More Spring Displays

I know it's only been a week since my last display post but my photo folders are once again at critical mass so I need to deal with them before it gets too overwhelming.

Essie's spring 2013 offering has six shades, though some stores have smaller displays with only four of the colors. Left to right in the big display: Hip-anema, Madison Ave-hue, Bond With Whomever, Avenue Maintain, Maximillian Strass-her, and Go Ginza. I've seen these at Walgreens and Rite Aid. I assume Ulta will get the collection at some point but last I was there, they didn't have it out.





There's another Essie display kicking around that's labeled "new shades", by which they mean "shades we're bringing back from previous collections". I've seen versions of this at Walgreens and Rite Aid and Meijer. Shades here (and the collection they first appeared in) are: Mint Candy Apple (Winter 2009), Stylenomics (Fall 2012), Butler Please (Winter 2012), No More Film (Resort 2012), Carry On (Fall 2011), and Lady Like (Fall 2011).



As if that weren't enough Essie, Rite Aid also had a "Best Of" display with Power Clutch (Fall 2011), Bobbing for Baubles (Winter 2011), Fair Game (Resort 2011), Beyond Cozy (Winter 2012), Miss Fancy Pants (Fall 2012), and Size Matters (Winter 2011). I think this is not so much a "best of" collection but rather a "leftovers" grouping. If I were in charge of putting together an Essie best of collection, it would have things like Pink Parka and Starry Starry Nights and Greenport and Ruby Slippers and Dominica Green.



I thought we'd already seen the spring 2013 L'Oreal Collection (the one with six brights and three metallics as shared in my mid-January display post), but recently spotted another limited edition collection from them that definitely looks like spring. It's called Versailles Romance and has six pastel polishes: The Palace Life, Creme Puffs, Royally Yours, Pistachio Dream, Macaroon Me Madly, and Lacey Lilac. There are also three designs of nail stickers: Chateau You Go, Ladies in Waiting, and Tart My Heart. I didn't take note of the names of the lip balms on the left side.



I've only seen this at Walgreens so far; there's also a smaller display that has only the polishes.



Maybelline's Spring 2013 display is called Color Goes Electric. There's a polish-only display with eight bright colors: Orange Extreme, Shock Wave (blue), Coral Glow, Lustrous Lime, Intense Teal, Mesmerizing Magenta, Flash of Purple, and Blast of Blue.



The display above was on a shelf at Walgreens. Later, at a different Walgreens, I saw a big endcap display of Color Goes Electric that had makeup as well as polishes, and noticed there were ten colors of polish in that. The two that hadn't been in the shelf top display were Alluring Rose and Passionate Plum (fifth and seventh from left, respectively). I later saw that same endcap at a CVS.





At a Rite Aid, I saw the shelf top polish display of Color Goes Electric, but also a wide makeup and polish shelf display that had two colors of polish, apparently that's where the two colors that don't fit into the polish only display are supposed to go.



Rite Aid also had an NYC New York Color display called Color Burst. This was labeled "new" but not limited edition, so I think they'll be core. Left to right: Pink Bling, Fuchsia Glamour (the bottle says Pink Champagne, but I looked at the NYC site and am 99% sure this is mislabeled), Preppy Pink, Pink Champagne (labeled as Fuchsia Glamour), Midtown Mimosa, Skyline Blue, Boat Basin, and Rock the Party.



Ulta had several Piggy Polish displays. There's the seasonal I-rish I was Irish, with three greens: I'm Clover It, It's a Shire Thing (definitely a re-label, though I didn't peel off the top one to see what it used to be), and Is Anybody Gnome.



Piggy's It's Spring Again display had three glitters: Be Daring Darling (a multi glitter in the tradition of Lippmann Happy Birthday), Spring-kle (iridescent glitter in a pink base), and The Earth Says Hello (a shredded glitter that looks like Cult Nails Happy Ending).



The When the Sky Falls display appeared to be an attempt to tie into the new James Bond movie without having any official authorized connection. Three colors here: Bond Squad, Red My Mind, and In-Spectre.



As soon as coupons were no longer being accepted on OPI (they're prestige now, at $9 a bottle), Ulta put out the Oz Great and Powerful display. This is the Soft Shades collection for 2013. There are three pale cremes—Glints of Glinda (peach), Don't Burst My Bubble (light pink), and I Theodora You (pink)—three glitters—When Monkeys Fly (copper/gold), Lights of Emerald City (white/iridescent), and Which is Witch (silver/holo). There's also one Liquid Sand: What Wizardry is This, a warm brown.



Ulta also had polish from a brand I know from using their makeup; I've never seen nail polish from them before, though. It's Physicians Formula. The display is a spinner with eight different Endless Color custom nail trios. These are sets of three stackable mini bottles (.15 fl. oz. each) in coordinated colors. The base of the display has nail art ideas for each of the trios. There's Trendsetter Chic (blue/purple), California Goddess (pink/orange), Bare It All (white/peach), Smokin' Haute (red/black), In the Nude (peach/taupe), Three Shades of Grey (just what you'd expect), Fashion Icon (blue/green/yellow), Treat Yourself (glitter/topcoat).



In mini news, I saw some Wet 'n' Wild Fergie mini sets at Walgreens. There are two different ones: Fergalicious Definition and The Flossy Flossy. Each has six mini polishes and photos/ideas for how to combine them for different nail art looks.



At CVS, I saw some 4-packs of Pixel polishes.



I ventured into WalMart to see if I could find the new Hard Candy colors. What I found was a completely empty display for them. I suspect that it hadn't had any polishes in it yet, as it hadn't been painted on by the typical pack of wild animals that seem to roam the beauty aisles at that store.



What WalMart did have was a display with Fing'rs Edge Ombre nail polish kits. These have five mini bottles of polish in a light to dark range of one hue (blue, pink, grey, purple, red) and a sponge to sue to create a gradient mani.



Ombre/gradient seems to have hit the mainstream. At my Kroger grocery store, they had Ombre Limited Edition Gradient Polish sets from L.A. Girl in purple, turquoise, and grey.



At CVS and Rite Aid, I've spotted Gradation Polishes sets from Kiss. The CVS display had them in blue and pink plus a Top Coat Trio pack. At Rite Aid, there was a silver/black gradation set, too.



Sally has three China Glaze Ombre sets. Wait Teal You See contains White On White, For Audrey, Aquadelic, and Turned Up Turquoise. Grape Expectations is Sweet Hook, Spontaneous, Grape Pop, and Crimson. Sweet Sensations is Angel's Breath, Something Sweet, Dance Baby, and Make an Entrance. In addition to the polishes, these sets contain 10 sponges.



The other nail art trend that I'm seeing more of in stores is the caviar/fish egg mani. Both Meijer and Ulta have Academy of Colour 3D Manicure kits with a bottle of beads, a funnel, and a base color. Meijer had Black, Sparkling Pinks, Royal Blue, Pearl, and Party Colours.





Ulta had Blue, Pink, Pearl, and Multi.



Rite Aid has Nail Pearls from Pretty Woman. These only have the beads and the funnel. There are three colors: mixed pinks, mixed blues, and multi.



I've bought a sampling of things in these displays that I hope to get time to swatch and share in the coming weeks.

A Trio of Comparisons

Today I've managed to jam ten polishes into eight photos (I almost got it down to six photos but decided I needed a couple of alternate views). Yep, it's comparison time.

One of my Google+ friends, Amoena, asked how similar some Essie taupes were to each other. If you follow me on Google+, you already saw the results, but not everyone is on all social media platforms, so I thought I'd post it here to. First, the bottles; left to right—Miss Fancy Pants, Glamour Purse, Don't Sweater It, Merino Cool.



Same order as above, on the nail:



Miss Fancy Pants is the lightest and the most grey. Glamour Purse is the brownest. Don't Sweater It and Merino Cool are the closest to being dupes, both being purple-y, but Merino Cool is noticeably more purple. They're not so different that you need one if you already have the other, though.

mrsrexy of Canadian Nail Fanatic asked in a comment if China Glaze Make a Spectacle was dupey to anything. I did not know, so over this past weekend, I grabbed a few things from my stash that looked somewhat similar in the bottle to se what I could see. Left to right: China Glaze Snow Globe, China Glaze Make a Spectacle, Hard Candy Break Up, Kiko 231.



On the nail in the same order, all two coats over Wet 'n' Wild Black Creme:



No dupes here. Snow Globe has more colors than Spectacle and is all glitter, no shimmer. Break Up is similar in feel to Spectacle, with gold to green shifting glitter and shimmer in the base, but the glitter is bigger, the shimmer more sparse and less colorful, and both are less dense than in Spectacle. Kiko 231 has things in common with all of these, but is a dupe for none.

Side view (Snow Globe on top):



At this point, I'm guessing some of you are thinking "that's nice, but I like a comparison posts with dupes in them". Well, you're in luck—take a gander at China Glaze Electrify and Sinful Pumpkin Spice:



Here are two coats of each over Orly Ignite; left to right, it's Electrify, Pumpkin Spice, Electrify, and Pumpkin Spice:



Side view, where you can see sometimes the gold really dominates in both of them depending on the viewing angle:



So if you regret not getting Electrify when the Hunger Games collection was around, look for the Sinful Bewitched display and grab Pumpkin Spice.

*****
I am still working on the Halloween giveaway winner picking; look for those results in a couple days. Other coming attractions for this week: displays, Halloween polishes, and probably more Halloween polishes.

Chanel Riva Comparisons

Back when I swatched Riva, I said I wanted to compare it to the then-new Revlon, Blue Lagoon. As usual, it took me a while to get around to doing that; while I was at it, I pulled out Hard Candy Sky to join the fun.



Once I had them side by side and took a close look, I was pretty sure that Blue Lagoon was not the Riva alternative I was searching for, though Sky showed promise. Here are bottle closeups (Revlon first, then Chanel, then Hard Candy):







For comparison purposes, I used three coats of each polish, no top coat. I was going to crop my index finger out of the shot below since it's not needed to show the differences between the colors but then I thought "no, I'm going to leave it in so people can see what a mess Riva can be".


Top to bottom: Riva, Sky, Riva, Blue Lagoon.

Yeah, so Blue Lagoon is no match for Riva. It's brighter and more opaque, with larger and more irregular shimmer. Sky is also more opaque than Riva but much closer to it in color, just bit lighter perhaps. Adding some clear to Sky might make it resemble Riva more, but that would probably make it streakier, and if I want streaks, I can just use Riva.


Top to bottom: Sky, Riva, Blue Lagoon.

This won't be the last Riva comparison I do; I have Barry M Blue Moon in my possession but need to wait to try it until my swap partner gets the things I sent her. C'mon USPS & Royal Mail!