet, and Ulta has not gotten any new Orly in a while. Not that I am hurting for new polish to play with, of course.

Mid-July Displays

It's only been about two weeks since my last display post yet that doesn't mean I lack for new stuff to share. That said, I'm going to start with something that's not as fresh as it could be, but I keep seeing it around so figure I might as well post it. It's the standalone display of the creme and shimmer shades in the Nicole by OPI Selena Gomez collection. I swatched these way back in January; I'd only seen the Selena Gomez glitters display at that point, but OPI sent bottles for review of the cremes and shimmers, too. A month or so later, I heard reports of these cremes and shimmers showing up at WalMart, and sometime after that, of them appearing in the permanent display at CVS stores that carry NOPI. It wasn't until much much later that the separate shelftop display appeared; I've seen it at both CVS and Ulta as recently as last weekend. Colors: Love Song (purple), Naturally (pink), Pretty in Plum (plum), Spring Break (dark pink), Hit the Lights (yellow), Selena (peach), Scarlett (red).



I've pretty much given up on buying Piggy Polish because their blatant renaming annoys me (I documented one example in my end of April display post but that's far from the only time I've seen it) yet I can't stop looking at or taking photos of their displays (after all, they may come out with a glitter I don't have but need—I can generally recognize a new glitter). There have been three new small Piggy Polish displays at my Ulta in recent weeks, starting with That's Shine with Me. This has Under Toe, which is their base coat (I think a top coat would have been better for a collection keyed to the word "shine"), A Pier-fect Day, and It's About Lime.



Engage Your Scent-ses has three scented polishes: It's Bouquet, Common Scents, and Sun Scents. The display says the scents are spring flowers, mint chocolate, and orange. For once, I didn't use my thumbnail as a tool, so I can't say for sure that these are re-labels, just that it looked very much like each color had another label underneath the current color name. I'm not sure what they would have re-labeled, though, as I don't recall any other scented offerings from them since I became aware of the brand a few years back.



The Piggy Polish Emeralda display has only one color: Emeralda. It's a tie-in with the color of the year as declared by Pantone, though it doesn't mention Pantone anywhere on the display.



Sally Beauty had a neons for summer section the last time I was in. There was a display with the neons from Nina Ultra Pro, neon ombre kits from China Glaze, and the Summer Brights from Orly. I was in a rush the day I took this and didn't get all the color names, though I believe they are all core or previously released; I know the Orly ones are because that display was at Ulta and in my mid-May display post. The China Glaze sets are Chasing the Sun (White on White, Sun Worshipper, Pool Party, and Flying Dragon) and Wave Runner (White on White, Celtic sun, I'm With the Lifeguard, and Frostbite).



Nicole by OPI's newest collection is Tink, eight polishes themed for Disney's Tinkerbell: Pixie Glitter (silver holo glitter), Fairy Fairy Quite Contrary (yellow orange), How Fairy Nice of You (light pink), Half Charming Half Alarming (orange), Sweet on Pete (acid green), Tink's in the Pink (medium pink). I've only seen this at Walgreens so far, which is odd, since my Walgreens doesn't usually have NOPI.



After reading about some things people were spotting at Walmart, I've braved several of their locations recently. Some of them even had fairly unmolested displays.

My trips were all after the 4th of July, so by the time I saw the Pure Ice Stars & Stripes display, the patriotic glitter polish called Freedom was all gone. There were a lot of other Pure Ice colors there, though, most of which there were slots for over in the permanent display.





One of the things that I was looking for particularly was the Salon Perfect Neon Collision limited edition collection, six neon matte glitter shades. The first two stores I went to had none, at least not anywhere near the beauty section. At the third, I finally found them, in a huge endcap. Granted the endcap was not in great shape, having been assaulted by customers who wrongly think it's perfectly acceptable to swatch polishes on any surface at all, but the polishes were there, mixed in with non-Neon Collision Salon Perfect shades and a generous assortment of Sinful Colors and other random bottles.



At a different store, I found the Neon Collison colors not in a display but just on a shelf unit with trays of polishes rather precariously stacked on top of each other.



The other thing that led me to go on my WalMart expedition was the Fing'rs Heart 2 Art display, which I saw at only one of the four stores I visited. There is a lot going on in this one: polishes, embellishments (nail strips, striping tape, gems and loose glitter and fimo, etc.), nail art kits (including dots and stamping and sequins and studs and brushes and even an OPI Spotted knockoff).



There was so much stuff they couldn't fit it all on the front of the display; around the side, there were sets of stickers and tattoo paper.



The polishes are in small bottles, about the size of typical nail art stripers, but they're not stripers; there's even a photo on the display that shows the full size brush.



Top row of polishes above, left to right: The Coast is Clear, Caught Red Handed, Re-Orange My Closet, You Had Me at Yellow, Meet Me in the Green Room, Left Me Jaded, Teal We Meet Again, The Boys in Blue, Bent Out of Grape, Can't Hear Myself Pink, Don't Even Pink About It, You Pinky Swear, Peri-Wink Wink, Little White Lie, From Taupe to Bottom, Mauve It or Lose It, Catch Some Greys, Little Black Book.

Bottom row: Rose Gold Knock-Off, Make Me a Birthday Flake, Gold Fing'rs, In Mint Condition, Star Crossed Lovers, Purple Reign, My Boyfriend Matte, No Time Like Iridescence, Polish Your Silverware, On a Silver Platter, Set in Rhinestone, Stop Metalling in My Business, V.I.Purple, Blue a Fuse, Over the Rainbow, Back to the Fuchsia, Red You Loud and Clear, Black Tie Event.

Several of these looked very familiar. Some of those I bought anyway, for comparison purposes later, but a couple I left in the store. Make Me a Birthday Flake looked very much like Icing After Party and Cult Nails Happy Ending. (I did a comparison of those two last year.)



Over the Rainbow looks like Spoiled Trust Fund Baby and Wet 'n' Wild Correction Tape. (I compared those two last year as well.)



I wasn't particularly searching for Flower, the WalMart exclusive makeup line Drew Barrymore is involved with somehow, but when I saw there were polishes I did stop and take a closer look. The photo below is of the small version of the Flower section; this has only one row of nail polish (near the upper right).



Here's a closer look at the polishes:



In the stores which had bigger Flower sections, there were two rows of polish.



Single row version is the same colors as the top row in the two-row display: Go With the Flow-er, That's Just Dan-De-Lion, Fanatical Botanical (in photo directly above, this color is in the slot where That's Just Dan-De-Lion belongs), Gorgeous Gerbera, May Flowers, I Lavendare You, Thistle or That, Good Bud-Dy.

Bottom Row: Eye of the Tiger Lily, What's the Daffodilly-O, Cosmos-Politan, Precious Poppy, First Bloom, Budding Romance, Venus Fly Trap, April Showers.

At one store, there was also an endcap for Flower stuff with space for polishes on the side (quite picked over by the time I saw it).



I have one last display from WalMart before we move on. Remember the Nicole by OPI Gumdrops I swatched back in May? Well, I finally saw them in a store, and that store was WalMart. When I got to this particular display, the bottles were in random clumps on the shelves.



In trying to arrange the Gumdrops in a more orderly fashion for a photo, I discovered there were bottle slots under the cardboard the bottles were sitting on, so of course I had to take out all the cardboard sheets and put the bottles in the slots. Colors top to bottom: I Lilac Gumdrops, My Cherry Amour, Candy is Dandy, Cinna-man of My Dreams, Blue-berry Sweet on You, and A-nise Treat.





The same weekend I saw the NOPI Gumdrops at WalMart, I saw them at a CVS, in an end of the Nail HQ display along with Sally Hansen Fuzzy Coat, Sugar Coat, and Diamond Strength polishes.







Meijer also had a Sally Hansen Xtreme Wear limited edition collection I hadn't seen anywhere before (but have since seen at Rite Aid). It's called Hot Looks Beach Brights and has ten colors: Razz-berry, Lemon Zest, Blueberry Blast, Pink-Grape Fruit, Berry Juicy, Ice Pop, Kiwi Bikini, Peach Beach, Pink of Punch, and Perfect Pear-ing.



So far, Meijer is the only place I've seen the Milani Fantastical Plumage limited edition collection. This has a Jewel FX black and white glitter called Carnival and five regular line cremes: Scarlet Ibis, Canary, Peacock, Blue Jay, and Purple Martin.



By the time I saw the other limited edition Milani collection, Retro Glam, at another Meijer, three of the colors were gone. This is similar to Fantasical Plumage in that it has a black and white Jewel FX glitter and five other regular line colors: Sprinkles (which looks from the photo like it's Carnival plus some smaller glitter), Strawberry Shake, Raspberry Delight, Creamy Pistachio, Mint Chip, and Almond Bliss.



Nicole by OPI has mini sets with neons for summer; I've also seen these only at Meijer so far. The Scandalous Neons set has White Base, Blue Neon, Purple Neon, and Pink Neon. Notorious Neons has White Base, Green Neon, Fuchsia Neon (which looks more orange red to me), and Orange Neon.



I'll end with another display I saw first at Meijer (this one has since popped up at Ulta and Rite Aid), the Revlon Denim & Diamonds 3D Jewel Appliques nail strips. Designs are: It's Riveting (denim blue with golden yellow rivets and stitching), Zip It (red with silver zippers), Spike Out (black with silver spikes), Star Studded (denim blue with golden yellow stars), one I didn't get the name of that's grey denim with a geometric stripe, Denim & Diamonds (white/grey/black geometric), Pretty in Punk (faded denim blue with lace), and Unchained (denim blue with blue and gold chains).



Anything look especially good to you? Have you already bought/tried some of these?