Sin City Haul

I tend to avoid doing haul posts. There are a few reasons for that, including I only have so much time to devote to blogging and if I do haul posts more often, that means fewer swatches and comparisons, and swatches and comparisons are my way to justify the hauling in the first place. I also feel like posting bottle shots without swatches is being sort of a tease, since with my backlog and tendency to get distracted by whatever's new and shiny some bottles have to wait a very very long time for their moment in the spotlight. Today, though, I am doing a haul post, because a) the shopping excursions in Las Vegas were very fruitful and b) more than one person commented that they'd like to see the haul when I asked on my July 5th entry if anyone would (that mani used a couple of the polishes I bought in Sin City).

I actually bought so much polish in Las Vegas that I shipped a box home; I was worried my suitcase would be overweight if I didn't, and the excess baggage fee would be more than it cost to send the extra weight back via the USPS. I did pack some polishes in my suitcase, too, but most of them went into a medium size priority mail box. The kind that opens on the end is just the right size for polish boxes to fit into, and lots of the places we shopped gave us those boxes with our purchases. Having them made it much faster to pack up, too. Rather than having to wrap each bottle in bubble wrap, I just needed to shove enough bubble wrap into the top of the box to keep the bottles from rattling. Then I put the boxes into plastic bags to contain any leaks and slid those into the priority mail box. I didn't have quite enough polish boxes, so I did have to bubble wrap a few bottles individually.



As I mentioned in my post about this lacquer lovers weekend, one of the attractions of Las Vegas was the ABC Store (stores, actually, but we only went to one of the locations). I bought way more Island Girl polishes there than I had when I was in Hawaii, the natural habitat for Island Girl. The fact that they were buy 2, get 1 free certainly encouraged me.

Left to right below: Island Girl Surfing Safari, Waikiki Surf, Hawaiian Islands, Hawaiian Sunset, Island Coast, Island Volcano. The first two are the ones I used in my patriotic mani I posted about last week. Hawaiian Islands I got because I couldn't think of any yellow orange star glitter polish already in my stash. I waffled on Hawaiian Sunset, but it made it to the cash register with me because I wanted one of the shades where the star glitters were almost submerged in the base color (I think there were three or four like that) and this was the most purple plus the name made me think of the beautiful sunsets I saw when I was there in Hawaii. The last two I also waffled on—I didn't have multi glitters in these particular base colors already, but they'd be easy enough to make, but it's been ages since I had time to franken, so might as well buy them.



Below: Island Girl Island Heat, Island Paradise, Island Sunset, Hawaiian Sun, Island Color, Island Sun. The first three I got because they are appealingly indie-esque. Hawaiian Sun and Island Color because I was curious how they compared to ones already in my stash (Sinful Deep Red Ocean and one of the Mardi Gras ones Rite Aid had this summer). Island Sun because it's an interesting shredded glitter in some of my favorite colors.



Here's a closeup of Island Sun:



There was a Walgreens right across the street from our hotel. Note that in Las Vegas, "right across the street" can still be a hike, but we were not daunted by the journey down one long driveway, across a small stree, up an escalator, across a pedestrian bridge over the Strip, through part of the Palazzo building, and down another escalator because there was lots of polish to be seen. This was one of the fancy Walgreens with an expanded beauty section like that one in Chicago where I got scolded for taking photos last September. I was thinking that compared to the dozen polishes I got at the ABC Store, I was pretty restrained here, except then I counted up the bottles and found there were eleven—I guess it seemed like fewer because that was spread across several brands.

I got two from Pop Beauty: Iced Glitz and Poetic Peacock. There were plenty of Pop colors there that I didn't have, but these two were the most appealing to me (and will look great worn together if the swatch I did with the testers on a piece of paper mrsrexy and I were sharing as we made our way through the displays).



I got two Nailtini polishes as well: Sugar Rim and Sparkler. Sparkler was one I was going to buy in Chicago before the sales associate barked at me about taking pictures. Since I don't like to have single bottles of a brand, I had to get Sparkler a friend, and Sugar Rim was the second most interesting shade in the Nailtini section.



I got five GOSH: Spot on Pink, With a Twist, Matt Effect Top Coat, Lazy Green, and Galaxy. I am very proud of myself here in that I did not get all of the special/limited edition colors there were to be had. I limited myself to one of each type of cap design plus the matte topcoat (for my ongoing comparison series) plus Galaxy which was on my official wish list.



I didn't take a photo of the other two polishes I got at Walgreens: Barielle Blue Cotton Candy (which I figured I should have if I still was attracted to it this long after I swatched Lucy's press sample) and Nicole by OPI Pixie Glitter (which I will definitely be swatching in the next several weeks).

There was a big Sephora just down the street from the Walgreens. Amazingly, I did not buy anything there. Not one thing. I was tempted, sure, but I just kept telling myself that I have Sephora online and there's at least one big Sephora store in southeast Michigan (not that I go into it hardly ever since it's not conveniently located; point is that I could if I really wanted to).

The first beauty supply we visited was pretty much on accident; my phone lost its location while navigating so we weren't where we planned to be but mrsrexy spotted a sign that had the name of one of the places we were heading to so we stopped. It turned out to be mostly a hair store that just had the same name as the place we'd been intending to go, but they did have a little bit of nail stuff, including a Ruby Kisses display, from which I chose five colors: Red Romance, All Purpled Out, Snow White, Regaled Out Blue, Crazy Night Out. I'm iffy about the bar glitter in Red Romance, but it seems pretty sparse and this was cheap enough that I won't feel bad if I don't end up liking. All Purpled Out I had to have for the name alone; the fact that it's glittery is a bonus. Snow White I could have probably left there since I have a lot of shimmery toppers already, but again, it was cheap, and also Snow White was one of my favorite characters growing up. Regaled Out Blue I would have skipped over entirely except Amy noticed that it looked like a jelly. Do I have a dark blue jelly? I couldn't think of one. Crazy Night Out seemed like a good choice for a Las Vegas souvenir plus it was purple and glittery so it made the cut. The clerk was actually wearing this one on her nails so I got to see what it looked like out of the bottle before I even bought it.



The real serious dents in my polish budget came when we made it to the beauty and nail supplies we did plan ahead for. I didn't keep good track of what I got where; it all blurred together into one big happy shopping extravaganza. Between brands I'd never seen before, brands I rarely see, and oldie but goodie colors I didn't have from brands I see all the time there was plenty to tempt me. I did not do all that well with resisting.

Morgan Taylor is one of the brands I'd never seen before. They had a wide range of colors but I limited myself to just four shimmers and glitters that I was pretty sure didn't overlap much with my existing stash: Who's That Girl, It's My Party, Let Them Eat Cake, Under the Stars. (They get extra credit from me for proper use of apostrophes in names, and for having a website that makes it easy to see their colors; for example Morgan Taylor purples.) There was one more I would have bought—All the Right Moves—if one of the other ladies hadn't gotten the last bottle in the store (I wasn't mad, it was fair enough that she saw it before I did, and it will come to me at some point if it's meant to be).



Here's a detail shot of Let Them Eat Cake; just look at that yummy blend of colors:



Nabi I've heard of before, of course; I run into random displays of it at random Walgreens stores and have swatched and worn various colors. What I hadn't seen before from them was this particular line of glitters (with a "New & thick formula"). I managed to limit myself to just four: Sky Twinkle, Green Land, Abysis (maybe they meant Abyss?), and Pink Moon Star.



Here's Abysis up close:



There were a bunch of Savina colors with very fine holo glitter; I got three of them plus a couple glitters: Blue Ice, Sparkling Water, Charcoal Sparkle, Gold Flecks, and Black Mist.



I ended up with six from Dare To Wear: Rock Star, Electric Masquerade, Goddess of Samba, Rose Gold Rage, Bold N Bronze, and Love Potion. Rose Gold Rage is a crackle polish; I wasn't going to buy any more crack but I didn't have any from this brand yet and this was such a pretty shimmer I snatched it up. I am not sure at this point what my theory was behind getting Bold N Bronze; it's a fine metallic but surely I already have something close. Maybe this is when my brain was overheating.



Goddess of Samba in detail:



Orly is one of my soft spot brands, so I was delighted by the nail supply which not only had them on racks but also had bins and boxes of Orly ripe for digging through. I came home with five: Ruby Passion, Flagstone Rush, Veriwinkle (dig that old 22 ml bottle!), Blushalicious, and Aquamarine Bliss.



Sation knows the way to my heart is glitter; I'm feeling pretty good that I was able to limit myself to five from them: Class Clown, Band Beauty, Videogame Vixen, Prettiest Player, and Most Hue-nique.



I only ended up with three China Glaze; I'm not sure if that's because I already have so many or the selection wasn't as good as for the other brands. My choices: Emerald Sparkle (which I do already own but this looks like the "good" version and I'm not sure if that's the one I have in my stash), Cafe Mystique, and Sprinkles.



I came home with even fewer OPI, and wouldn't even have these if I hadn't seen one of the other gals getting them which piqued my interest. If I am underendowed in any area of my stash, it's yellows and oranges, so I felt fine getting these two. Nicole Alert is on the left and Osaka-to-me Orange on the right.



Prolana is another new-to-me brand; they didn't have flashy glitters to pull me in but on my second or third lap through the nail supply I happened to pick up a bottle of one of the shimmers and it felt good in my hand and looked good to my eye so I scooped up a few more to go with that first one. My final quintet: Frigid, Turning Blue, Glitterati Red, Cold as Ice, and Cold Hearted.



Where things got almost Island Girl crazy was with a brand called B Touch. They had so many glitters, from micro to chunky. I bought ten bottles and put a few more on my wish list because even I have to draw the line somewhere.

Below: G43 (all others have a name as well as a number but not this one), Fuchsia, Double Rainbow, Red Lavender G (I assume the G stands for Glitter but it's not spelled out), and Lime Green Glitter.



Below: Green Glitter, Multigreen G, Glow It, Good Evening, and Light Blue.



Whew, that's it for my Las Vegas purchases. I did also acquire three more bottles but I didn't buy those, they were given to me, and I think they deserve their own post with swatches.

I realize I acquired more in three days than most people ever buy in a lifetime and am fortunate to be able to indulge like that.

Since I'm on the subject of excess, let me share this image:



That's my family room floor being taken over by piles of polish I've been accumulating in random Helmer drawers and cardboard boxes waiting to be sorted by finish and color so I can get them onto nail wheels for my grand swatching project. In the lower right are the cremes. Just above are the shimmers. The skinny column to the left of the shimmers are holos. The big batch flowing out into the room to the left of the holos are glitters. The small groups along the left side are magnetics, crack & spotteds, color changing (via sun, topcoat, or temperature), holiday (snowmen, pumpkins, tombstones), textures, and flakies. This photo was from Wednesday; I spent most of my free moments yesterday sorting these groups into smaller ones and storing those away to await a swatchathon. I am beginning to really see the wisdom of going on a no buy; I just don't think I have that in me right now. I've happily been on a no buy for yarn for ages, but I'm not there with polish yet. A slow buy, sure. I need to do that. Or else get some more Helmers—they come in yellow now.

The Pause that Refreshes

I intended to post more than I did this past holiday weekend, but I didn't manage it because I spent an unexpectedly long time sorting through and reorganizing my stash. For most of the weekend, I had polish bottles in places there are not usually polish bottles, like the family room floor and the kitchen counter. Here's what the counter looked like during the mostly warm-toned purples portion of the program:



I did take some time out from moving my stash around to meet up with two lovely ladies from the MUA nail board, Rachel (whom you may also know from her blog) and Christine. (Another woman who'd planned to come had to drop out at the last minute; I hope she can make it next time along with more folks.) We got so involved talking and exchanging nail goodies that we only took one picture as we were leaving:



Clockwise from top right, that's Rachel wearing China Glaze Gamer Glam with a silver glitter layered on top (a faux Nfu-Oh if I'm remembering right), Christine in Chi Chi Moondust (why yes, I was jealous), and me in Flormar U09 (which I recently got in a swap and will be posting more photos of once I've caught up with the NOTD that came before it). It was a fun time, and I'm looking forward to doing it again before too long. (If you're in the Detroit metro and want to be added to the mailing list for planning, send me your e-mail address.)

Stash Re-Organization

Mr. Karen went away for the weekend, so I took advantage of his absence to take over the bedroom and re-organize my stash from being stored by brand to being stored by color, as I mentioned last month that I was planning to do one day. I made little tags with each of the groups I thought I'd want (pink, red, coral/orange, yellow, lime, green, teal/turquoise, blue, blue violet, purple, red violet, white/black/grey, brown/skintone/ivory, metal/chrome, duochrome, glitter, holo, sheer), cleared the pillows off the bed, and got to sorting.



Fortunately we have a guest bedroom, because I wasn't able to finish the sorting in one day. If I'd worked straight through, I might have been able to manage, but I think my brain would have melted under the strain of deciding where some of the trickier polishes belonged. It would have been easier if I'd just done it by color, but when I choose polishes to use, I don't go just by color, I also think about whether I want a special effect, like layering or holo, so I thought it made sense to put those types of polishes in their own categories.

My whole collection is now back in the Helmers, though I still want to do some sorting within the categories to make it easier to pull colors for comparison posts and nail wheel swatching. The biggest surprise I got was how many of some colors I have. I expected to use one drawer each for pinks and reds and thought yellows and oranges could share a drawer. Um, not so much. I was amazed to find I needed four drawers for the pinks and reds alone (though two of those aren't completely full), and the oranges took up one whole drawer and spilled into the next, which they share with yellows. I had no idea I had as many pinks and red as I do purples; that seems crazy to me given how very much I like purple.

One drawback I've already found to the new system is that the slightly too tall old school Sally Hansens and Pro 10s now annoy me in multiple drawers instead of just the one for their brands. I may decide to segregate them at some point. Or I may decide I don't like doing it by color as much as I expected and go back to the old way or some other way I haven't thought of yet.

My Stash, Let Me Show You It

I've been putting off doing a stash entry because I'm a bit embarassed about how large my collection is. I'm one person, with ten fingers and ten toes and many other things to do besides paint my nails, and my job certainly does not require my digits to be adorned in the latest lacquer trends, so it sometimes seems excessive that I've amassed such a large number of bottles of polish. But then I think that I get more use from this collection than things like my ski equipment—on any given day I could change my manicure or pedicure, while I am only able to ski a small portion of the year. Also, it's not as if I spent the mortgage money or the grocery budget on nail polish; I have just redirected some of my quilting and knitting spending (I am in no danger of running out of supplies for either of those hobbies, so it's not been any great sacrifice). Enough justification, let's look at the stash. Might want to get a beverage; this is going to take a while.



What you see here is four Helmers from IKEA, plus a bit of overflow storage. My collection lives in my bedroom closet; as my stash has expanded, I've had to reduce my wardrobe, which is okay since I had a bunch of stuff I wasn't wearing anyway. Starting at the top left, there's a wooden fruit crate that once held clementines and now holds polish I can't use yet because I got it in swaps and my partner hasn't gotten my end of the swap yet and polish I am expecting to send out in swaps that are in the process of being finalized. I call this box "quarantine". To the right of that box is a white Caboodles case; there was a long stretch of time when my entire nail polish collection, including base and top coats, fit in this one case. I'd regularly go through it and get rid of things I hadn't used in a while. When I think of some of the things I jettisoned—well, I try not to; it's too depressing. Now, the case holds base and top coats only. Behind the fruit box and the Caboodles case, there's another fruit box and a small plastic tray; those both hold nail wheels and frankening supplies (for all this frankening I'm going to start doing any time now) and miscellaneous stuff like swap extras. To the left of the Helmers, on the floor, where they should not be because piling stuff on the floor is a sure sign things are getting out of control, are two transluscent cases (I bought several of these when I let my stash escape the white Caboodles) which have overflow base and top coats (which I decided are okay to overflow because I do actually use up base and top coats) and polish I'm thinking of using as contest prizes (they can overflow because I won't be replacing them as I would if they were for swaps). The light purple Caboodles below those has makeup in it, not nail polish. What makeup exactly I'm not sure, since I haven't opened it in quite some time. Lipstick and eyeshadow, I think. The Ulta Goth Glam sets teetering on top of the stack were destined for swaps and didn't fit nicely in my swap drawers.

So, let's peek inside the Helmer drawers, shall we? Starting with the Helmer on the upper left, the top drawer is Revlon (minus Street Wear), Catrice, LA Colors Color Craze, and a handful of Ulta minis that don't fit in the drawer where their peers are.



Next is Borghese and Blue Cross seasonal with a couple LBC brands.



China Glaze plus Kiko and six LBC brands.



Color Club, Claire's, Essence, Savvy, Ulta 3, and six more low-bottle-count (LBC) brands.



Drawer 5, also known as the one I dumped on the floor: Cover Girl, Essie, GOSH, H&M, Nails Inc., BYS and other Australian brands.



L'Oreal, P2, Rimmel, Petites, Icing, Viva la Diva, NARS (I only have minis), and two LBC brands.



Moving on to the top right Helmer, in the top drawer are Zoya, Rescue Beauty Lounge, Ulta, Chanel, Sally Girl, and three LBC brands.



Orly and Pro 10 (which have to live in the back of a drawer because of their slightly too tall for the Helmer handles).



Sinful, NYC, Milani, Hard Candy, Pure Ice. (I leave clearance stickers on sometimes to make myself feel like a smart shopper.)



OPI.



OPI (note minis stacked two high--not ideal) and Massini / Studio M.



Maybelline (Colorama, newer Express Finish, Salon Expert, Wet Shine) and Finger Paints.



Maybelline (Colorama, newer Express Finish, Salon Expert, Wet Shine) and Finger Paints.



Maybelline (more older Express Finish), Barry M, LA Girl Rock Star, Funky Fingers, LA Colors Art Deco plus miscellaneous art stripers.



Sally Hansen (Lacquer Shine, HD, Opal Nail Glaze, Beyond Perfect), Piggy Polish, and two LBC brands.



Sally Hansen (Salon, Complete Salon Manicure, Insta Dri).



Sally Hansen (New Lengths, No Chip 10 Day, Prisms, Maximum Growth).



Sally Hansen (Hard as Nails, Xtreme Wear).



Finally, the bottom left Helmer, starting with the top drawer: Love My Nails, BB Couture, Depend, and a lot of miscellaneous brands.



Wet 'n' Wild, Revlon Street Wear, CHI, Nina, and one random singleton bottle of something I can't identify from the top.



I didn't take pictures of the last four drawers, as they've only got polish I've got up for swap; I've already mentally removed those bottles from my collection. I'm planning to reorganize by color at some point. Much as I like to see all the matching bottles together, it slows me down when I want to pull a bunch of one color to do comparisons or paint a nail wheel, and I often overlook a polish that would have been a good one to include. I'm definitely at the point where I need to stop expanding my stash (or start working from home so I don't need so many clothes); look for more giveaways and maybe a sale in the not too distant future.