September 8, 2008
Fall Blitzkrieg: New Glittery Goodness from Adorée
The title of this post is somewhat misleading. Adorée doesn’t release collections per se – they tend to respond to consumer and market feedback and release new colors accordingly. These new polishes coincide with Fall but they aren’t necessarily Fall releases. In any case, there are seven new nameless colors. Five of which are glitters, so I’ve grouped them together in this post. The other two are deep luscious browns which I’ll post about in the very near future. *crosses fingers in hopes that they’ll actually look good on me*
So without further ado, here are the Adorées:
Adoree 242 is a tyrian purple with multi-toned glitter. This swatch is 2 coats plus 1 coat of Seche Vite. Unfortunately, this polish dries bumpy because of the glitter. However, a coat or two of Seche satisfactorily takes care of the bumpiness.
Adore 245 is a tamer version of Orly Goth. 245 is solid black with small silver glitter, no bumpiness issues with this one. The black isn’t jelly but it does apply very thin so I needed 3 coats for opacity.
Adoree 244 is a jelly-ish light blue with multi-toned light iridescent glitter. The finish, which is like a mixture of frost and shimmer, reminded me a lot of Adoree Peony’s finish. This swatch is 3 coats, no bumpiness but there is visible VPL.
Adoree 243 is tough to describe. It’s a very dense pink, silver, and possibly gold glitter suspended in clear polish. This swatch is 3 coats. It did look good with 2 coats though. I just really loved it so I got a little carried away during swatching.
Adoree 246 is a jelly red with multi-sized orange toned glitter (similar to the glitter in Adoree Riding Hood.) Let me assure you that it’s a lot prettier in person than it is in my image. The formula is a little on the thick side but still workable. It also looks good over black which can be seen at the bottom of this post. This swatch is 2 coats.
Adoree Capri Sea is actually not new but I wanted to group it in with all the other glitters. My nails are very badly stained yellow so it’s throwing off the base color of this polish. (I’m too chicken-sh*t to try using bleach and nothing else I’ve tried has worked. Booo.) Capri Sea is duo-chromish (green to blue scale) glitter suspended in green tinted polish. It practically glows on your nail. I couldn’t photograph it properly but the duo-chrome quality of the glitter is really apparent over black, see below. Capri Sea, like 246, is a little on the thick side. This swatch is 2 coats. (Please excuse the typo in image above, the polish is named ‘Capri Sea’ not ‘Seas’.)
I apologize about the sloppiness of the these swatches. I was in a bit of a hurry but wanted to show you guys what these two colors look like over black. I used two coats of Milani Black Magic and 1 coat each of Capri Seas and 246 respectively. Capri Sea blew me away, really amazing.
Adoree is available from Esther’s Nail Center in the U.S. and Pro Nail Store in Europe, specifically Sweden.
August 20, 2008
You Guys Were Right, Nubar Purple Rain Glitter is Amazing
After my Essie Starry Starry Night post many of you suggested in the comments section that I should try out Nubar Purple Rain Glitter since it’s the purple more blingy cousin of SSN. Purple Rain Glitter, a recent acquisition along with several other unique Nubars, was freshly sitting in my “untried box”. These are the last few days that I’ll be able to wear blingy nail polish for a very long time so I decided to give it a whirl. Man. I. Love. It.
My love for Purple Rain Glitter is no shocker. Ever since seeing Nubar on the lovely girls on MUA and most recently featured on Sminkan, One Inch Nails, and Scrangie, I have been harboring crazy jump off the cliff lemmings for their polish. Scrangie’s blog is the origin of my specific lemming for Purple Rain Glitter. It’s a deep purple jelly with holographic glitter. Enough said.
The color is more violet-purple in real life than in my image, as usual. Purple Rain Glitter reminded me of the ink from an exploded blue bic pen. It’s extremely unique, I don’t own anything else even remotely similar to it. I’m really glad you guys coaxed me into trying it, or else who knows how long this beauty would have gone untried since I seem to habitually neglect awesome polish.
With all that said, this manicure was my first time using a Nubar polish. I’m very pleased with the results. I used 1 coat of Nubar Foundation Base Coat, 3 coats of Nubar Purple Rain Glitter, and 1 coat of Seche Vite. I got pretty good wear even though I did get some tip pull. My bottle of Seche is too blame, it’s reaching the dump out stage of thickness that causes tip pull. I was very pleased with the application, which is surprising because Nubar is Big 3 free. They bill themselves as ‘the healthy alternative for beautiful nails.’
I could not possibly care less about buying nail polish that is free of toxins. I like my toxins just fine, thank you very much, but I know some people really do care. Nubar is a good company to look into if you want to exclusively buy Big 3 Free. The one thing that really sold me, personally, on Nubar is that their collection has an excellent range of unique colors. We’re talking glitters, duochromes, and mutlichromes – you guys know how I feel about those. Their site is a little difficult to navigate but if you poke around you’ll see what I’m talking about.
August 13, 2008
Enormous Lemming Fulfilled: Essie Starry Starry Nights
So I thought we could take a break from the awesome but overwhelming 2008 fall collections and just do a simple NOTD post – something I haven’t done since the fall insanity began last month.
Essie Starry Starry Nights is one of those highly sought after polishes that has become an expensive hard-to-find. Essie did re-release it, along with Viva La Vespa, but since the retail was bumped up to $10 and the shipping was so extravagant, I’m not sure that many people took Essie up on the offer. I, for example, debated it for a while then ultimately decided against making the purchase. I’m glad because one of the amazing girls over at MUA found it for me at dusty for a great price.
Now here’s the part of the story that makes me want to kick myself: I lemminged this color for the longest time but when I finally got it, I put in my ‘untried’ box and completely forgot it even existed! D’oh. To be fair though, that only happened because I haven’t be able to wear any non-professional looking colors this whole summer. Now that I can finally wear ‘out of the ordinary’ colors again, I went hunting in my ‘untried’ box and rediscovered Starry Starry Night. “Wow” is all I can say. Dark blue jelly with small silver glitter makes for an amazing polish. I can definitely see what all the hype was about.
The jelly-ness gives the glitter at different coats varying degrees of visibility, which really makes this polish look the way the sky does in places where there are no lights to drown out the shining light of the stars. One of the girls on MUA said that my nails looked like they came straight out of the Van Gogh paining. Love the reference, and so very true.
As great as the color is, Starry Starry Nights is not without its pitfalls. A lot of people complain that Starry Starry Night is hot streaky difficult to apply mess. I didn’t have too much trouble with mine. For this manicure I used 1 coat Essie ‘First Base’ Base Coat, 3 coats of Starry Starry Night, and 1 coat of Seche Vite. The first two coats of color were semi-streaky but everything evened out perfectly with the 3rd coat. I’m not sure if the non-streakiness was due to the base coat or whether my bottle was a magical non-streaky version of Starry Starry Night.
If you love this color but don’t have access to it or don’t want to shell out the mad cash, I’ve read that Jessica Twilight is a good dupe. I can’t vouch for it myself because I, sadly, don’t own any Jessicas… yet. However, I’ve only heard good things about the brand. There are actually several known dupes of Starry Starry Night but the others are just as difficult to find as Starry Starry Night once was, so I’ll spare you the pain of lemming a hard-to-find polish with several equally hard-to-find dupes by just omitting that information from this post. <3
August 6, 2008
Color Club Glitter Vixen Collection Swatches
The Fall Blitzkrieg continues, this time with Color Club’s Glitter Vixen Collection. I was already pretty excited for this collection when I saw the promo pictures, but in person, they’re even more impressive. All 7 of these are made up of multi-sized glitter suspended in clear polish. Some of the Glitter Vixens appear to be slightly tinted but I think that’s a result of the glitter shedding pigmentation, it’s not intentional pigmentation in the color design. Most glitter polishes apply sparsely – these are the complete opposite of sparse. The multi-sized chunky glitter creates a base on which to build opacity. Believe it or not, all these swatches are 2, albeit somewhat thick, coats. Basically, Glitter Vixen gives you full coverage ultra bling. The formula is a bit thick, but they are fairly easy to apply. These swatches are taken in indoor lighting (my new home-made light box oooh hoo hoo) with no top coat. Like all glitter polishes, these were a pain in the butt to remove – I used Remove+ and felt.
Color Club Object of Envy is emerald green. I want to see this next to China Glaze’s upcoming Emerald. I hope they aren’t dupes – I love green and I love glitter so this is the culmination of all my favorite polish attributes.
I know what everyone is thinking, Art of Seduction is China Glaze Ruby Pumps or Milani Garnet Gems. I say no, only because both the Milani and China Glaze are fine-ish glitter suspended in red tinted polish. The Glitter Vixens are chunkier glitter in clear polish. Most people don’t have the need to own both, for nail board addicts, I think these are sufficiently different to justify owning both.
Color Club Sultry reminds me of a denser version of the hard-to-find OPI Glim-merry Gold which I recently admired at a dusty but did not purchase, now I’m glad I didn’t. Sultry is also similar to Misa Disco Queen, which has slightly darker more yellow-gold finer glitter and applies a bit more sparsely.
Color Club Sex Symbol is foil-y multi-sized silver glitter. I’m curious to see how this one stacks up next to the mysterious China Glaze Tinsel that we all have yet to see. All my favorite brands seem to have jumped onto the bling wagon, I’m loving every minute of it.
Color Club Magic Attraction is my favorite from this collection. Chunky holographic glitter? Um…. please, sir, can I have some more? I don’t have anything else quite like it. I suppose the closest thing would be China Glaze Let’s Do it in 3-D but the difference in glitter size creates a completely different holographic effect. Let’s Do it in 3-D is a traditional holographic with the full spectrum of color collectively flashing on the nail, while Magic Attraction has the full spectrum twinkling individually through the flecks of glitter.
My camera refused to photograph Color Club Tru Passion (below) and Sexy Siren (above) accurately. The image of Sexy Siren looks suspiciously like China Glaze Blue Sparrow but they are not similar at all. Sexy Siren is more of a turquoise blue with a touch of green.
Color Club Tru Passion is my second favorite. It’s not a mid-range purple as shown above, it’s more of amethyst or violet. Sorry for the inaccuracy, I’m still working out my photography kinks.
Special thanks to Color Club.
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 2, 2008
America, %*@& Yeah!
This is my attempt at a patriotic mani for the 4th of July. I used the following: OPI The Thrill of Brazil (and believe me, the irony is not lost on me), Rescue Beauty Lounge Dead Calm, Art Club by Color Club White and Silver Glitter, both of which are available individually or in the Art Club Bridal Kit.
I was torn over whether to use Silver Glitter or the tiny little silver crystals that come in the Bridal Kit. I ultimately decided to just wing it with the glitter. I’m a major newb at nail art so I have to say – for a first attempt, I’m really pleased with the results.
First let me say, I am so sorry about the sub-par application and lighting, again. I’ll be back to my usual application and lighting soon, I promise I’ll get it together. Second, OPI The Thrill of Brazil is one of my favorite reds, EVER. It applies like butter. Opaque in one coat, perfect in two – this red shines like there is no tomorrow. Simply, gorgeous. For the blue, I used Rescue Beauty Lounge Dead Calm. It was great for this mani because it, too, is opaque in one coat. I was able to use just one brush stroke for the blue behind the stars. Click here for a swatch of Rescue Beauty Lounge Dead Calm.
Finally, Art Club by Color Club – amazing. I’ve had the Bridal Kit and the Carnaval Kit for a while now but I’ve been stuck in professional-mani purgatory since the beginning of the summer so I haven’t been able to try them out until today. And WOW, I love these nail art polishes. The super long ultra fine brush is incredibly easy to use. The kits in general are pretty great. They come with 4 or so nail art polishes in assorted colors or glitters, decals, beads, stones, and other cute little accents.
To celebrate my nail freedom in exactly one month, I’m planning on breaking out all my accumulated nail art products. Seriously, I’ve been stock piling nail art supplies for a few months now in anticipation of a ridiculously elaborate nail art week on The Polish Addict, so if you’re secretly into the kitsch, like me, stay tuned.
April 22, 2008
Battle of the Bling: Silver Holographic Top Coats
Here are the Contenders.
My initial thought was the Orly is just a glitter top coat that is slightly more reflective than normal glitter. INM is pretty much the same as the Orly with smaller glitter and more density. INM (both the silver and gold versions) is the only brand of glitter top coat I own that completely settles at the bottom. The bottle has a sticker on it that says, “shake it up” which, of course, is blasphemous – one should never shake a bottle of nail polish. To get all the glitter to evenly disperse throughout the bottle using the correct method (i.e. rolling the bottle inbetween your fingers) is incredibly time consuming and irritating. Finally, the fan favorite, Wireless, from the OMG collection, is the densest of all with the finest glitter. Let’s Do it in 3-D, from the Kaleidoscope Collection, is not a topcoat, it’s only here for comparison because it looked so much like Wireless to me that I initially mistook one for the other when I was taking these pictures. Wireless is probably just a more diluted version of Let’s Do it in 3-D.
This is 2 coats OPI – Black Onyx and 1 Coat for each Top Coat.
-Now for the real bling-
Clearly, Let’s Do it in 3-D brings the most *bling*. However, it’s not actually a top coat – it can’t win this contest. China Glaze – Wireless Top Coat is my pick. Owning both Wireless and INM is justifiable. They aren’t duplicates and the effect is clearly different. INM is basically a really nice (although run of the mill) glitter top coat while Wireless is more unique, I’m hesitant to call it glitter top coat at all. There is nothing really wrong with Orly, but if you own INM – no point in picking up a version with bigger and sparser glitter (unless you’re looking for something like that.)
The Polish Addict 
