Kit Celebration and GOSH Denim Delight

I've bombarded you all with photos over the past couple days and have a couple picture-heavy posts planned coming up, so today I'm giving us all a little rest with a simple post about just two polishes. (Someday Nail Wheel Wednesday will return, I promise. Or threaten, depending on your views on nail wheels.)

When Tracey and Melissa and I stopped at Rexall on our way to Girly Bits HQ, we each bought a bottle of Kit Celebration, a multi-color multi-size glitterbomb in a clear base. I thought it would pair nicely with GOSH Denim Delight from Shoppers Drug Mart, where we'd been just before we hit Rexall.



Celebration has medium and small metallic hex glitter in a range of colors—silver, gold, orange, blue, green, and pink—as wel as tiny silver glitter (or mabye it's silver and gold; it's hard to tell since it's so tiny).



Denim Delight is a dusty blue creme; I used two coats as my base color, then did a glitter gradient with Celebration. I tried to drag most of the bigger glitters toward the tips of my nails and leave the tiny ones closer to the base. I added topcoat to smooth everything out when I was done pushing the glitter around.







Overall, I like this combination, though I do wonder if Celebration would look even better over a different base color: deep berry red or forest green, perhaps. I'll be interested to see how Tracey and Melissa decide to use their bottles of Celebration.

Sally Hansen Color Frenzy Glitters with Julie G Cruise Collection

There are so many things I want to swatch and so little time that I decided to combine two collections into one post. The Sally Hansen Color Frenzy glitter toppers would need to be layered over something, and the Julie G Cruise collection seemed like it would fit the bill for many of the glitters, so I grabbed all the bottles and got to swatching.

The Sally Hansen Color Frenzy line (which, if the display is to be believed, is limited edition) has eight shades. Top row: Candy Drops, Green Machine, Paint Party, and Fruit Spritz. Bottom: Red White & Hue, Spark & Pepper, Sea Salt, and Splattered. All of these have a clear base.



The Julie G Cruise collection (also limited edition) has six summery shades: Canary Islands, Old San Juan, Miami Beach, Rio de Janeiro, Santorini, and Tahiti.



Sally Hansen Green Machine has matte spring green small bar and various sized hex glitters plus tiny gold holo glitters.



I paired Green Machine with Julie G Canary Islands, a yellow creme. I used two coats of Canary Islands (which was very well behaved, especially for a yellow) and topped all but my index fingers with two coats of Green Machine. I did not add topcoat; the clear base in Green Machine was on the thick side and the glitter was not bumpy, despite the bottle saying it's "textured nail color"—I guess they meant visual texture.





Sally Hansen Splattered has matte pink glitter in medium and very small hexes, black hex glitter, gold glitter shards, and red bar glitter.





Splattered got partnered with Julie G Old San Juan, a soft orange creme. I used three coats of Old San Juan, though probably could have done two if I'd been more attentive with my application. I then added two coats of Splattered on most nails. Splattered is the exception to my "more glitter is better" rule; I think it would have looked better if it didn't have so many disparate elements. I'd have taken out the black hexes, or left the black hexes and taken out the tiny pink ones, or left the tiny pink hexes and the black ones and taken out the gold shards. As it is, there's too much chaos for taste.



Sally Hansen Fruit Spritz has medium sized matte hex glitters in spring green, pastel yellow, pale pink, and light orange plus similarly sized silver holo hexes.



Fruit Spritz's partner was Julie G Miami Beach, a coral creme. Miami Beach was another two-coater, then I added two coats of Fruit Spritz plus some dabbing to get the hexes more evenly distributed. Again, no topcoat needed for the glitter. I did see some bubbles trapped in the thick base of Fruit Spritz, as I had to a lesser extent with the first two Color Frenzy glitters, which makes me think I should try thinning before I use these again, as I don't believe I shook them too much and introduced bubbles that way (nor was it breezy or humid the day I swatched these).





Candy Drops is a pink version of Green Machine, with multi sizes of matte pink hex glitter, small matte pink bars, and little silver holo glitters.



I paired Candy Drops with Julie G Rio de Janeiro, a purple-leaning medium pink creme. I used two coats of each.





Sally Hansen Red White & Hue has small and large matte hex glitters in red, white, and blue.



Julie G Santorini, a cornflower blue with hidden shimmer, made a good buddy for Red White & Hue. These were also two-coaters, though a third or Red White & Hue or some dabbing probably would have been a good idea to get better glitter coverage.





You may be able to catch glimpses of the shimmer in Santorini above; here's how it looks in the bottle:



The last Julie G is Tahiti, a mint green which also has a shimmer, though rather than the tiny silvery shimmer that Santorini had, this has flecks of blue.



I paired Tahiti with Sally Hansen Sea Salt, which has small blue and light green matte hex glitters, silver holo glitter shreds, and fine gold shimmer.



I used two coats of each for my swatch (no glitter on the index finger, of course).





Bonus sunshine shot so you can see the shimmer in Tahiti:



Rather than reuse Julie G colors for the last two Color Frenzy swatches, I grabbed polishes I'd bought when I was in Canada for our lacquer ladies day out. First, I partnered Sally Hansen Paint Party with Bourjous 1 Seconde Turquoise Block, a sea green creme.



Paint Party has matte bar and hex glitters in turquoise, light orange, and spring green.



I used two coats of Turquoise Block and then three plus dabbing of Paint Party. Of all the Color Frenzies, I had the most trouble with Paint Party; those glitters just didn't seem to want to come out of the bottle, and once they did, they didn't want to leave the brush. You can see I got decent distribution only on my ring finger. All those layers meant more bubbling, too.





I matched up the last Color Frenzy, Spark & Pepper, with Kit Blue Ivy, a dusty blue creme.



Spark & Pepper has small black and white matte hex glitter, black hex long bar glitter, and silver holo glitter shards. I used two to three coats of it over two coats of Blue Ivy. The bars were reluctant to come out of the bottle (I only managed it on my middle finger) but the other glitter was more agreeable.





Just for fun, I tried the four lighter Color Frenzy colors in a Skittles mani over Kit Blue Ivy; top to bottom, Candy Drops, Fruit Spritz, Pait Party, and Green Machine.



Summing up, the Julie G collection has some cheery colors that are perfect for summer, and the formula on them is quite nice. My picks are Santorini and Canary Islands. The Color Frenzy line some fun glitter combinations, though the thick base can make them a bit hard to work with (it's not as goopy as the OPI Sheer Tints, true, but it could still use some thinning). My picks from this group are Candy Drops, Red White & Hue, and Fruit Spritz.

Nail Polish Displays Across the Border Edition

Despite living less than an hour from Canada, I hadn't been over there in a long time until this past Saturday morning, when I headed south (yes, south; to get from Detroit to Windsor, Ontario you head south; those particular Canadians are not in fact my "neighbors to the north") to meet up with mrsrexy (a.k.a. the Canadian Nail Fanatic) and nailXchange (whose blog is on hiatus, more's the pity). We converged on Leamington for a craft show at which there would be nail polish, Girly Bits, to be specific. I arrived a little early and in the process of looking for an ATM drove by the big Heinz plant and the welcome to Leamington sign which proclaimed it as the Tomato Capital of Canada.



I did find an ATM and was inordinately fascinated by the 20 dollar bills which came out of it—I hadn't seen, much less touched, these updated bills with the holographic queen and tower on a embedded plastic ribbon. Money you can see your nails through that's also got holo accents? Sign me up!



The craft show was at a community center which also houses an ice rink, so I got to watch part of a youth hockey game before the other ladies arrived—that felt very Canadian. When mrsrexy and nailXchange got there we did a quick tour of the show floor and found not only Girly Bits but also a Konad booth in amongst the knitting and quilting and jewelry and foodstuffs and decorative home accessories and other crafty items. We then left to go eat lunch; we could have eaten there at the rec center but the selection wasn't that great and besides, leaving the building meant we could go to the beauty supply in town, where they had some Pupa displays. I don't think I've ever seen a Pupa display in person before. The two I got photos of were called Jeans n' Roses and 50s Dream.





Then we went to lunch and after eating took the mandatory nail photo. You might recognize my green and black Maybelline Nail Falsies in the lower left. nailXchange was sporting the pink stamped look on the right, and mrsrexy had a glittery blue stamped with white (the glitter is not showing here but trust me it was very sparkly in person).



My main credit card had been declined at the beauty supply store (yeah, I bought some of those Pupa colors) but that didn't concern me since that bank often shuts me off when I leave home and I'd forgotten to call them to tell them I'd be in Canada. During lunch I called and yes, they had blocked my account but I navigated the automated system and verified things and got the message that it was unblocked. I went to pay for lunch; it was blocked again. I called the bank again and spoke to a person this time. A rude person who told me they could not unblock it and were canceling my card and sending me a new one and when I questioned this, told me I needed to stop interrupting him. I hung up and paid cash for lunch. I called the bank back and spoke to a different person who tapped away on her keyboard and told me I was good to go. Just in case I was not, I hit another ATM on our way back to the show—more plastic holo queen money for me. Back at the show, I happily spent that cash on Girly Bits. It was so fun to be able to pick up the bottles and swatch sticks and nail wheels and ponder all the pretty colors before deciding which ones needed to come home with me.



I didn't get anything at the Konad booth since I barely use the stamping stuff I already have but it was interesting to look at all the different products she had. I did get a couple things to take home to Mr. K and few non-polish things for me, too. All too soon the show was closing and we had to part ways, heading home in opposite directions. On my way out of town, I took a small detour to see Lake Erie—seemed silly to be a couple blocks away and not go look.



It was the same theory that led me to stop at Shoppers Drug Mart in Windsor—I was driving right by, might as well stop. One of the first things I came across when I went in was a Cover Girl Hunger Games display that wasn't like any of the variations I'd seen in the U.S. This one had five of the polish colors and slots for four designs of nail stickers (of which three were there, including two I'd not seen before).



There was a GOSH Christmas display which included a five piece set of Oh My GOSH polishes



There were sets of adorable mini bottles of Quo by Orly; the 18 piece one shown below and two different 6 piece ones (Sugar, with pastels, and Spice, with bolder colors).



And look here—Quo by Orly 3D Nail Art Stickers; I wanted many, but only bought one in case these are the type that doesn't last on me (my credit card I'd called and called about did not work at checkout, so I used my other card, which is from a bank that doesn't seem to care where I go):



At Rexall, I saw my first Kit brand display.



They also had a smaller display that oddly covered up most of the bottle where the color shows; I guess these are the shy shades.



It was a fun day, and I hope it won't be too long before we get to do something similar again.