Top 20 of 2011, Part 2

Today it's the Creme Division. Let's start with the two from last year's list that I brought along to this year's: Orly La Playa and China Glaze Channelesque.

La Playa is still my favorite blue creme. It's flattering on my skintone and stays blue in almost all lighting conditions.



As an aside, look how much better I've gotten at holding bottles since the I started this blog. (La Playa was in the Viva collection, which came out about a month after I started Frazzle and Aniploish in April of 2010.)





La Playa is a great base color for any number of layering polishes. Here it is under Finger Paints Sapphire Sparkle:



And under Cult Nails Clairvoyant:



Channelesque is my ideal purpley taupe. All newcomers are compared against it, and while they often match in color I've yet to find one that makes me want to give up the original. This one could almost have gone in the Nostalgia Division, because I hunted for it and felt quite a thrill when I found it in a nail supply five years after its release and a while after it had been discontinued. (When it came out, I was in one of my low maintenance nail phases and paying no attention to new polishes.)



Essie Berry Hard is a newcomer to the list this year. It's got the same qualities as La Playa, just in red. I like this one so much I bought it three bottles of it (which I realize is excessive, and I have swapped away one of them).





Also like La Playa, Berry Hard is an excellent base color, such as under Essie As Gold As It Gets:



Or Sally Hansen Hidden Treasure:



I use Wet 'n' Wild Black Creme from the Wild Shine line so much that I decided it deserved a place in my Top 20. I think it's the best value in my whole stash: 99 cents for .43 fl. oz. but often on sale for 25% or even 50% off, and it covers in one coat. It's my go to black underwear for layering (I used it with Turquoise Opal for yesterday's entry) and my go to black for stamping. Here it is by itself, one coat, no topcoat.





Here it is stamped over Stila Nail Shimmer in Juno. (Talk about nostalgia; I bought that the first time I ever set foot in a Sephora store, years and years ago. I just now realized that the Stila bottle has black stars on it, just like the stamping I did.)



I think every nail polish collection needs some cremes in it, and these are my favorites. My first runner-up in this category is Sally Hansen Insta Dri Whirlwind White. If I was doing a Top 30, that would probably have made the cut.

Coming up in Part 3: Shimmers.

Throwback

After all the glitter swatching excitement, I chose a very subdued polish for my nails for the end of last week: Stila Nail Shimmer in Juno, a sheer-ish beige shimmer. I bought this years and years ago, on a trip with my mom. It was the first time I'd set foot in a Sephora and the first time I'd bought any nail polish outside of a drug store. I got two bottles and remember thinking they were really expensive, but since I was on vacation that didn't seem quite as important as it would back home. I want to say they were around $10, but it's been so long I'm not sure. They definitely have that old school chemical smell about them; it took a while for that to dissipate even after the polish was dry.





One more, in less direct light (and after another helping of cuticle oil):



I think the shimmer in here is so pretty, and I wish I'd bought more colors of these (and kept them) when I had the chance. Good thing I like this shade, as Mr. Karen and I went away for the weekend and I didn't get a chance to change my polish before we left, or after we got home, so it's still on my nails today (and holding up very well, too).