August 8, 2008
Fall Blitzkrieg: Color Club Musique Collection Swatches
I know that everyone has been dying to see the new Fall Color Clubs, here they finally are for your viewing pleasure. All and all, Musique is a solid collection. I was expecting some of these to be metallic but they’re actually just really shimmery. Even though these look highly pigmented in the bottle, they actually apply thinly. If you typically do thin coats like I do, these colors are going to be three coaters. However, I don’t think it would be difficult to get opacity in 2 coats if you typically like working with thicker coats.
Color Club Feel the Beat is a burnt orange shimmer. I’d almost say that it’s borderline metallic. ‘Feel the Beat’ is an appropriate name, I’m not really sure why but this color really reminds me of Miami (my home, sweet, home) and Gloria Stefan.
Color Club Slow Jam is a reddish brown with golden shimmer. It’s a redder version of OPI Espresso Your Style. Slow Jam is one of those rare brown shades that actually flatter my skin tone… now, if only I could find a creme brown that did the same. *sigh*
Color Club Groove Thang is dark purple shimmer – oh man, I. love. it. It is definitely the stand out from this collection. I expected to love it even more than I do because Groove Thang is actually a beetle duochrome in the bottle, unfortunately, I couldn’t get the beetle effect to show up on the nail. I’m not giving up though. I merely swatched Groove Thang. It’s possible that as a full mani, completely dry, in non-direct sunlight, I’ll get the beetle effect that I love so much and promptly die from happiness soon thereafter. Since I know this is going to come up, in my opinion, Groove Thang is not dupish to China Glaze Midnight Ride, which has violet shimmer as opposed to dark purple shimmer. I’ll do comparisons soon.
Here’s Groove Thang again, you can almost see the color change, almost.
As usual, my camera is perpetually deficient when photographing purples. Color Club Electronica is more purple than it looks in this swatch. Electronica, with fuchsia flecks and blurple shimmer, seems like a tamer version of OPI Ink. The main difference seems to be amount of glittery shimmer, Ink apparently has chunkier more abundant bling. I sound like a broken record but I’ll do comparisons soon.
Color Club After Hours is a medium charcoal gray with multi-toned silver, red, and green shimmer. The shimmer is very similar to the shimmer in CND Hyde in the Dark but After Hours is darker and has less silver throughout. After Hour is less dark and more shimmery than Misa Love Bite. Comparisons of all these will be up soon. After Hours is a great addition to my nail-breakage-in-mourning collection.
Last but not least, Color Club Velvet Rope, a magenta red with gold shimmer. I, surprisingly, liked this color on myself, which is rare for me as I am not a fan of shimmery reds. I can’t really give you guys much guidance in the way of dupes and comparisons because I really don’t own many shimmery reds. Sooorrrryyy.
Special thanks to Color Club.
August 7, 2008
A Break From the Fall Blitzkrieg: Some Adorée Duochromes
I’ve been eyeballing the Adorée duochromes, as I know some of you have, for some time now. I was hoping for some opaque duochrome-y goodness but alas [throws arm over forehead] these are… sheer. There must be something about the chemical formula that creates the multichromatic effect that causes most high intensity duochromes to be sheer. It’s not that I dislike these colors, I was just expecting something different. Ultimately, I’ve accepted this cruel… cruel fate, I love duochromes and I just have to deal with the fact that, to my chagrin, duochromes tend to be sheer.
Adorée African Violet is super sheer, this swatch is 4 coats. I couldn’t get good pictures of the duochromatic effect but it is visible despite the sheerness. This color by itself with no colored base creates a greenish cast at some angles. It’s very pretty and seems to be a distant cousin of the coveted OPI Sugarplum Yum. Ultimately, due to my preference for opacity, this African Violet is probably not something that I would wear on its own but it’s a great color for layering.
Adorée Salmon Stream has gotten nothing but raves from the people who own it. It’s not very me but I can see what polish lovers like about his color. It’s less sheer than African Violet, this swatch is also 3 coats. I guess the best description of this color would be copper with a fuchsia tinge and a green cast at some angles.
Now, *this* is more like it. African Violet and Salmon Stream over black create amazing colors. African Violet over black is dark purple and Salmon Stream becomes a fuchsia toned purple.
This swatch above is representative of the grayish transitory color that the wearer would get at some angles before reaching the dark green extreme of the chromatic spectrum. The swatches below are representative of the green end of the chromatic spectrum.
Don’t mind my silly finger contortions. It was the only way to get these greens to photograph.
Adorée is available from Esther’s Nail Center in the U.S. and Nail Pro Store in Europe.
July 23, 2008
Bling Incognito: Misa Sugar Sugar Collection Swatches
Misa contacted me after I posted a negative review of Misa Indescribable. They said that they would do their best to rework the formula to create better, less streaky application. I was really impressed that they reached out to me as a dissatisfied customer. Indescribable was the first Misa polish I tried, since then I’ve had much better results with their polish but it’s still pretty great that they were concerned. Kudos to Misa for the excellent customer service.
Sorry guys this post isn’t for the new collection. I know, how horrible of a tease am I? I’ll have swatches of Poisoned Passion up this weekend, until then, get your fix by checking out Scrangie’s and Masa’s swatches and comparisons.
Sugar Sugar is Misa’s previous Spring/Summer collection. It is composed of 3 base colors and 3 ‘toppings’. It’s my personal opinion that these polishes were meant to be worn mixed and matched, layered over each other. The name Sugar Sugar is very fitting, all the colors in this collection look powdery and sheer on the nail. But you’ll find, like I did, that this seemingly princess-y collection has a darker, cooler side. All these polishes applied exceptionally well, no application issues at all.
First, the base colors:
Misa Sugar Daddy is my favorite from this collection. Gorgeous. I’ve been loving whites lately and this one has very fine silvery microshimmer that sets it apart from the other whites in my stash. It’s opaque but still somewhat translucent at 3 coats. I feel that Misa Confection Section was meant to be the topping for Sugar Daddy.
Misa Lolli Jolly is a soft sheer pink with microshimmer. Lolli Jolly is dupish to OPI Princesses Rule and Sinful Glass Pink. It’s still very sheer even at 3 coats. Misa Candy Girl compliments Lolli Jolly.
Misa Honeybunch is the silvery white version of Lolli Jolly. This swatch is also 3 coats. In the image Honeybunch seems to fade from very opaque on my index finger to very sheer on my pinkie finger. That is the result of shading. Interestingly, Honeybunch looks more sheer in the shade and more opaque in full on sunlight. Finally, I think the teal in Misa Sweet Pleasure compliments the silver in Honeybunch.
Here are the three base colors side-by-side. They may look similar but each one has it’s own charm. I actually did try to capture images of all these polishes layered over each other. I just couldn’t get the subtle shimmer to show up accurately with my camera. Suffice it to say that the combinations are really pretty, especially using Candy Girl and Sweet Pleasures together over Lolli Jolly as a base.
Now for the ‘toppings’:
Misa Confection Section is a chunky multi-toned glitter polish. You can use this one over any polish in this collection (well really over any polish, period) but I think it’s especially suited to be layered over Sugar Daddy.
Misa Candy Girl is a pink jelly base with suspended blurple microshimmer. Ultra sheer, it’s gorgeous layered over Lolli Jolly. It’s my second favorite from this collection, you’ll see why below.
Misa Sweet Pleasure is teal toned microshimmer suspended in nude jelly polish. This is 3 coats in the sunlight. Even in the full on midday Sun this polish is very subtle and tame. It’s beautiful, I don’t say that very often about sheers.
Now for the really exciting stuff – the ‘toppings’ over black:
Sugar Sugar is rocking the major undercover bling.
Candy Girl is blue to purple duochrome! DUOCHROME! *dies* Confection Section becomes green toned over black, very ‘the truth is out there-ish’ so I think this will be my mani for the X-Files opening this weekend. Sweet Pleasures over black looks a bit like Zoya Kotori but more blinged out.
Special thanks to Misa.
July 15, 2008
Blinged Out Adorée Swatches
I’ve decided to adopt Adorée as my pet brand. Adorée is fairly unheard of, but the line is high quality and inexpensive – not to mention unique. Sadly, they don’t have seasonal lines, but that means no ‘limited editions’ and no discontinued colors. Adoree also has a reputation for listening to their buyers. Hopefully, they’ll listen to me and release a dark creme jelly green. I can hope, can’t I?
As my new pet brand, I’m going to be showcasing a lot of Adorée swatches. Let me know if there are any particular Adorée colors you guys want to see. I’ll try my hardest to get them up for you.
For now, I’ve decided to counteract some of my recent nail polish conservativeness with a round of blinged out glitter swatches:
Adorée Riding Hood is my second favorite of the Adorée colors I own so far, the first being Wild Inkberry. This color reminds me of some of the Nfu Ohs I’ve seen, very unique. Riding Hood is composed of multi-sized duochrome-ish glitter suspended in transparent jelly coral polish. It flashes gold and green. This swatch is four coats but I really feel that this polish was put on earth to be layered. It’s gorgeous over black.
Adorée Oriental Coral is actually orange, not coral at all. It’s exactly the same as Riding Hood (multi-sized duo-chrome glitter suspended in transparent jelly colored polish) but there is more pigmentation in the polish. Due to the higher pigmentation, Oriental Coral can be worn alone or layered. This swatch is only 2 coats. Oriental Coral also seems to have less of the duo-chrome quality that Riding Hood displays but it’s still very bling.
Adorée Ice Mist is a traditional glitter polish… for the most part. What makes it really unique is that it is slightly more dense than regular multi-chrome iridescent glitter polishes – so you get some extra bling. This is 4 coats.
Adorée Hamilton Blue reminds me fondly of the 6th grade. The glitter is multi-colored (black, blue, red, green, silver), back then, I used similar glitter to help portray the universe in science class. Using 4 coats you end up with a color somewhat reminiscent OPI My Private Jet minus the holo. Using 1 or 2 coats you get slightly more sparse bling. I think it can be successfully worn either way.
Finally, Adorée Evening Blue. Beautiful. This is 4 coats. You can’t tell in this picture but Evening Blue is actually made up of both blue (rather, turquoise) and green glitter. The green is subtle so the result is depth of color within the blue. At first glance, Evening Blue looks dupish to Zoya Kotori but Evening Blue does not have a black base and the glitter is toned differently.
Here’s all of them over black:
Since Riding Hood and Oriental Coral look nearly the same over black, I used two coats on the index nail and one coat on the middle nail to show the contrast in density between using different coat amounts. All the other swatches are one coat. (My thumb is making a rare appearance here.)
Again, Adorée is sold online at Esther’s Nail Center.
July 10, 2008
Hard-to-Find Week Pre-Party: Black Tie Optional
OPI Black Tie Optional, a deep purple beetle multichrome from the 2001 World Collection, is one of the classic hard-to-find polishes.
I lemminged this one forever until I finally decided to just splurge and get one on ebay. I’ve noticed that some bottles of OPI Black Tie Optional have more of the multichrome beetle effect than others. Mine is a dud *sigh*. The beetle effect is there but it’s very subtle so I couldn’t get a very good picture of it. The non-dud bottles flash gorgeous amber, green, and red.
The Polish Addict 