Almost Autumn Displays

Time once again to clear out my display photo folders. Since my last display post, I've once again hunted for nail polish in several states, not just the one I live in and the one next door where a lot of my friends are. It's been a busy summer of travel for me, for sure.

As expected, fall collections are in stores now, and the Halloween specialities are also starting to show up. What I haven't seen are the Revlon polishes for the Shoot the Moon collection. I asked in a Facebook group, and no one else seems to have seen them in the wild, either. I've found no swatches online (some of the makeup from the collection, yes, but not the polishes), and the only bottle shot I've seen is one found by a blog reader (thanks, Dawn!) on the revlonliveboldly.com page (not secure so I'm not linking) that could be a Photoshop creation for all I know. I inquired to Revlon via their main website but so far haven't gotten a response. One person in a Facebook group I'm in got told by Revlon that the polishes were sold out, which seems unlikely ... if they were ever in stores, there would be some sign of them somewhere online.

I've yet to see a display for the China Glaze fall collection that a) was organized so I felt I could see what all the colors were or b) had the collection name on it (it's Ready to Wear). I saw it first at Sally Beauty, in a display which had some of the holos in it, too, and some Gelaze shades.



Then I found this shelf at Fred Meyer and took the time to pull out one of each color to line up in front; I think this is all the shades. Left to right: Throwing Suede, Mustard the Courage, Swatch Out, Aut-umm I Need That, Chic Happens, Pleather Weather, Sample Sizing Me Up, Central Parka, Vest Friends, You Don't Know Jacket, Pay It Fashion Forward, Haute Blooded.



Ulta did have a labeled display of the fake nails (sorry, "Pre-Glued Designer Nails") for China Glaze Ready to Wear. There were two designs, both in medium length almond shape. One was a rusty brown magnetic look and the other black with gold spatter.



I was keeping an eye out for the new colors of Essence Out of Space Stories and found them at the Fred Meyer closest to my house (which is about an hour and a half away; thus is the price I pay to live on a beautiful mountain with a beautiful lake nearby). They were in a display called Holo Wow!, which has mostly makeup in it, but also the two nail polishes: Mermaid of the Galaxy (turquoise/teal) and Guardians of the Unicorn (lilac). As I mentioned last time, I'd heard these were also showing up at Meijer, but I did not see them there when I was in Meijer country in Illinois.



Essie's fall collection is Say It Ain't Soho, which I saw first at Rite Aid. Shades here: Empire Shade of Mind, Booties on Broadway, Say It Ain't Soho, Stop Drop & Shop, It Takes a West Village, and Fall for NYC.



At Ulta, Say It Ain't Soho was fitted into a section of the regular display.



On the end of the nail polish display unit at Ulta, there were Essie Gel Couture shades in the Avant-Garde collection. Interestingly, this was a different assortment than I'd seen in the Avant-Garde display at Rite Aid that I shared in my last display post. Top to bottom: Avant Garment, Exhibit A-Line, Bold Boundaries, Set the Seam, What's the Stitch, and Dye-Mentions. The only two here that were also at Rie Aid are Bold Boundaries and Dye-Mentions.



Sally Beauty has a Finger Paints Holographic collection, which actually appears to be mostly holo polishes (though I've heard the rainbows are better in the bottle than on the nail). Front row: Red Rocket, Cosmic Chaos, Fantom Fuchsia (not holo). Back row: Pixie Dust, Majestic, Solar Flare.



Not only was there nothing new in the nail polish sections at the Five Below stores I went to on my last couple trips, the sections themselves were shrinking. Bins that used to be full of polish now have random beauty products in them. One of the ladies in the Five Below polish group I'm in on Facebook said a sales associate told her they're phasing out polish entirely. That makes me sad.



Fred Meyer had a display of Fright Night Claw Polish. This lineup is very similar to the one I saw last year at Meijer. Front row, left to right: Ghouls Night Out (red microglitter), Where My Witches At? (lime green, probably glow in the dark), Gettin Witchy With It (black creme), Creepin it Real (bright purple), Ghostest with the Mostest (white ghost glitter), I'm Here for the Boos (off white, likely glow in the dark). Tucked in the other rows are a couple additional colors: Skull & Crossbones (black, orange, and white skull and crossbones glitter; this is the one not a carryover from 2017) and Polk-a-dots (black and orange round glitter).



Ghostest with the Mostest detail:



Skull & Crossbones detail:



Polk-a-dots detail:



I found the Fright Night Halloween fake nails at Rite Aid. Top row: Elegant (matte black), Red Velvet (red flocked), Claws (shiny black). Bottom row: Spider Web (black/red/white spiders and webs), Black Widow (red with black spiders and webs), Poison (white with black skulls and crossbones).



Walgreens had the Kiss Halloween display with fake nails and nail art stickers.



Sally Beauty was the first place I saw OPI's fall collection, Peru. (Or Perú, as it's shown on this display.) Left to right: Suzi Will Quechua Later, Don't Toot My Flute, Grandma Kissed a Gaucho, Yes My Condor Can-do, Como se Llama, I Love You Just Be-Cusco, Machu Peach-u, Somewhere Over the Rainbow Mountains, Seven Wonders of OPI, Lima Tell You About This Color, My Solar Clock is Ticking, Alpaca My Bags.



Tucked into the upper right of the display are four Infinite Shine primers: Ridge Filling, Strengthening, Conditioning, and Brightening. A different Sally store had these pulled out on their own:



There are three Sally Beauty exclusive shades for OPI Peru: Take a Hike on the Inca Trail, Spice of Peruvian Life, You Crossed the Nazca Line. (There are also some Ulta exclusives but I haven't seen them yet; my closest Ulta has been a dead zone for polish recently.)



At Ulta, Peru was tucked into the main display, both on an end with regular and Inifinite Shine formulas (see below) and on the side (not pictured because it's backlit and I don't have time to figure out how to get that to show up nicely).



There are three Ulta exclusive Peru colors, which were either mostly sold out or mostly not yet stocked when I saw the display: Andean Culture Club, I Archeologically Dig You, Ayahuasca Made Me Do It.



NW Beauty had this display of the regular formula shades for Peru:



The mini sets have Suzi Will Quechua Later, Grandma Kissed a Gaucho, Somewhere Over the Rainbow Mountains, and Como se Llama.



NW Beauty also had an Infinite Shine display for Peru, which I was only able to snap a photo of because another customer asked a question and drew the sales associate away from the front counter:



Looking at the swatch stick for this collection at NW Beauty, I was uninspired. While I can appreciate that OPI needs to have reds and pinks to appeal to the masses, and that lots of folks don't have eleventy billion creme polishes already like I do, and that these colors do appear in the landscapes of Peru (and autumn in the US is spring in Peru so that could be why this reads more like spring to me), I really, really wish the collection looked more like the bright textiles in the photos on the display—where's the yellow and orange, or a rich brown shimmer? I might pick up a couple if I see them on clearance later but I'm not excited.



Rite Aid was in the process of setting up their Halloween section when I was there this past Saturday (seems rather late by recent standards), but they had put out one display of Pumpkin polishes called Cast a Spell. There were three shades here, all made in the USA and distributed by Pacific World Corp.: Boo-tiful (black and white glitter), Fantastic (black creme), and Creep It Real (orange creme). The display calls these "Spellbinding Nail Polish" and "Groundbreaking Nail Polish". I don't think either of those are true, but it's always fun to see the pumpkins back.



At Fred Meyer, I saw the Sally Hansen Miracle Gel Sunset Splash display. I'd seen all of these shades before in other displays, including core displays (even though the display says "limited edition"). Slots, left to right: Sundown Socialite (sold out), La Vida Lilac, Metro Midnight, Hunger Flames (core), Malibu Peach (core, times 2), Electric Pop (core, times 2), Topcoat (times 2).



Also at Fred Meyer, they had a Sally Hansen Color Therapy display called Therapy Head to Taupe with some limited edition colors in it. Starting at back left: Dusty Plum, Pink and Harmony, Falling Deep, Bronze Reflection, Cashmere Calm, and Diffused Light. There's also cuticle oil and top coat in the display.



At Walgreens, I saw a Sally Hansen Midnight Maven display for Halloween. This has core shades of Xtreme Wear plus three nail art pens.



The most exciting and unexpected thing I saw this round was a Sally Hansen Miracle Gel standee display in a Walgreens that's off my usual path but which I might have to make an effort to get to more often, as this is the second time they've had something I've not seen anywhere else. This "Create a Swirled Effect" display has two Miracle Gel Color Whirl polishes which appear to be like the OPI Black Spotted a lot of us were crazy to get our hands on when it first came out. It also has some limited edition base color shades to layer them over, as well as some core colors.



The top rows have the LE shades (topcoat is not LE, obviously): Make It Nice, Good Cheer-y, Frosted Berries, Marble-lous, Steampunk, Top Coat. Core shades in bottom rows: Beet Pray Love, Can't Beet Royalty, Wine Stock, Shhh-immer, Terra-Coppa, Get Mod, Adrenaline Crush.



Rite Aid had a Halloween Lip Smacker Disney Tsum Tsum display with four Smackers polishes that looked very similar to last year's. Shades here: Skellington, King of Halloween, Sorceress of the Sea, and Mistress of All Evil. All but King of Halloween seem to be reissues from 2017, which I swatched last fall. There was an orange creme last year, with Sally from Nightmare Before Christmas on it; the King of Halloween we have this year with Jack is a brighter shade than Sally was. I didn't buy it because a) have a lifetime supply of orange cremes in my stash and b) I am annoyed that they did two of the same male character and got rid of the female character from the same movie.



Summer's not quite over, as I came across one more display variation of the SinfulColors Vanessa Hudgens collection. This Ombre All Day display at Walgreens had boxed sets of three colors from the collection: Beet Goes On, About Last Night, and My Tribe. The back of the box has directions to make an ombre manicure with them (I'd call it a gradient, but that wouldn't rhyme with "all day" so I see why they went with "ombre").



A Meijer store in Illinois was the first place I saw SinfulColors Radical Mattes display for fall. As often with these big sidekicks, it looked like a jumble of random colors at first, so I spent some time getting the top row and the first two slots in the second row filled with the new shades, three of which have "limited time" stickers on the caps and the other seven which have "matte finish" or "matte top coat" stickers. I left the rest of them mixed up, which I think means I'm making progress with my compulsions.



Top row: Shout (LE, not matte), Spark (LE, not matte), Rise Up, Brave, Fearless, Roar, Renegade, Rebel Yell, Defiant. Second row: Spirited (LE, not matte), Radical Matte Top Coat. The SinfulColors website doesn't show any collections past Wild at Heart, the summer neon shimmers, so I don't know if the three new shades without matte finish stickers are part of this collection or belong somewhere else; their shade numbers are consecutive and come after the shade numbers for the mattes. Other shades in this display, in no particular order: Acapella Ella, You Goji, Coco Bae, Gogo Girl, Hush Money, Tokyo Pearl, Forbitten Fruit, Soul Mate, Tempest, Fearless, Lie-lac, Ruby Ruby, Vacation Time, Rorange, Pink Smart, Hazard, The Full Monte, Dancing Nails, Endless Blue, Thimbleberry, Unicorns R Real.



I saw a small display for Radical Mattes at Walgreens. Colors here (all new except as noted): Easy Going (not new), Fearless, Rise Up, Radical Matte Top Coat, Brave, Defiant, Renegade, Rebel Yell, Roar.



So far, the only place I've seen SinfulColors' 2018 Halloween colors is Walgreens. The Conjured Color display has these shades, including three new ones: Cream Pink, Courtney Orange, Glow in the Dark, Witch Please (new), Bitten, Spellbound (new), Let Me Go, Bad Witch (new), Black on Black. This particular display also had Devil's Stare and Let's Talk tucked behind the other polishes, not in slots. A different Walgreens had Let's Talk in the slots in from and Let Me Go tucked behind, no Devil's Stare. So I'm not sure what this is really supposed to have in it. At least the three new shades have been consistent store to store.



I'm off on yet another trip soon, so unfortunately won't have time to swatch the polishes I grabbed from these displays for a while. Who knew retirement would be so busy? Not me.

Smackers Disney Tsum Tsum Polishes

Happy Halloween! Given my love of Disney and interesting polish bottles, I scooped up all of the Smackers Disney Tsum Tsum colors when I saw them at Fred Meyer in the run up to Halloween. Left to right: Mistress of All Evil (Maleficent), Skellington (Jack Skellington), Wickedly Stylish (Cruella de Vil), Rag Doll (Sally), and Sorceress of the Deep (Ursula).



Mistress of All Evil is a teal shimmer that's somewhat old school in finish, what with the brushstrokes one has to be aware of when applying it. They're not so prominent that I'd call this a frost finish, which is good. I used two coats for my swatch.





For fun and because I want to do more nail art, I did some freehand squiggles and dots on top of this teal with Sorceress of the Sea, a purple shimmer we'll take a closer look at shortly. I added clear topcoat, too.



Sorceress of the Sea is a purple shimmer, again with some brushstrokes but less so than Mistress of All Evil. This was also a two coater.



In direct light, the shimmer did show some microfine flecks I thought were pretty (Mistress of All Evil didn't do similar, thus no direct light pic of that one).



To get a little arty, I dotted Sorceress of the Sea with Wickedly Stylish and Rag Doll, then added a matte topcoat.



The remaining three polishes are all straight cremes in Halloween colors: Rag Doll is orange, Skellington is Black, and Wickedly Stylish is white. I combined them all in one look, doing ruffly stripes with all three on my index finger, three coats of Wickedly Stylish on my middle, two of Rag Doll on my ring, and one of Skellington plus clear topcoat on my pinky (I needed the topcoat to smooth the finish; if I'd known it was a one coater I would have been more attentive with the color).







This is a fun group, mostly for the bottles, but the polishes are certainly decent and usable, too. I don't know that I would have gone with teal for Maleficent, but that's a minor quibble.

Halloween and Other Displays

What—a second display post in October? Believe it. I really have to, as I'm on the road again and saw some Halloween displays I hadn't spotted closer to home, so those really need to go up now and not whenever I get around to it, and while I'm at it, I might as well share the rest of the stuff I've seen since my last display post in case I slip into another unplanned blogging mini-hiatus as I tend to do when I'm traveling.

Before I left Idaho, I spotted a Butter London Little Gems gift set with six mini polishes at Ulta. (True minis, not the "fashion size" ones they often put out in sets.) Shades here: Smart, Say Yes, Regalia, Adventure Awaits, Full Steam Ahead, Diamond Geezer. This looks suspiciously like a Christmas gift, but it's way too early for Christmas stuff to be in stores, right? I was tempted to get this, as I always am with sets, but then I remembered the untouched sets I just gathered up the last time I was playing in my stash and left it in the store.



I was surprised to see a fully stocked China Glaze My Little Pony display at a Rite Aid. They have China Glaze in the Nail Bar, yes, but not usually any of the seasonal collections. This display was missing the backing card, so not sure what that's about.



Apparently it isn't too early for Christmas and other winter holiday polishes to be out in stores, as I saw the Essie Gel Couture Holiday Collection on an endcap at Ulta. They're the ones along the left hand side of the display. Top to bottom: Jade to Measure, Gold Gilding, Taupe of the Line, Diamond in the Cuff, It-Pearl, Amethyst Noir.



I did a happy dance when I saw all the new things at Five Below when I got into the right part of the country. There was one shaped glitter in the 2 for $5 square bottles that are unbranded: Shooting Star.



There were holographic Fresh Paint colors for $5 each: Milkyway, Luminosity, Starburst Galaxy, and Dark Star.



At a different store, I saw an honest to goodness proper display for the holos.



I also saw a mostly sold out display for the Fresh Paint thermals; that light one in front is a shade I hadn't seen before, Tomorrowland.



There were two regular 3/$5 Fresh Paint colors, too: Drops of Jupiter and Nirvana.



I came across Fresh Paint Platinum when I found it incorrectly placed in the holographic display; I don't recall seeing it before, but it might have been there and I just overlooked it as silver is so common a shade.



I didn't see any specifically Halloween themed shades, but there were two new glow in the dark glitters from Funky Fingers: Glow Your Own Way and Here We Glow Again.



There were also two other new Funky Fingers, or at least ones I hadn't seen before; they sort of looked like they coordinated with the three spring colors I swatched this past summer. Mermaid Tears is a shredded flakie and You Betcha I'm a Unicorn is a glitter.



The Fright Night brand seems to be not as widely distributed this year as in the past, but I did see a large end cap at a Meijer that had a section for Claw Polish.



Left to right: Purple Confetti, Creepin It Real, I'm Here for the Boos, Where My Witches At, Ghouls Night Out, Ghostest with the Mostest, Polk-a-Dots, Gettin Witchy With It.



At an Ulta on the road, I came across a fuller display of the Ultamate OPI Lovers collection than the one I shared last time. Top/back row: You Had Me at Merlot, Have a Grape Summer, Jean'ius at Work, Pre-Pear for Summer, Ulta Ego, and Grin & Bare It. Bottom/front row: Base Coat, Top Coat, Grin & Bare It, Summer Crush Blush, Orange You Ulta-Stylish, Woke Up Crab-y.



I saw the OPI holiday collection, XOXO, tucked into the awful for pictures backlit core display at Ulta. Top row: Snow Glad I Met You, Ornament to Be Together, Coalmates, Holidazed Over You, Feel the Chemis-tree, Wanna Wrap (x2), The Color That Keeps on Giving, Sending You Holiday Hugs, Adam Said It's New Year's Eve (x2), My Wish List is You, Top the Package with a Beau, Gift of Gold Never Gets Old. Row below is core stuff.



The same colors are also available in OPI Infinite Shine.



A different Ulta had an endcap with XOXO, which made it easier to see the colors. There were also some gift sets at the bottom of this one.



When I shared the Sally Hansen Salon Chrome displays last time, I was puzzled at one that had all four kits but the base creme for only three of them. Apparently that example was just not well stocked, as this one I saw did have the Frill Seeker base for the Rose Gold kit.



The Sally Hansen Salon Chrome kits showed up at my home Ulta in Idaho before I left. The first display had the same shades as I'd already seen at mass market stores: Peacock, Gunmetal, Mermaid, and Rose Gold, with the Blacky O and Frill Seeker base cremes and the Miracle Gel Top Coat in the display to be paired with the smaller kits.



There was a separate display with the Ulta exclusive shade, Holographic. This only came in the bigger kit, with the powder and applicator, base color, special top coat to seal the powder, and Miracle Gel topcoat.



At two Walgreens stores recently (but not all of them), I've seen the Sally Hansen Chrome kits on clearance. Most were marked down to $12.99 but one of the colors, Mermaid, was only $6.29 (no idea why just that one). I sure felt dumb for paying full price for the one I got when I first saw the display what seems like only a few weeks ago, especially since I haven't had a chance to try it yet.



I know I covered SinfulColors Halloween last time, but I saw this cute little display at a Walgreens with a subset of the shades in the big one I shared before. Front: Black on Black, Witch Hazel Bohn, Undead Red. Back: Bitten, Glow in the Dark, Courtney Orange.



Every year it happens, and every year I get annoyed: the fragrance and bath gift sets for Christmas and other winter holidays have started to show up and take over space that should be used for makeup and nail polish. It's less annoying this year, though, since there have been so few new collections in recent times.



I never did find any pumpkin polishes at any of the Meijer stores I went to, but one did have a Smackers display with the polishes I'd previously seen only at Fred Meyer out west.



Also at Meijer, I saw this Studio M Dare to Be Bold display. I'm not as up on the shades in this line as I used to be, but that won't stop me from taking my best guess on which ones are new to the brand. Top row: Bright Night, Rave Review (new), Grape Escape, Purple Crush, Stroke of Midnight (new), You're a Star (new), Good as Granite (new), Ghosted (new). Middle row: Darkest Black, Purple Medallion, After Dark (new), Neon Pink, Simply Stunning (new), Clementine (new), Orange Hot, Orange Sunset. Bottom row: Party On (new), Fresh Grass, Just My Luck (new), Energy Star, Under the Moon (new), Lightning Blue, Off the Deep End (new), Darkest Black.



I'm heading into a part of this road trip that probably won't involve a lot of polish hunting, so it may be a while before I have enough photos for another display post. I do hope to have some other posts, though, so we shall see how I do with that.