June 27, 2008
My Sadness Deux: Orly Bon bon
So, like I mentioned below, lilacs and browns are my White Whales. I chase these colors endlessly, hoping that one day, I will purchase a magical brown or lilac that will flatter my skin tone. Alas, I always get the same unflattering result. And you know what, I just don’t care. I love these colors so I will continue to purchase them regardless of how they look on me. Especially lilacs, I will always look undead in lilac and that’s fine. ‘Undead’ can be the new ‘chipped polish mani’, in fact it’s better – nothing is edgier than undead.
And man, there is no better way to pull off the undead mani than to do it with a really excellent shade of lilac polish. I present you Orly Bonbon. I wasn’t expecting much from this color. I previously made comparison swatches on a white nail board. I wasn’t impressed; the whiteness of the board distorted the beauty of the color. Orly Bon bon is also not very impressive looking in the bottle, but that too was deceiving. When I applied it on the nail, to my astonishment, I found that it’s actually a really gorgeous, ethereal color. Honestly, I could not stop staring down at my mani, that’s how other-worldly it looked on my nails. If angels wore nail polish, this would be their go-to shade. Like the actual color, the application was also heavenly. It took 4 coats for opacity but it wasn’t annoying. The smoothness and ease of the application was so perfect that it caught me off guard since I had been really disappointed by the application of the Love Collection. The quality of application with Orly polishes seems to vary widely from collection to collection. Some shades are like butter while others are impossible to work with, however, I hereby absolve Orly of its sins (can the undead do that?) – that’s how much I love this Orly Bon bon.
Do you guys have white whales, colors you love as colors but look bad with your skin tone?
June 3, 2008
Light Orange Comparison Swatches
Orly Crush on You (2 coats) is my favorite here only because the application was so much easier in Comparison with OPI Osaka-to-me Orange (4 coats) and OPI Tangerine Scene (3 coats). Both OPIs gave me horrendous cuticle drag but with Osaka-to-me Orange, the amount of drag was almost irreparable. Color-wise Tangerine Scene is the standout. I consider L.A. Girl Flare Glowing to be a very light orange, but I decided to exclude it from this comparison in favor of comparing it to yellows sometime in the future.
Now that you guys have seen my orange stash, what are your favorite oranges? Do some of you still feel like orange is a no-go color despite the recent orange trend?
June 1, 2008
Bright Orange Comparison Swatches
It’s so difficult to take good images of neon and bright shades. Color Club Orange Revenge is much brighter and much more neon in person. China Glaze Japanese Koi leans towards red. The only true orange here is Orly Orange Punch but there was something seriously wrong with my bottle. There were a ton of weird white flecks inside the bottle. I’ve never seen anything like it. I had to redo the nail over and over because the flecks kept showing up on the nail. I imagine doing a full mani would prove impossible. All these polishes had great application, minus the flecks, of course.
May 26, 2008
Orly Love Collection Swatches
First a personal update: I want to apologize to my loyal readers, I haven’t been updating often. I moved in with my family for the summer to do an internship. The way our internet was set up, I had to write all my articles in my 14 year-old little brother’s room. My brother spends all his time playing massive multi-player online games, which means all my articles had to be written to the tune of my brother screaming at his teammates on his headset. I couldn’t take it anymore, so I bought my family a wireless router. Now I can write in peace, expect more updates and please stick with me. ; )
And now for my thoughts on Orly Love Collection: NOT IMPRESSED. Generally, the colors have ok application, not streaky but almost none of the colors were flattering. Most of the colors are translucent at 2 coats, so if you’re like me and don’t like translucent colors, you’d need to use 4+ coats to get bottle color – but 4 coats = bubble hell.
On my eternal search for wearable off-whites, I had high hopes for Orly My Beau. It’s a white eggshell type color. It’s not unattractive per se but the yellow tones in it looked weird with my skin tone. This swatch is 4 coats, you can’t see the bubbles in the picture but I assure you that they are there.
At two coats, Orly Dream Boat would probably be a good french mani color. This swatch is 4 coats, same issues with bubbles. And again, it’s just not flattering for my skin tone.
Someone on MUA compared Orly Secret Admirer to a creamsicle, that’s the perfect description for this color. This swatch is 4 coats. Again, this collection just really wasn’t meant for people with my skin color.
Orly First Kiss was one of the fan favorites from this collection. It’s the only color from the Love Collection that I’ve worn as a mani. Again, the color, that I describe as a ‘dead’ pink for it’s lack of luster, did nothing for my skin tone. I wore it for 3 days and it still did grow on me. I have seen people with lighter skin tones wear it very well but there are better light pinks out there for us darker girls. Using only two coats, it would probably work better for french manis, but why bother when you can get Essie Mademoiselle instead.
I actually don’t have anything negative to say about Orly Crush on You. It’s a great orange with great application, this swatch is 2 thick coats.
Orly Butterflies and Orly Crush on You are the two stand out colors from this collection. Butterflies had great application, the swatch is 2 thick coats. This hot pink is very vivid – both Butterflies and Crush on You are great colors for summer and spring.
April 25, 2008
Purple and Lilac Comparison Swatches
Purple and lilac have been pretty popular this spring. I made these swatches originally to help the girls at MUA find a cheaper alternative to the ever prohibitively expensive but wildly popular Rescue Beauty Lounge – Purple Haze. We were all pretty sad to find that there really isn’t a cheaper alternative to that particular color. No other brand has a shade of purple that even comes close. That is not to say these other colors aren’t worth it, all these purples and lilacs are beautiful in their own right. The only one missing that I really feel should have been included for comparison is Essie – Looking for Love. In the bottle, it’s a really beautiful vivid lilac – but – I had to decide against purchasing it because of its notorious and irreparable streakiness.
3 Coats China Glaze – Spontaneous (The Flirt Collection), 2 coats Rescue Beauty Lounge – Purple Haze (The Spring ’08 Collection), 3 Coats OPI – Do You Lilac It? (The Original Brights Collection)
4 coats each for these: Zoya Miley (4 coats required for bottle color with a Zoya? No…… you don’t say? – This one is from the Blissful Collection), Orly Bon Bon (Sugar Coated Collection), Essie St. Lucia Lilac (Permanent Collection).
Purple Haze is the fan favorite. I can’t say I was really impressed with the color on myself. The application and wear-time were flawless as always but I just didn’t LOVE it. I’m going to give it one more go, and perhaps let it go if I still don’t love it.
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 