September 8, 2008

Fall Blitzkrieg: New Glittery Goodness from Adorée

Posted in Adoree, Black & Charcoal, Blue, Glitter, Green, Jelly, Purples & Lilacs, Red at 10:44 pm by pretear

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 11, 2008

Fall Blitzkrieg: China Glaze Rodeo Diva Swatches Part 1

Posted in Blue, Brown, China Glaze, Green, Purples & Lilacs, Shimmer tagged at 8:09 pm by pretear

The China Glaze Rodeo Diva collection is split up into two parts. Now, here I thought that that I was giving you guys one full box set only to find, after looking at the China Glaze website, that mine were packaged differently. So basically my swatches will be split up into two posts, the polish selection being arbitrary and willy nilly.

Everyone (Scrangie, Sminkan, Hill here and here, Misa Masa, Makeup My Lack, RocketQueen, and ALU – as you can see, I’m super late to this party) has been raving about this collection and the reason for that is obvious to me. These colors are great and for the most part, very unique. For me, they applied really well although Scrangie mentions that some colors gave her a bit of trouble. If you bothered to click all those links I just gave you, you’ll see that no one has similar looking swatches of this collection. That’s because the whole collection is incredibly chameleon-like. They look different, at different angles and in different forms of light. They aren’t duochrome, but the shimmer in them tends to give the colors different tones depending on the aforementioned variables. I don’t think anyone who buys this collection will be displeased but if you are a major stickler for color accuracy in swatches I really recommend looking at everyone’s swatches and searching nailgal.com before buying.

Now on to my swatches:

Gussied Up Green is probably my hands down favorite from this collection. I think it’s really great that China Glaze listened to the masses and finally released a good green. In the bottle, Gussied Up Green has an amazing multi-chromatic effect – it goes from green to blue to purple, but sadly, it doesn’t do that on the nail. Applied, it reminds me of the shimmery dark green used to paint carnival rides and roller coasters. The darkness of the green varies to some extent as well, being very dark in some lights and lighter in others.

China Glaze Side-Saddle is a little tough to describe. It’s a reddish, purplish, brown, with gold shimmer. In the shade it almost looks like a reddish brown creme.

China Glaze Rodeo Fanatic is definitely one of the fan favorites from this collection. It’s sort of a dark turquoise-y blue with light greenish blue shimmer. In the bottle is has a blue to purple duochrome that is not present when applied on the nail. Siobhan from MUA discovered that Rodeo Fanatic is a fairly close dupe to the coveted Mac Whirlwind – which is great for me since I missed out on Whirlwind when it first came out.

China Glaze Midnight Ride is another of my personal favorites from this collection. I’ve been on this dark purple shimmer kick lately so Midnight Ride is right up my alley. It’s different from Color Club Groove Thang which has a darker purple shimmer too it, but that difference in shimmer might not be too noticeable to the non-nail board eye.

I almost died when I saw China Glaze Wagon Trial, really. I don’t know what else to say other than, holy sh*t, I freaking love this color. It looks olive on the nail and in the bottle, but as Scrangie astutely pointed out, it’s probably actually black with gold shimmer. It’s very dark olive in some lights and bright shimmery light olive in others, you can sort of see the transition of color on my nails above.

China Glaze Lasso My Heart is another fan favorite but it’s not for me – not that I dislike it per se, I just don’t usually wear shimmers that are red, pink, or pinkish purple. Maybe some day these colors will grow on me… but that’s a huge maybe. Lasso My Heart is pinkish purple, perhaps violet, with gold shimmer. Don’t judge it based on my taste though, I’m definitely alone, everyone else loves it.

Special thanks to China Glaze.

August 7, 2008

A Break From the Fall Blitzkrieg: Some Adorée Duochromes

Posted in Adoree, Duo/Multichrome, Green, Purples & Lilacs at 7:06 pm by pretear

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 29, 2008

Misa Poisoned Passion Collection Swatches and the Horrible Tale of How I Broke a Nail

Posted in Black & Charcoal, Blue, Green, Misa, Purples & Lilacs, Shimmer, Vampies tagged at 8:33 pm by pretear

So everyone and their mom has already seen this collection and sadly, I don’t feel like my swatches are going to add anything to the interpretation of these colors. First, Scrangie and Misa Masa, already did an excellent job of photographing and discussing these, but the real issue is, it’s like every thing on earth was working against me to get these swatches done. (I’m about to launch into a tirade here so if you’re not interested scroll down for the polish porn. XD)

I got this collection almost 2 weeks ago but with the move and starting a new job, I just haven’t had a minute to post them yet. Finally, this past Sunday, I sit down and get to business. The sun is shining, the birds are chirping, swatches are progressing on schedule. The article was nearly complete, ready to be posted that same Sunday. And it really would have been posted since everything was going according to plan, until, for no apparent reason at all because there wasn’t one dark cloud in the sky, we get a deluge. And, of course, this happened right as I was about to take the very last swatch photo for this collection. I was planning on doing a holo mani that day because my new job as the assistant for my school’s trial practice program doesn’t restrict my nail bling. So I say to myself, “Well ok, I’ll just put on a strengthening basecoat and wait to finish these swatches tomorrow.”

Monday, not one ray of sunlight all day long. At that point, I thought… crap, if I don’t get my nails painted soon, I foresee a break in my future. I could have just done a Misa Dying Love mani and taken the image the next day but I really don’t like wearing very dark or extravangant colors when my nails are so long, so I decided against it. Instead I opted to wait and added another coat of clear polish. Monday afternoon, as I was driving to the post office to drop off some swaps, to my unspeakable horror, I look down at the steering wheel only to see that my right hand index nail broke. ‘Broke’ is not really the right word, it’s like the nail breakage gnomes took a mini sledge hammer to my nail. It split-peeled in half, horizontally. Yes, imagine that break for a second. Oh, the horror.

There was no saving this one, I had to cut them all off. I’m not bitter about the break this time, it gave me an excuse to rock Misa Dying Love, which I actually got compliments on – believe it or not that is a rare occurrence for me. People really seem to love dark colors on short nails.

Ok enough nail breakage ranting, let’s get down to today’s order of business:

First let me say, that I love the concept behind this collection – Poisoned Passion, um, awesome. Not to mention that I love the names of the actual polishes – A Sin Worth Committing – wow, I would have bought that one for the name alone. Misa gets 5 points for naming creativity.

I thought all the polishes applied well, I do wish the formulas were a little thinner. However, they weren’t so thick as to cause serious application issues. I just prefer to apply very thin coats and it was nearly impossible to do that with these. I needed 3 (as thin as I could get) coats for all of these colors except for Dying Love which was perfect in 2.

Without further delay, here they are:

As a lot of you know I’m not really into shimmer, but man, this color is pretty. Misa Masa says that this shade looks really similar to OPI Yoga-ta Get This Blue. I don’t own that one, shocking, I know, but now I’m glad I never took the plunge because I can’t imagine that it will look or apply any better than A Sin Worth Committing. Plus, the name cannot be beat.

Not sure if this one is called Fatal Attraction or Fatal Affair. It’s a very deep purple with blue microshimmer. This image does not do the color justice. It’s very, dark, like sexy macabre dark.

Misa Forbidden Lust is rumored to be fairly similar to Zoya Yasmeen (Here are Scrangie’s and Misa Masa‘s comparisons). This color really isn’t me, but I can appreciate a color that I know other polish addicts will go go nuts over and I suspect that to be the case with Forbidden Lust.

Misa Love Bite didn’t get as great a reception as the other colors from this collection, but I really like it. That might have a little something to do with the fact that it is a vampy jellyish creme, to which I am partial. Unlike Misa Masa, I didn’t have any trouble with the application. Vampies tend to be streaky, but I didn’t have issues with this one. I also like the name to color relationship: Love Bite – Dark Dried Blood Color – Vampires – Vampy! Get it? Get it? Ha.

Misa Toxic Seduction is, hands down, my favorite from this collection. Shimmery green with a dark gray base, it’s calling my name. L.o.v.e.i.t.

And finally – Misa Dying Love, my mourning color.

Misa Dying Love, my current NOTD, is closer to black than to charcoal, the shimmer is grayish in tone. You really can only see the shimmer in the sunlight, so indoors this shade is like a muted black creme. Surprisingly, I got compliments on this one today. That’s surprising only because I never get compliments and very few people (who aren’t into nail polish as a hobby) can appreciate a good almost black shimmery polish. I really like this one. I think I might make it, and colors similar to it, my official broken nail mourning color. For this mani, I used Misa BACKbone Natural Nail Base Coat and BREAKneck Fast Drying Non-Yellowing Top Coat for the first time. I’ll let you guys know how these worked out for me.

Special Thanks to Misa.

July 21, 2008

Alternatives to Chanel Kaleidoscope

Posted in Adoree, Comparison Swatches, Essie, Ghetto Fabulous, Gold, Green, Metallics, Milani, Silver, Trends tagged at 8:28 pm by pretear

Like I said before, I usually don’t buy Chanel nail polish *but* Chanel Kaleidoscope was so beautiful and unique, I just had to have it. The minute I saw a swatch of it taken by MUA’s Mrs_Brightside, I called Nordstrom and put a bottle on hold. That was incredibly out of character for me but it was totally and completely worth it. Even though I can honestly say that I love Kaleidoscope, I want to show you guys some possible alternatives to it. With the economy the way that it is right now, a luxury item like a 20 dollar bottle of nail polish, is probably not the most prudent way to spend money. Of course, some colors are must-have, recession or not, but if you can settle from something less extravagant, why not do so? (I’m a hypocrite, I know.)

First, here she is (are bottles of nail polish female? hmm) in all her glory:

*Heavy Sigh* In the sunlight, Kaleidoscope shimmers with ultra bling. Indoors and in the shade, it’s more of a subtle mirrored greenish platinum color. It’s beautiful but I have no idea why it’s called Kaleidoscope, neither does Scrangie. If the other shade is Gold Fiction, why not call this one Platinum Drama.

Essie Steel-ing the Scene is the closest thing to Kaleidoscope in my stash. These are actually fairly close color siblings. The main difference is that Kaleidoscope has the greenish tone and a lot more shimmer. However, if you really want to follow this trend but don’t want to blow the cash, Essie Steel-ing the Scene is a great alternative.

Here is Kaleidoscope and Steel-ing the Scene side by side. Despite several attempts, I couldn’t get the image to show the differences between these colors. I blame the inferior camera. While these colors are very close they really don’t look as similar in real life as they look in the image. Steel-ing the Scene has a smoother finish, less bling, less shimmer and is less mirrored.

Adorée Rockport Gray doesn’t have a mirrored finish. It’s a pseudo-metallic light silverish gray with some mossy shimmer throughout. Rockport Gray is not a dupe but it’s a pretty good alternative, especially for people who don’t want to go full out metallic. This is my NOTD right now, it’s subtle enough that I was able to get away with it at work. The application and wear is excellent.

I first lemminged Milani Key Lime Shine when I saw it on FiveZero. The polish doesn’t show the brush strokes, the lines on the surface are actually my nail ridges. If I did this as an actual mani, which I will soon, I would use Camo as a base to eliminate that issue. Key Lime Shine is a highly mirrored metallic light lime green. This is the only one of the colors exhibited here that is available at drug stores, although it is rumored to be hard-to-find.

July 9, 2008

Hard-to-Find Week Pre-Party: Alternatives to (the evil) NARS Zulu

Posted in Chelsea, Creme, Green, Icing, Nars, New York Summer, Rescue Beauty Lounge tagged at 6:55 pm by pretear

A while back I wrote an article complaining about NARS Zulu and the insistence of the nail polish industry of discontinuing highly sought after colors. I understand that creating ‘limited edition’ nail polish inflates demand and creates profits for nail polish companies, but discontinuing really highly sought after colors doesn’t make any sense from a business stand point. NARS Zulu, for example, has been off the market for over a year and still consistently sells for $70+ on ebay. That’s profit that is going to scalpers when it could be going to the polish companies. It just seems like bad business sense to not re-release those colors.

In any case, I still don’t own Zulu. Whenever I’m near a balcony, I run out on to it à la A Streetcar Named Desire and scream , ” Zuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuluuuuuuuuuuuuu!!!!! Zuuuuuuuuuuuuuluuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuu!!!!” A long time ago I bought all the supplies to attempt to franken Zulu. I never did it because frankening Zulu was akin to accepting I would never own it. I’m starting to accept that, so I gave the franken a shot.

Here are some of the greens in my collection.

Unfortunately none of these are exact dupes of Zulu. Check out Blogdorf Goodman for swatches of Anna Sui #915 and Chelsea Psycho Green which are traditionally thought of as Zulu dupes and are, unfortunately, as difficult to find as Zulu. Chelsea Psycho Green, also pictured above, is very close but Zulu is a creme with a jelly finish and Psycho Green has very subtle shimmer visible only in the light, no jelly finish.

I bought Icing Envy and New York Summer Amaranth specifically for the purpose of trying to duplicate Zulu. I’ve seen an Amaranth based Zulu franken before, it was dead on. Amaranth has a jelly quality that is similar to Zulu so it’s a perfect base green for Zulu frankens, just add black. The only problem was that I loved Amaranth so much I didn’t want to use it for a franken. I decided to try it out only with Icing’s Envy (which I also love but happen to have two bottles). I’ll order a second bottle of Amaranth to franken with and post my results later, I promise.

I mixed roughly half a mini bottle of Icing Envy with the rest being 1/4 OPI Black Onyx and 1/4 OPI Top Coat. This is what I ended up with:

And this is Ponchy’s picture of Zulu:

As you can see, I failed, while I like the color I ended up with, my franken looks nothing like Zulu.

Zulu escapes me again.

*sobs quietly*

Special thanks to my love Ponchy for allowing me to use her image in this post. : )

May 5, 2008

Color Club Flower Power Collection Neon Swatches

Posted in Color Club, Creme, Green, Orange, Pink, Purples & Lilacs, Trends tagged , , , at 7:07 pm by pretear

This isn’t the entire Flower Power Collection – these swatches are just the colors that are going to be available in the 7-pack that Color Club released recently. The collection in its entirety includes just about every neon shade you can possibly imagine. The entire collection is really amazing. Not included here but worthy of mention from this collection are Wild Child, Blue Light, 220 Volts, and Bizerk Turq. Check them out if you haven’t already. All these swatches are 2 coats of color and 1 coat of Color Club Vivid Color Intensifying Top Coat. Vivid is a really great top coat to use for matte drying neons. It really brings the color to life.

Limelight is a really vibrant neon green. I usually have a hard time with the application of neons, especially greens, but this applied really smooth. It’s tough to capture neon colors on film so none of these pictures do these colors any justice. I *love* this green.

LOVE Orange Revenge – it’s perfect. The neon collection has two other great shades of orange but Orange Revenge is the most vibrant and unique. Orange polish is definitely really trendy right now so if you’re in the market for a neon orange, this is an excellent (and inexpensive) one to pick up.

Power Play is one of the more popular shades from the Flower Power Collection. This picture isn’t the best depiction of the color – it’s more hot purple in real life. It’s a really beautiful color, not subtle but not the flashiest of the bunch either. It’s a good compromise for people who want to try neons.

This is my current NOTD – it’s gorgeous in all its neon flashiness. It pulls a little towards orange as opposed to a true fuchsia, but it’s still really great. I know a lot of people feel that this color is too much for tips… I don’t agree… but you can’t argue with taste. I double dare you to wear it on your tips but if you really just can’t do it, try it as a pedi.

The Flower Power Collection has several excellent pinks. I plan to do a side by side comparison of all of them soon. Pink Lust reminds me a bit of the pinks from OPI Indian Collection with just a little more zing.

Lazer Pink is my favorite pink from this collection. It’s a classic neon Barbie Pink. Alas… there is a difference in color batches a la the OPI Bubble Bath fiasco. I have two bottles of Lazer Pink. One is brighter than the other, but both are very pretty. I’ll post the comparison when I compare the pinks.

This collection is available at both Head2Toe and 8ty8.

Special thanks to Color Club.

May 4, 2008

OPI Mod About Brights Swatches

Posted in Blue, Creme, Green, OPI, Yellow tagged , , , , at 11:37 am by pretear

I want to be able to show you guys the whole OPI Mod About Brights collection but I decided against getting the entire collection. I think all the colors are worth owning. I just happen to have a lot of pinks and oranges so buying That’s Hot Pink, Brights Power, and Mod-ern Girl would be redundant for me. One of the girls on the nail board discovered that That’s Hot Pink is a dupe to Don’t Know… Beets Me, which I own. Scrangie has swatches of the colors that I’m not posting so check them out on her blog.

All these swatches are 3 coats of color. I tried to get bottle color in 2 coats, it’s really impossible. These colors aren’t jellies, but they are very translucent. Which is strange because they look really pigmented in the bottle. All these colors are extremely glossy even without top coat. The application was great on all of them, my only complaint is that there is something seriously wrong with the quality control of OPI’s brushes. Several people complained about the brushes from the Indian collection having loose, cracked, and uneven bristles. My bottle of The “It” Color had a slanted brush – What’s going on OPI?

The “It” Color is really unique, not exactly mustard but dirtier than true yellow. This color is special. It seems so high fashion to me, I feel it isn’t meant for day to day wear.

I didn’t love Green-wich Village when I first tried it, but it grew on me after wearing it for a few days. It might be dupish to Carolyn New York Greenwich Avenue, I’ll do a comparison soon.

Dating A Royal is my favorite from this collection. Seriously beautiful – if you love blues you *need* this color.

April 30, 2008

Neon Nail Polish is It This Summer

Posted in China Glaze, Color Club, Green, Trends tagged , , at 12:04 pm by pretear

China Glaze did it first with the Ink Collection. Nubar has the Get Hot collection, Color Club has the Flower Power collection, even Essie ventured away from nudes and pinks to do a mini collection, Neon Shorts, this summer.

Neon is definitely not in everyone’s nail polish comfort zone. If you want to ease yourself into this trend, try wearing a neon orange or red similar to the one Rihanna is wearing in this picture. (look for Color Club – Sexsea or China Glaze – Japanese Koi)

Those of you who want to go all out neon, like Rihanna’s nails in picture below, try China Glaze – Celtic Sun.

If having neon nails is something you want to look into but you aren’t sure whether you’ll like it, don’t pour tons of money into it by purchasing expensive brands. Instead, take a trip to your local drug store. This trend has already been picked up by the less expensive brands. Sinful Colors, a mainstay at Walgreens and a very excellent inexpensive brand, has just released their neon collection. If you have a Claire’s Icing at your local mall, go pick up their recently released neon five pack.

I love neon. Were it not for my summer internship with the State Attorney’s Office, I would never take these colors off – but I know it’s not for everyone. What do you guys think about it, are you going to rock the neon this summer? If yes, what are your favorite colors?

April 28, 2008

Rescue Beauty Lounge Pic Spam… I Mean Swatches

Posted in Blue, Creme, Gray, Green, Purples & Lilacs, Rescue Beauty Lounge tagged , at 8:28 am by pretear

I hate to say this because I think the idea of an 18 dollar nail polish is absolutely ridiculous, but I’m a fan of Rescue Beauty Lounge. Their application and wear is amazing but more importantly, at least to me, they have really unique colors. I’m not a shimmer girl. In a world where most unique colors have shimmer, finding unique cremes is an almost impossible task… then I found Rescue Beauty Lounge and to this day my wallet and bank account quietly sob in unison.

First, the *MOST* prized of the Rescue Beauty Bunch:

Rescue Beauty Lounge – Recycle

Ooooh, I obsessed over whether to buy this one or not for weeks. I was still recovering from the psychological trauma of having neglected to buy Zulu, so I said to hell with being frugal and took the plunge. I felt really guilty about it for a while because it was so expensive ($18 + Ridiculous Shipping Charges = Guilt). I got over it, I just loved the color so much. It’s the perfect true green. Recycle was the gateway that facilitated my future RBL purchases.

My second Rescue Beauty Lounge splurge was for Dead Calm:

I wanted a true blue creme so badly. My first brush with blue cremes was Lippmann Rehab. It’s a great polish, the only problem is that it has a jelly finish and requires 4 coats to achieve a pretty navy color. It also took forever to dry, sometimes it didn’t dry at all. I would end up with horrendous sheet marks (back then I had yet to discover the gloriousness that is Seche Vite Fast Dry Top Coat). Dead Calm is opaque in one coat, amazing wear and application. It’s also really unique, not quite like anything else on the market. So at least for me, Dead Calm was definitely worth the money. As a side note, ‘Dead Calm’ is an awesome name for a polish.

I got Purple Haze, Stormy, and Concrete Jungle all in one haul – the day I lost my mind.

Purple Haze is a beautiful color but I didn’t love it on myself. Again, it is undoubtedly a unique color. As you can see from my purple comparison swatches there is nothing else quite like it in my collection.

I mauled over getting Stormy and Concrete Jungle for a long time.

Rescue Beauty Lounge Stormy is probably not worth the money unless you really really *really* want it. I developed my obsession for this polish back when no other company had a gray polish on the market. That’s not the case anymore, every brand has their own version of a chic gray. If you want to go gray without denting your funds try OPI Moon Over Mumbai, Essie Body Language, Carolyn New York Handball Courts or Hangin’ on the Stoop, China Glaze Recycle or frankening your own gray instead. If, in the end, you are so inclined to spend the money, rest assured it’s an excellent polish.

Finally, Rescue Beauty Lounge Concrete Jungle:

This is my current NOTD. It’s a great color. I had a little trouble with the application when I used Barielle Nail Camouflage. For some reason, it made the polish really thick and difficult to apply. I switched to a non-ridge filling base coat and the application problems disappeared. Like with Stormy, Concrete Jungle, color-wise, is probably not worth the cold hard cash.

My nail polish philosophy is that expensive brands are only worth it if either a.) the color is really unique and there is nothing else anywhere that is like it, or b.) you just can’t help yourself and splurging will make you happy. You won’t see me buying a pink or a red from Chanel or RBL. Do you guys feel the same way? What’s your philosophy on expensive polish?

*Disclaimer* The Polish Addict is in not liable for any lemmings this post may have created.