Nails of 2021

Nails of 2021 I looked back at the writing I did here this year and see only a few nails of the day posts. I wasn't suprised; my photo folders are stuffed with pictures I've taken but not posted, and most of those are NOTD looks. Between polish swatching/play sessions, I've almost always been wearing fake nails or nail strips from my stash because those are so easy (and the fakes are so protective). To kick off this year, I thought I'd share some of last year's NOTD, lest all those photos go to waste. Back in the day, when Meijer carried MOB (Ministry of Beauty) fake nails for a short time, I scooped up multiple sets when they went on clearance and wore several of those in 2021, including these blue Ultra-Reflect ones, sibling of the orchid ones I wore in 2015 and reviewed .

 

I wore several different sets of Maybelline Nail Falsies (most of those grabbed on clearance, too), including the Keep It Red reverse french set. I first wore this brand of fakes back in 2013.

 

Not all of my looks came from stash, though. I bought a set of the imPress Color nails that I first saw at Walgreens early last year. I tried a shimmery shade called Peanut Pink when my nails were in a shorties stage that these imPress would cover. These have the adhesive already applied to the nail which is easier than having to use separate tabs. I got good wear from them, too. I liked them so well, I bought and wore a couple more sets over the course of the year (Paralyzed Pink and Taupe Prize). They're good basics if the length works for you.

 

I wore L'Oreal Colour Riche Press-On Nails for the first time last year. I bought them in Canada back when going to Canada was still a thing that was possible (I think it is again, with proof of vaccination and a PCR test, but testing is such a mess right now I don't need to burden that system so I can go see what nail polish is a Shoppers Drug Mart). These fit my nails well though the length was on the short side so had to wait until I had a break that made me cut down my natural nails. The adhesive tabs were good and I got about 10 days of wear from this set.

 

I wore these Kiss Gel Fantasy medium length ones at Easter time because the colors reminded me of a bowl of candy, those pastel mints specifically.

 

I liked the wear I got from the one set of SinfulColors Claws I wore last year, these beige with slightly see through red tips, though this shape left the corners of my natural nails exposed so that wasn't great from a protection angle.

 

I tried Clutch Nails for the first time last year, having bought them at Target on impulse when I was there looking for something else. I got the Natural Nude set, and immediately after putting them on, cut them shorter so they felt more natural. These are glue ons, and I had a lot of trouble with nails just popping off and having to be reglued. That can happen with adhesive tabs, too, though those often get loose first so I have a warning.

 

My Halloween look was a pink and black set with spiders from Magic Press.

 

One issue I had with fake nails this year was some of the plastics would change color from my hair dye (it's been blue for a while now). I use semi-permanent dye, and when it's fresh, there's a fair bit of excess dye that comes off. Look how the pink and taupe (from another set I wore) went grey just from me having my fingers in my hair to braid it. This doesn't happen with all sets and fortunately the color change is even rather than streaky when it does happen.

 

I did a couple different sets of Fing'rs Prints nail when my own were short enough. I wore the plaid and black Rock Rebel ones around Thanksgiving.

 

I finished out the year in a couple Christmas sets, including this red and green glitter from Kiss.

 

At the moment, my nails just have a treatment base on them, as I couldn't decide what I wanted for the new year. Happy 2022 everyone! May we all have more joy this year.

Wheel G14: Magnetics

Today for Nail Wheel Wednesday I've got magnetics, mostly brands I had to travel or trade to get. Standard magnetic wheel rules applied: because I was doing 20 in one sitting, I didn't always leave the magnet in place long enough to make a strong pattern, and because the tips are close together, I sometimes couldn't get the magnet where I would if I were doing the pattern on a real nail.

 

(all two coats with top one magnetized) 1. Dona Mirelle Opti Grow Magnet MG05
2. Dona Mirelle Opti Grow Magnet MG15
3. Dona Mirelle Opti Grow Magnet MG06
4. IsaDora Magnetic Nails Electric Violet
5. IsaDora Magnetic Nails Magnetic Mania
6. IsaDora Magnetic Nails Steel My Heart
7. L'Oreal Star Magnet Silver
8. L'Oreal Star Magnet Grey
9. L'Oreal Star Magnet Prune [I smudged this, not the polish's fault]
10. Ludurana Aurora Magnetic Explosao de Luz
11. Essence Metallics Steel Me [used generic bar magnet for all Essence ones; I don't know if they had their own and I misplaced it or what]
12. Essence Metallics Nothing Else Metals
13. Essence Metallics Iron Goddess
14. Essence Metallics Copper Rules
15. Eye Candy Magnetic Quilt Bordeaux
16. Eye Candy Magnetic Quilt Peacock
17. Deborah Lippmann Love is a Battlefield
18. Deborah Lippmann Hard Knock Life
19. Deborah Lippmann Magic Man
20. Deborah Lippmann Pink Princess

Bottles 1 through 5:

 

Directions on the Dona Mirele ones, which I bought in Minsk, Belarus on a business trip:

 

6 through 10:

 

11 through 15:

 

16 through 20:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Essie Expressie Comparisons

As I mentioned in Monday's post, most of the Essie Expressie line is made up of cremes, which I bought several of because of course I did. There are a few shimmers in the line as well, and I'm kicking off today's post with the one I bought: Mic Drop-It-Low, a purple-leaning deep pink, or as Essie describes it on their website, a "shimmering magenta pink". My swatch is two coats. I was happy to see that the shimmer shows on the nail even in the indirect light of my lightbox.







For comparison purposes, I grabbed the closest polish I could easily find (yes, my stash is still in transition to a more organized state), SinfulColors Frozen Rose from the Vanessa Hudgens winter 2018 collection.



Top to bottom, below (2 coats each): Sinful, Essie, Sinful, Essie. The base colors of these are very close to each other, with the Sinful being perhaps a touch more purple. Frozen Rose has more visible shimmer and its shimmer is more varied, showing both pink and purple particles. The shimmer in Mic Drop-It-Hot is about as dense as the Sinful but it doesn't show on the nail as much (not even in direct light, the photos of which I'm not posting as they don't show anything different than these lightbox ones do).





I also did comparisons for four of the cremes I bought (two of which I used in Monday's nail art): Precious Cargo-go, Taxi Topping, Don't Hate Curate, and Saffr-on the Move.



Before I get to the comparisons, here are these four as Skittles; I'll have to remember this combination come autumn. Top to bottom: Saffr-on the Move, Don't Hate Curate, Taxi Topping, and Precious Cargo-go. All were two coats.



Kicking off the creme comparisons with Saffr-on the Move. Bottles, left to right: Barielle Aura Angora (now suffering from a case of Ugly Bottle Syndrome, aka UBS), Essie Saffr-on the Move, and Revlon Street Wear Burnt.



On the nail, left to right (all two coats): Aura Angora, Saffr-on the Move, Burnt, Saffr-on the Move. No dupes here, though Burnt comes closer, being a touch lighter and less orange than Saffr-on the Move. Aura Angora is rather more yellow than Saffr-on the Move.



I held over Aura Angora for the next comparison. Left to right: Barielle Aura Angora, Essie Don't Hate Curate, Nails Inc. Hampstead Gardens.



On the nail, left to right: Aura Angora, Don't Hate Curate, Hampstead Gardens, Don't Hate Curate. Again, two coats of each. No matches here. Aura Angora and Hampstead Gardens are both darker than Don't Hate Curate. Aura Angora and Hampstead Gardens are closer to each other than either is to Don't Hate, though Aura looks a bit more muted.



I could only easily find one decent comparison possibility for Taxi Hopping: L'Oreal The Perfect Trench.



And, nope, not a match. Left to right: L'Oreal, Essie, L'Oreal, Essie (all two coats). The Perfect Trench is ligher and more muted on the nail in comparison to Taxi Hopping; I thought they looked closer than that in the bottles.



And finally, the greens: OPI Uh-Oh Roll Down the Window, Essie Precious Cargo-go, Zoya Dree.



On the nail, left to right (2 coats each): OPI, Essie, Zoya, Essie. The OPI and Zoya are both darker than the Essie and pretty much a dupe of each other.



That I didn't find any dupes for the Essies in the course of swatching for this post makes me feel better about buying more cremes. Now granted, I didn't do an exhaustive search of my stash (see previous note about reorganizing), so I can't be sure I don't have dupes out there somewhere but at least they didn't pop out at me right away.

Mostly Purple NOTD

I haven't had much time for swatching recently, but I have still been doing my nails, at least most of the time. Usually it's been strips or fakes, but sometimes liquid polish gets in the action, as with the nails of the day I'm sharing today.

This started out simply, with Sally Hansen Salon Effects Strips in Good Morning Glory, one of my favorite patterns. Since a lot of my clothes have purple in them, this white with purple floral usually coordinates nicely with what I'm wearing.





I thought it went especially well with this non-purple outfit I wore to a party (yes, those are figures from Disney's Haunted Mansion—one woman at the party recognized them, even).



The strips weren't quite up to the abuse I put them through; instead of touching them up with white polish as I've done before, I took them off and put on L'Oreal Violet de Nuit, one of the Le Vernis à L'Huile shades I got when I was in Canada this past summmer. This was a dream to apply, so smooth, and nearly a one coater, though I used two, topped with NYC Grand Central Station quick dry top coat.





The twist is that I didn't take off all the strips; I left ones that were in better shape as accent nails. For some reason I didn't take photos of that, though, so all I have is this shot before I took off the whole mani.



Based on this, I'm wishing I'd gotten more of these L'Oreal shades, even though I already have so many cremes. I did get one other one, so hope to use that soon, and Canada isn't that far away so I could go up and grab more.

Displays from a Few Summer Days in Canada

Today I'm finally wrapping up with the displays I saw on my early summer travels; these are the ones from Canada that I saw when I was there for IEC (and later for lunch and shopping in Windsor, which the border agent I encountered crossing back into the US seemed to find suspicious—travel to Canada twice in less than a week? what kind of American was I? Sigh.)

The first store I stopped at when I crossed the border was Rexall. There I saw a display for Cutex, specifically New Cutex Expert Care Manicure Solutions. Because I am old, I remember Cutex from back in the day, when it was a cheap drugstore brand that I bought with babysitting money. These new polishes are not cheap: 9.99 Canadian. The display I saw had slots for nine colors, eight of which were occupied when I got there. Front row: Walking on a Clound, Two Dozen Roses, Flower Pout, Pop the Prosecco. Back row: Lipstick Jungle, Passion Ignites, Fiery Temper. Much as I like to collect new brands and bottles, I skipped all of these on account of boringness. I have seen pictures of more interesting shades in this line, but I did not run across them on my trip. The rest of the display was filled with nail treatments, top coat, lotion, and remover.



I'm always happy to see an Essence display, even if all the polish is core shades, like in this Next Stop Summer shelf top I spotted at the Shoppers Drug Mart next door to the Rexall. Polish colors here: Sweet As Candy, Play With My Mint, Jeans On, #Lucky.



The GOSH display at Shoppers made me sad; three whole sections of makeup with one tiny tiny section for nail stuff, and not even any fun colors.



I haven't seen any new polish from L'Oreal in the US since last summer, so was extra happy to see the Le Vernis à L'Huile, which is oil polish (similar to the Sally Hansen Color Therapy, I'm thinking) in bottles that have a sort of quilted/segmented design, which is very attractive to my eyes. Wish we had these in the States, for sure. I first saw them in a shelf top display at a Shoppers. Shades here: L'Or, Café de Nuit, Moka Chic, Greige Amoureux, Gris Décadent, Vert Absynthe, Cobalt Indécent, Bleu Royal, Violet De Nuit. There were also Colour Riche Press-On Nails in the Moon About You design here; I thought at first they'd been just set there randomly, but there were slots in the display for those boxes, so apparently they belonged.



I'd mentioned seeing these to mrsrexy when we met up at IEC and she said there were more colors; sure enough when we popped into a Shoppers near the IEC venue, there they were in the nail polish aisle, tucked in among all the other brands. Top row: Crystal, Blanc de Lune, Nude Demoiselle, Dimanche Après-Midi, Jardin de Roses, Rose Ballet, Nymphea, Fuchsia Palace, Violet Vendôme. Second row: Coral Trianon, Chérie Macaron, Orange Triomphe, Rouge Sauvage, Carmin Parisien, Rubis Folies, Violet de Nuit, Grenat Irréverent, Noir Noir. Bottom row: Vert Epoque, Cobalt Indécent, Bleu Royal, Vert Absinthe, Gris Décadent, Greige Amoureux, Moka Chic, L'Or, Café de Nuit.



This Quo by Orly Color Amp'd display was mostly bare when I saw it, but I still thought it interesting to see the no-light gel was in this brand as well.



In the core aisle at Shoppers, I saw Quo by Orly Breathable polish, which seemed to be same shades we got in Orly Breathable in the States.



I was intrigued by the Revlon Spring Love by Maripier Morin display as it's been ages since I saw anything new from Revlon back home, but it turned out that these were not all new, and the ones I didn't recognize were not exciting. The caps did have pretty wraps on them, though. Colors here: Knockout, Valentine, Gray Suede, Urban, Eclectic.





I saw two Sally Hansen Complete Salon Manicure displays. First was for the Spring Collection 2017. Shades here: Stellar Style, Pink Pong (positions of these first two, World is My Oyster (marked new), What in Carnation, Dream Boat, Tropic Thunder. Display also had Dry and Go Drops.



The other was Beachside Bride, which had a different lineup than the ones in the States: Sweet Talker, Crush on Blue, Mauvin' on Up (marked new), Let's Snow, Gleam Supreme, Raisin the Bar. Also had Complete Care 7-in-1 treatment.



I've seen peel-off polish in the States before, and the Sensational brand, but not Sensational Peel Off polish, which again was a Shoppers find. Left to right: White Now, Wednesday We Wear Pink, The Okay Coral, Mermaid in the Shade, Lilac & Relax, Blue My Mind,



In a different Shoppers, I saw a different Sensationail Peel Off display; this one had more autumnal palette overall compared to the spring/summer look of the first one. Shades here: I Pink I'm in Love, Plum-p It Up, Winosaur (hah!), You Had Me at Merlot, Stop Metalling in My Business, Take Black the Night.



I was tempted by the Vitry Nail Repair Treatment at Rexall, as my nails too often look like the before photo, but I wasn't willing to part with $21 Canadian to take a chance that it would work better than all the other stuff I've tried.



I really I could make an effort to get up to Canada from Idaho; it's not that much farther than when I was in Michigan, but here there isn't a bustling place like Windsor on the other side, so pretty much I'd hit up the one Shoppers in town and be done with my nail polish hunting. Still, those L'Oreal L'Huile bottles are there, so maybe.