SinfulColors Vanessa Hudgens Winter Collection, In Part

SinfulColors is frustrating me. They're one of the few drugstore brands that's putting out new stuff now, so that's all to the good. The bad part is they're not making it at all easy to know what's coming, what's out there, what I should be looking for. I know they don't control what stores stock, but they do control their own website and social media, and those often aren't telling me what I want to know, like when and where I might find the rest of the Vanessa Hudgens winter collection (I don't even know if it has a name, like the summer one was Festival; this one is on their website as just Vanessa Hudgens, which makes it hard to talk about with other polish lovers and compare notes). Putting all that aside, I did buy the five colors I did find (at Fred Meyer) and have now swatched them. Left to right: Through the Woods, Frozen Rose, Wonderland, Deck Yaself, Fab Yule-ous.



All of these were opaque in two coats and are shown without topcoat.

Through the Woods is a deep brown with blue, gold, and pink shimmer.









Frozen Rose is red violet which also has blue, gold, and pink shimmer, though the mix here has more pink than in Through the Woods.









Wonderland is a cool-toned sky blue with silver and blue shimmer. This has more of a foil/metallic finish than the others in this collection.









Deck Yaself is a warm brown with gold and copper shimmer.









Fab-yule-ous is a dark green with blue, gold, and bright green shimmer.









I felt like three of these were made to be a mani together, so I did a rough gradient with Deck Yaself, Through the Woods, and Fab-yule-ous. I think this would be a great combination for an autumn mani, maybe with some leaves stamped in gold and/or copper over the top. I did add topcoat to this, unlike the swatches above.





These are great colors, definitely the equal of some shimmers we've seen from pricier brands. Wonderland is the least interesting of these to me, but it's still a solid polish and if you don't already have many many blue frosty metallics, it would be worth getting. I hope I can find the other seven shown on the SinfulColors website at some point. I'm also on the lookout for some other Vanessa Hudgens colors not shown on the website; some ladies have found these on the West Coast in non-national chains; they're brighter colors, so maybe they'll show up more widely close to spring? Then there are the three Kyle Jenner colors (I know, I don't like the tie in but the polishes look good) I saw swatched but can find no other information about on the SinfulColors website.

Salon Perfect Drop Dead Gore-geous Swatches

Nail Wheel Wednesday is taking a break today so I can post the swatches of the Salon Perfect Halloween polishes before Halloween is over. (I know being a better swatcher means being a more timely swatcher; I just don't seem to be able to manage it these days. Guess this blog is more of a historical document.)

There were five new shades released in this year's Halloween display: Ashes to Ashes, Shapeshifter, Under Her Spell, Lust at First Bite, and Dust to Dust.



Shapeshifter is an orange scattered holographic shimmer (perhaps a case could be made for calling it a weak linear holo, too). I did two coats, though it was nicely opaque and one thick coat might have been sufficient. In the indirect illumination of the lightbox, there are no rainbows.





In direct indoor light, some hints of holo start to show:



In sunlight, more colors appear:



I also bought Too Cute to Spook from the display; it's an orange glitter that's been re-released which I missed last year. I did a rough glitter gradient with it over Shapeshifter and rather liked the result (I did add clear topcoat, too).







Ashes to Ashes is the other holographic finish in this group; I swatched it next in case the sun decided to try and hide later. This is a two-coat dark grey almost black shimmer that in the lightbox displays no holo effect.





In direct indoor light, though, the rainbows do appear:



In sunlight, wow, so many colors:





Ashes to Ashes got the rough glitter gradient treatment with Lust a First Bite, a gold glitter. This has clear topcoat on it as well.





Under Her Spell, a light purple shimmer, looked so sheer in the bottle that I put down a base of Pure Ice Your Majesty, a blue-leaning purple shimmer, on three of my nails before I opened it. My index finger has three coats of Under Her Spell alone, and it's hard to see it's there. Two coats of it over the purple adds a delicate pink and gold shimmer.





You know I love layering, so I tried some more bases under this one, too. Top to bottom: three coats over a white French tip, two coats over OPI Care to Danse (pale pink jelly), two coats over China Glaze Plur-ple (medium purple creme), and two coats over black creme. I really liked it over black; it shimmered in purple, gold, and pink.





Since I was in layering mode, I tried Dust to Dust over a variety of bases as well. This one has black, silver, and holo glitter in a clear base, but it's so densely packed that it doesn't layer as well as I'd hoped. Top to bottom, one coat of Dust to Dust over: Revlon Silver Base, Salon Perfect Shapeshifter, Salon Perfect Ashes to Ashes, Funky Fingers Dark Knight. I had to add clear topcoat as this one was a bit bumpy on its own.





The colors from the holo glitter popped in direct indoor light:



Nine Lives is another re-release I got from the display; it's a black with gold shimmer that covers in two coats.





It seemed natural to try the gold from this year, Lust at First Bite, over Nine Lives. I slicked on one coat of Lust at First Bite on my middle through pinky fingers, which pretty much obscured the base color.





I'm glad I picked these up. I'm also glad that some brands are still putting out limited and holiday editions.

So Many NOTD, So Little Polish

With all the travel I've been doing in recent months, once again I've turned to fake nails and nail polish strips to adorn my digits between swatching sessions. I certainly have and will travel with liquid polish, but sometimes it's nice to just toss a few boxes of nails and strips in my luggage and not worry about breakage or spills.

I've worn Sally Hansen Salon Effects in The Bold Rush before; the gold to plummy purple gradient is pretty, but not as pretty as the box, which has a strong scattered holo effect not evident on the strips themselves.





A set of NailBliss Magic Press fake nails in the Runaway Star design came next; I'd worn these before as well. The box has three finishes of nails: pale pink creme, white iridescent, and gold/iridescent glitter.



When I first put these on, I used only the pale pink and the glitter ones.



Four days later, I'd popped off and lost one of the pink nails and decided to go ahead and mix in the iridescent white.



I went super subtle with the next set of fakes, some Nailene So Natural ones I'd gotten ages ago when one of the drugstores had them on clearance.



By this point, my natural nails had grown out enough that I couldn't cover them with the fakes without leaving a bit more of a gap at the base than would be ideal. (Yes, I could have filed my nails but I hate to give up length if I don't have to, and these nails were so neutral I thought the gap wouldn't be too noticeable.) These had just a touch of shimmer to them that made them not entirely boring.



These lasted a long time, with only a couple needing re-attachment during the eight days I wore them. Here they are on that eighth day:



Lately instead of using nail glue or double-sided sticky tabs to replace fakes that I pop off (and I usually do pop one or two off within a couple days, as I have yet to break my habit of using my nails as tools, particularly the index and thumbs), I've been just putting on a thick coat of treatment polish and using that to put the fake nail back on. It's not as strong as nail glue, certainly, but it's kinder to my nails and easier to remove when it's time to change my manicure.