Displays of Many Colors

This week before Christmas is a good time to avoid shopping since places get so crowded, but it's a fine time to catch up with posting some displays that wouldn't fit into my last display post.

First, a first for me—I set foot in an Urban Outfitters store. I had some of their polishes in my stash already, thanks to kind friends and the internet, but I'd never gone to one of their stores because neither of the locations closest to me are on my way to or from any other places I frequent. What got me to make a special trip was seeing swatches of their holos. I found the polish display easily enough; it was facing the front door, about 10 or 15 feet into the store.



The holos weren't in there, though; the holos were piled in a big bowl on the far end of a counter. There are three colors, straightforwardly named Silver Holo, Green Holo, and Pink Holo.



Around a curve from the holos were mini sets for ombre manicures.



I'm in Kohl's stores quite often (they've got one by my office, one by my house, and a couple in between) but not for polish, because if they have any at all, it tends to be gift sets from brands I've never heard of. I was surprised on a recent visit to see a full line display of polish from Elle. I've not heard of that brand, either, though from some poking around online I see it's exclusive to Kohl's and was launched this past April in association with Elle magazine. I didn't buy any because the $10 price tag seemed steep for an impulse buy; I'll wait 'til they're on sale and I have a coupon (which is pretty much my strategy for Kohl's overall).



The top row (left to right): Clear Coat, Snow Day (two slots), Faux Naturel (x2), Petticoat Pink (x2), Preppy Chic (x2), Tutu (x2), and Vintage Charm.

Middle row: Clear Coat (again), Vintage Charm (also again), Go Go Coco, Trouble in Taupe, Oxford Brown, Tropical Blush, Bright Young Thing, Fucshia Fusion, Shock It to Me, Red Carpet Red, Imperial Purple, Curtain Call.

Bottom row: Clear Coat (for the third time), Saturday Night Shimmer, Blush Stroke, In a Fog, Some Like it Lilac, On Location, Riviera Blue, Seaside Chic, Surfer Babe, About Thyme, Dancing Queen, Chain Mail.

When I went back to the CVS that had the Nail HQ display, they'd gotten more stock, so the Sally Hansen Complete Salon Manicure section was more filled in than when I'd first seen it.



Top row: Copper Penny, Golden Rule, Gilty Party, Snow Globe, Hi Ho Silver (though front polish is Gilty Party again; I should have caught and moved that before I took the photo), Clear'd for Takeoff, Debut-tint.

Second row: Sheer Ectasy, Shell We Dance, Mudslide, So Much Fawn, Raisin the Bar, Plum's the Word, Commander in Chic.

Third row: Almost Almond, Sweet Talker, Pink a Card, I Lilac You, Get Juiced, Back to the Fuchsia, Rosy Outlook.

Bottom row: Kook a Mango, Red My Lips, Wine Not, Pat on the Black, Jaded, Water Color, Black and Blue.

The Revlon Brilliant Strength had been pretty well stocked the first time, but this visit I had time to take a closer look.



Top row: Embody, Allure, Enchant, Enamor, Dazzle, Provoke, Magnetize.

Second row: Impress, Entice, Intrigue, Tempt, Mesmerize, Tantalize, Hypnotize.

Third row: Inspire, Inflame, Captivate, Seduce, Enrapture, Fascinate, Beguile.

Last row: Persuade, Enthrall, Dominate.

I also had time to take closer photos of the Nuance Salma Hayek polishes (full display shot if in this post). This row: Blush Peony (times 2), New Primrose, My Favorite (x2), Base Coat (x2), Top Coat (x2).



Next row: Pink Grapefruit, Bare Kiss, Moonflower, Silver Dust, Goldstone, Café Latte, Desert Mist, Dark Earth, Woodsmoke.



Row after that: Honey Blossom, Tiger Lily, Deep Orchid, Rococo Red, Azalea, Cayenne, Orange Poppy, Red Sienna, Rosegold.



Last row: Lilac, Midnight Blackberry, Nightshadow, True Azul, Prickly Pear, Evening Haze, Vapor, Crushed Violet, Black Dahlia.



At a Rite Aid, I saw a bigger display of the new Cover Girl Outlast line than I'd come across before.



Finally, at the Walgreens that sometimes has things other Walgreens don't, I found a display of Nabi scented polish. The display card says Scent Nails, the bottles say Scented Nail, so I'm not sure what exactly these are called. There's a crazy number of colors here; the same scents are used for multiple colors, so there aren't as many scents as colors.



Top row: Blue (green apple scent), Charcoal (candy), Taupe (chocolate), Neon Orange (orange), Milky Sky (lemon), Hot Pink (strawberry), Mustard (pineapple), Teal (watermelon), Mint (green apple), Midnight (cherry).

Second row: Sky (green apple), Cotton Candy (candy), Nude Pink (chocolate), Peach (orange), Pinkle (lemon), Dark Pink (strawberry), Banana (pineapple), Covalt Blue (watermelon), Lime (green apple), Coral (cherry).

Third row: Lavender (green apple), Base Coat (candy), Rose (chocolate), Sweet Orange (orange), Shimmer Peach (lemon), Princess Pink (strawberry), Multi Glitter (watermelon), Wedding Dress (watermelon), Bright Green (green apple), Red (cherry).

Fourth row: Lilac (green apple), White (candy), Mocha (chocolate), Tropical (orange), Angel Pink (lemon), Pink (strawberry), Blue Glitter (watermelon), Grape Juice (watermelon), Baby Blue (green apple), Eggplant (cherry).

Fifth row: Cotton Candy (candy), Black (candy), Natural (chocolate), Tangerine (orange), Blush (strawberry), Sweet Pink (strawberry), Peek a Boo Pink (strawberry), Fuchsia (watermelon), Gold Glitter (watermelon), Real Red (cherry).

Bottom row: Silver (candy), Clear (candy), Mauve (chocolate), Indian Pink (chocolate), Silk Road (candy), Gold (candy), Green Glitter (watermelon), Silver Glitter (watermelon), Purple Glitter (watermelon), Angel Red (cherry).

Apparently there is a 60th color in this line, Pearl, which is candy-scented and a light peach color. (I stumbled across that when I was double checking the color names for the ones my detail photos weren't clear on.)

Whew. That's fewer photos than usual for a display post, but I feel like it's way more colors. Maybe it just seems that way because my brain is tired from thinking about things like a polish called Banana that smells like pineapple.

Holiday and Other Displays

Christmas is such a festival of shopping that it's time for another display post even though I just did one last week. I've got more holiday stuff, including the sort of polish-y things that only show up at this time of year, as well as some core colors developments that I don't want to put off sharing.

But first I have a couple variations on displays I've already shared. Target had their Nicole by OPI holiday Kardashian Kolors were in a wide endcap shelf display along with some of the previously released Target exclusive colors.



Walgreens had a sidekick from Sinful Colors with makeup on the top and polish on the bottom, including the holiday glitters that previously I'd only seen in a shelf display on their own.



Snowman polishes from Blue Cross are a winter tradition, and this year is no exception. Rite Aid has them in a display branded with the name Ornaments along with candy cane lip gloss.



Meijer has them in a most pit in the stocking stuffers section of the holiday aisles.



This year, for the first time I can recall, there are Sally Girl branded snowmen at Sally Beauty. I've only seen two colors, a red microglitter and a pinky pearl shimmer. They look exactly the same as the other ones, but they're priced at $1.99 versus $2.99 at Rite Aid. With a price like that, I wish they had more colors.



At Halloween, Blue Cross gave us Disco Lights polish with a blinking light in the cap. The concept confused me then, and I'm no less confused by Holiday Lights, which is the same thing but with different colors of polish. Who's going to see my blinking lights? If I turn it on and it's blinking while I'm trying to paint, won't that be distracting? Instead of glow in the dark colors that were on offer at Halloween, these are glitters and brights. I've seen two display versions of these at different Rite Aids.





Some of the same polishes that are in the snowman and blinking bottles can also be found in the Ornaments mini sets. There's a bling set with four glittery polishes in rounded bottles and rhinestones for nail art. Those four polishes show up in squared bottles with a fifth glitter in another set. If you're not into glitter, there's a set with cremes (three of which look liek summer colors to me, but a little brightness in winter never hurts). If you like scented polishes, there are a few different Candy Shop sets: bright colors in two different sets of five as well as a scented glitters quintet.









Wet 'n' Wild has few sets out for the holidays, too. There's the Perfect Petites, eight mini bottles of Mega Last with a bottle shape that mirrors the full size ones that we got with the relaunch (earlier this year? I don't even remember). These are classic whites, pinks, and reds; most (all?) are creme finishes.



For the slightly more adventurous polish lovers on your gift list, there's Little Luxuries, a set of nine Wet 'n' Wild Color Icon minis. This has mostly shimmers (and one glitter) in a range from light to dark.



Rounding out the min sets I've seen from Wet 'n' Wild, there's Pretty Wild, a set of ten Wild Shine minis in squared bottles. These are mostly (all?) shimmers, with brights like orange and lime green included.



In the category of full size sets, CVS has a Spoiled by Wet 'n' Wild bucket, which contains seven Spoiled polishes, two clear Wet 'n Wild Fast Dry ones, toe separators, and a file. Two of the Spoiled have crackle overwraps on their caps, which is odd because I never saw Spoiled crack before. I'm not curious enough about it to buy a whole bucket just to try it (though if these go on a big sale, I just might bite). The bucket packaging made more sense to me when they did it in the summer—you could paint your toes and take the bucket to the beach to play.



I've seen three mini sets from Sally Hansen: Gem Crush, Insta Dri, and Xtreme Wear.



At Ulta, they have an exclusive OPI mini set with three shimmers (red, green, and purple) and a RapiDry top coat. The color names are Last Minute Shopper, Skip the Gift Wrap, and Gift Cards for Everyone, though I don't know which names match with which shades. I expect there'll be full size bottles of these showing up at some point, but they weren't in the store when I was there last.



Also at Ulta, I saw something that made me very excited: a Layla Ceramic Effect Display. It's called Christmas in Laylaland and has five blingy glitters and flakies. I couldn't find any names on them, but I did buy one of every color so I could look more closely later.



On a different shelf in the same Ulta, I saw another Layla display. This was half Softouch Effect and half Ceramic Effect. There were twelve colors from each line. I don't know the names of these, either, but I just couldn't justify buying one of each for research purposes. Not all at once, anyway.



While I was in Illinois for Thanksgiving, I stopped at a Walgreens and saw a Sally Hansen Complete Salon Manicure display that gave me my first look at the relaunched line (see Nouveau Cheap for more on that topic). The display looked fresh, but there were slots for two colors entirely empty. Given that the displays for Lustre Shine were short two colors, I was not too surprised. There are several blues and greens on the photo on the display, but none in the display, so I guess this is only part of the relaunched line. Some of these looked like old colors with new names, some were old colors with the same names, and some were entirely new. I want to try and sort all that out at some point, but not now. Now I will just tell you what these bottles were called.

Front row, left to right: Wedding Glitters, Gilty Party, Snow Globe, Hi Ho Silver, Clear'd for Takeoff, Debut-tint, Sheer Ecstasy, Shell We Dance?, Arm Candy.

Middle row: Pink Pong (what?), Mudslide, So Much Fawn, Raisin the Bar, Plum's the Word, Commander in Chic, Greige, Almost Almond, Earl Grey, Gray-t Escape.

Top row: Back to the Fuchsia, Rosy Outlook, All Fired Up, Red My Lips, Wine Not, Ruby Do, Trouble Maker, Pat on the Black.



The most interesting of these was Snow Globe; oh, I need to try layering this over many things!



Then, back at home earlier this week, I came across something in a CVS that nearly made me hyperventilate. I don't expect much from CVS in the way of new polish this time of year because in most stores half of the special display space is taken over by Christmas candy for the last two months of the year, but I keep checking just in case. This time, I was rewarded. There was a giant white display called Nail HQ where there used to be a normal shelf unit. This had nail stuff on all four sides. If that wasn't enough, some of it was stuff I'd never seen before. If it hadn't been ten minutes before the store closed, I probably would have taken off my coat and settled in for a long photo session to document everything in detail. As it was, I had to content myself with taking a series of quick shots as I circled it like a moth around a porch light.

The first side I came to was all Essie.



The side around the corner to the left of the Essie was gel and supplies. There was Nutra Nail Gel Perfect, Sally Hansen Salon Gel and Insta Gel Strips, and Sensationail, along with remover and files and such.



Continuing around to the left, the other short side was Nicole by OPI, including a new set of CVS exclusives I hadn't seen in person before (in the second section from the top), and Sally Hansen Lustre Shine and Gem Crush.



Then there was the last side, with the most new stuff. The Sally Hansen Xtreme Wear on the left end wasn't anything crazy special, but the big center section had a whole Revlon line I'd never laid eyes on: Brilliant Strength. Next to that was more Nicole by OPI, then it was Sally Hansen Complete Salon Manicure, with slots for what might be the whole relaunched line—too bad so many were empty. There was a bright blue called Water Color and a deep green called Black and Blue (yeah, blue, but it looked green to me) and a glitter called Copper Penny. Next to that was a section of Salon Effect strips, including some French Mani ones that were new. Finally, another whole new line from Nuance by Salma Hayak.



I was so hyped by all this visual input that some of my photos came out like this, I was moving so fast from shot to shot trying to take as much in as I could before they kicked me out of the store.







I didn't buy anything from the new brands—yet—but I did get some of the French mani strips to try and a couple of the Complete Salon colors that were new. When I'm going to find time to try them with all the other stuff I want to do outside of work, I'm not sure but they'll keep.