Showing posts with label b: la splash. Show all posts
Showing posts with label b: la splash. Show all posts

Wednesday, September 30, 2020

Wheel M13: Glitters from LA Splash and Charming Charlie

Today it's back to glitters for Nail Wheel Wednesday. I got the LA Splash when I lived in Michigan and could stop at one of the Bed Bath & Beyond stores that has a beauty section on my way home from work; some I grabbed on clearance when they stopped carrying the line. The Charming Charlie I happened across when I went into one of their stores looking for a tassel keychain like one my friend had that I wanted.
 

(all have clear topcoat in addition to glitter coats noted below)

1. LA Splash Be Mine (1 coat over half black base)
2. LA Splash Sweet Heart (1 over half black base)
3. LA Splash Love Crush (1 over half black base)
4. LA Splash Wonderland (1 over half black base)
5. LA Splash Fabuluxe (2)
6. LA Splash Embellished (2)
7. LA Splash Sparkling Wave (2)
8. LA Splash Midnight Rain (2)
9. LA Splash Heiress (3)
10. LA Splash Ocean Sprinkles (3)
11. LA Splash Mystique (2)
12. LA Splash Oceans Fairy (2)
13. LA Splash Conch Cocoa (2) [loving this one ... maybe because it's fall now and I've got earth tones on the brain]
14. Charming Charlie More Money More Problems (3) [I don't recall what this looked like new, but suspect it's had some glitter bleeding
15. Charming Charlie Feeling Lucky (3)
16. Charming Charlie Owning Everest (3)
17. Charming Charlie Icicle Blue (3)
18. Charming Charlie That's Just Grape (3)
19. Charming Charlie Pour Some Glitter on Me (3) [wish I'd put this over a black base so the holo microglitter could shine]
20. Charming Charlie Tease-y Does It (2 over peachy beige base)

Bottles 1 through 7:
 

 

8 through 13:
 

 

14 through 17:
 

 

18 through 20:
 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

A couple direct light shots to show the holo sparks in some of these:
 

 

Thursday, May 10, 2012

It's Raining Displays

There are so many new displays showing up at stores by me that I need to do a post about them even though it's not quite been two weeks since my last one. Actually, I have enough photos that today we're just going to visit drugstores and "big box" stores. I wonder if nail polish sales go up in summer. More pedicures because it's sandal weather? Kids out of school have more time to paint their nails? Whatever it is, there's so much stuff showing up even I'm starting to feel overwhelmed, and I have a huge appetite for new polish. Rite Aid in particular has rolled out many new things, so let's start our tour there.

I've never seen Ma.nish.ma polishes anywhere but Rite Aid; for summer, they've got Electric Brights, six matte finish colors. Left to right: Bolts of Blue, Nuclear Pink, Rocket Green, Lightening, Electric Blue, High Voltage.



The glitters that showed up this past January were the first LA Girl polishes my Rite Aid ever got. Those have pretty much sold out, but they've been replaced by two new displays, Disco Brites and Fruity. Disco Brites is eight colors that glow in black light. Left to right below: Disco Ball, Disco Diva, Platforms, Disco Inferno, Hustle, Turntable, Vinyl Record, Dance Studio.



Fruity is also eight colors; the twist here is that they're scented. Left to right: Sparkling Peach, Zesty Citrus, Tropical Mango, Blueberry Fizz, Watermelon Splash, Strawberry Delight, Razzy Raspberry, Blissful Blackberry.



If the LA Girl scented ones didn't catch your fancy, Rite Aid also has some unbranded ones in a display simply called Scented Nail Color. Various scents here: Cotton Candy (blue green), Sherbet (orange), Strawberry (pink; darker than Strawberry), Bubble Gum (two version, one green, one purple; yeah, I don't know why either), Tropical Fruit (blue green; I don't know what fruit that is), Grape (two versions, both purple, thank goodness), Cherry (pink), Blueberry (blue), Raspberry (purple).



The Color Phase display at Rite Aid has six nail polish "dumbbells", with color at one end and a clear on the other. Per the display the "clear top coat creates color-changing effect". Double-ended bottles make me very uncomfortable due to storage issues, but for research purposes, I did buy one of these and plan to have swatches up sometime in the next couple weeks. There are six colors here, none with names as far as I could tell.



Right next to the dumbbells, I found something called Xtreme Nail Art. These are not only double-ended but dual-tipped, with both a brush and a pen on each side. There were six combinations but it was all too much going on for me, so I left those in the store. I figure I can create my own XTREME art with the stuff I've already got.



I was surprised to see a whole new line in the core display area at Rite Aid: Julie G. You may recall she did a collection for the Jesse's Girl brand some time back, but these bottles just said Julie G. Some of the colors did look a lot like some of the ones from the Jesse's Girl collection, though I didn't see my favorite, the teal shimmer called Mermaids Lagoon. When I first saw these, the display was just being stocked (I snapped a photo when the clerk putting the bottles in went up front to help the cashier) so some of the slots were empty. I went back later to see the rest of the colors but that photo was even less clear than the first one so that's why there are gaps in the pic below. There are 27 colors in this line: Oh Em Gee (hot pink creme), Fierce & Fab (bright purple creme), Bikini (bright coral creme), Kickin' It (bright blue shimmer), My Horoscope Says (fuchsia shimmer), Passion (warm purple shimmer), Butterflies & Rosebuds (deep plum shimmer), Metallic Heels (gold shimmer), Royal Rebel (blue violet shimmer), Cupcakes & Castles (light pink shimmer), Birthday Suit (light warm pink creme), Gelato in Venice (mint creme), Fairytale (lavender creme), Julie's Fave (coral creme), Dream in Pretty (lilac creme), 9 to 5 (bright light peach creme), Stiletto (taupe shimmer), Chic Cipro (camel creme), Peep Toe Pumps (deep berry creme), Cherry on Top (red creme), Elegant Edge (red wine creme), Dance in the Dark (deep blue shimmer), Sunset Kiss (red shimmer), My Private Palace (ivory shimmer), Shimmer Island (lime shimmer), Pink Tiara (rose shimmer), Mermaid's Tale (turquoise shimmer). Some of the shimmers were flecked, some looked like they might be foils, and a couple looked like microglitters. Below the Julie G bottles were the Scherer brands; I really should do more with those since they're not widely available.



Moving along to Walgreens (though these could also be spotted at Rite Aid), Sally Hansen has a couple seasonal Hard as Nails displays with groups of core colors in them. Sweet Sorbet has (left to right below) Heart of Stone, Hard Lemonade, Nail'd It, Mighty Mango, Rock-a-billy, Party Hard-y.



The Bloom display has Hard to Tell, Rock Bottom, Love Rocks, On the Rocks, Tough Love, Set in Stone.



At CVS, there was a shelf display of Spoiled colors called Chic Boutique, the first one I've spotted from that brand. It was all core colors, though, whites and pinks and black.



CVS also had a special display of Confetti called I Want Candy. A few of these looked quite a lot like core shades though the names didn't match. Colors here: Cherry Red (pinkish red creme), Blue Raspberry Twirl (turquoise shimmer), Cotton Candy (light pink creme), Red Hot Hugs (bright red creme), Banana Bobanna Cream (yellow shimmer; not a creme), Lots o' Dots (silver holo glitter in clear), Twisted Grape (purple shimmer), and a black whose name I couldn't read because it was printed in black.



CVS had a couple things from Wet 'n' Wild that I haven't seen elsewhere: a set of FastDry minis called Summer Getaway (six .17 oz. bottles for $3.99) and a bucket with six full size Fast Dry colors, a top coat, an emery board, toe separators, and stencils.





I've seen Nutra Nail Gel Perfect at various places before and ignored it because the removal scares me (which is silly, really, since I routinely remove layers and layers of glitter), but the limited edition Sorbet collection display at CVS did catch my eye long enough for me to take a photo. Six colors here: Raspberry, Grape (very light grapes, I guess, as this is pastel) Lime, Tangerine, Blueberry (very blue, so not like any actual blueberry I've ever eaten), and Bayberry (light turquoise). None of these looked unique enough to make me want to get involved with yet another brand.



Things have been pretty quiet on the nail polish front at Meijer, but they did put out the Wet 'n' Wild limited edition FastDry Sparks & Stripes display, which has six glitters (and a freaky painted hand). Four of these glitters will be very familiar to those of you with access to the Spoiled brand. The Spoiled twins are Explosions After Dark (silver/black/red, like Spoiled Shuffle the Deck), Beautiful But Dangerous (gold/fuchsia/turquoise, like Trust Fund Baby), Spontaneous Combustion (gold/green/blue, like Pet My Peacock), Light With Caution (gold/copper/multi, like Jewelry Heist). The two that I didn't recognize were School of Pyrotechnics (red/gold/blue/green/purple, photo below) and Stars & Stripes (silver stars and holo bars in clear). This is good news for glitter lovers who can get Wet 'n' Wild but can't get Spoiled as well as those who would rather not deal with the challenging Spoiled brush, which tends toward being huge and mop-like.





I had been hearing about the Maybelline Color Show polishes for weeks now, but hadn't seen them in person and finally got so impatient I braved a trip to WalMart, where I was greeted with a fairly picked over display but at least now I've seen some of them for myself. There are supposed to be 40 colors in this line; there were a little over half that number left in this display. Some of these were labeled as Metallics, Denims, or Shredded (a.k.a. crack) in a band at the bottom of the cap; some had no additional labelling there.







Bed Bath & Beyond had a display of Revlon double-ended polishes called French Mix. Why are you doing this to me, Revlon? First the crack and now these, which have some super pretty purples, but I just don't like this sort of packaging. Eight combinations here: Sneak Peek (warm tan and light blue), Chance Encounter (white and silver), All the Rage (purple and lime), Moonstruck (lilac and lightest purple), Over the Moon (teal and baby pink), Kiss & Tell (yellow and yellow orange), Miss Perfect (palest pink and white), Sweet Revenge (rose pink and periwinkle).



BB&B also had something that quite excited me: LA Splash polishes. I haven't seen these anywhere since Ulta discontinued them, and there were some glitters in there that I didn't have.



A couple of the stores on my regular polish hunting route recently completely redid their layouts, which meant for a couple visits I couldn't find anything. I walked into a CVS one day to see several of the big wall displays on the opposite side of the store from where they'd been, just leaning up against the side of the store.



At the Rite Aid that got spruced up, I stopped once mid-renovation and couldn't find where they'd put any of the makeup, but when I came back just after they'd finished the redo, I was greeted with this lovely view—full displays on bright clean shelves. Oh, if only every store could look like this all the time.



Join me next display post for the things I've recently seen at Sally Beauty and Ulta (I'll try to get that up next week, but work is going to be more time consuming than usual for the next several days, so we'll just have to see).


Monday, August 22, 2011

Back from Vacation

Last week when I was trying to stay off the internet, I was also enjoying a vacation in northern Idaho. Work issues pulled me away from my fun (and condo improvement projects) and back online more than a few times, but I did manage to spend most of my waking hours places other than plopped down in front of a computer screen.

Mr. Karen and I did lots of walking and hiking; we went down by the lake, around the neighborhood on the mountain, and onto nearby National Forest land on various days. Looking at the great scenery and pretty wildflowers mostly distracted me from realizing how much I've been slacking on my aerobic exercise—some of those mountain paths are steep! On one trail, I got passed by a tiny dog who was clearly in much better shape than I was.











On another day, we got out of nature and went to the Silverwood theme park.





We didn't have to leave the condo to see things, though; mule deer walked quite near the building a few different times.



For most of the week, my nails were adorned with Sally Hansen Salon Effects strips in Fly With Me. I hadn't tried this butterfly design before, and now that I have they're on my good list. They applied nicely and held up pretty well. They weren't quite up to the challenge of staining a railing, but even then only a few nails looked the worse for wear after emerging from the chemical-resistant gloves; not surprising given how I was using a rag to rub on the stain and pushing my fingertips into all the tight spaces where the pickets and posts joined up so I could get the color in there. I got lots of comments and compliments on these—my mom thought I'd gotten my nails done by a professional. My photos of these aren't the best (I did not take my lightbox on vacation with me) but still give a good idea what they looked like.





My mom flew in mid-week to join us, and I used the time in the big city before I picked her up at the airport to check out some of the local stores for nail polish. First stop was Fred Meyer, where they have L.A. Girl Disco Brites, Metal, and Rock Star polishes. I'd seen these before on visits to the northwest U.S. and bought some then (and swapped for some since) so I didn't buy any of these.



They also had an L.A. Splash display with Crackle'd polishes (and some base colors and top coat). These I hadn't seen before, so had to buy a couple. They were sold out of the purple crack (called Divorce'd, which I don't understand, any more than I understand the apostrophe in Crackle'd—what letters is the apostrophe supposed to be standing in for there?), but I managed to console myself with the pink (Love'd) and seafoam (Psych'd). I'm not sure how many colors there are in this line; the display had a royal blue that wasn't on the the "color matching" guide, and there were plenty of empty slots. I looked on the L.A. Splash website and couldn't find any mention of this line at all, so they're no help.





Something I'd hoped to see at Fred Meyer but didn't was a Cosmetic Arts display; I did find a few marked down bottles in a basket at the end of an aisle but no sign of a display. Maybe I just wasn't looking in the right place, though I weaved through the cosmetics aisles a few times.

At a Dollar Tree, I spotted some L'Oreal polishes from a line I don't recall ever seeing before: Grow Strong. I was tempted by the bottle because I don't have any like this, but I was able to resist because the colors and finishes all looked like things I already had.



At a Walgreens, there were two Sinful Colors displays I hadn't seen in my area: Wild Instincts and Go Plaid. Each had four nail art colors and four polish colors, but none of them looked new to me. I wish they'd put as much effort into creating new polishes as they do into putting out new displays.





All too soon it was time to come home; on our way, we watched the sun set over the airport in Minneapolis, where we had a long layover.



(Note: I tweaked my template to allow bigger photos; please let me know if you have any trouble with the new format.)