Tuesday, March 18, 2014

Nails Inc Garden Party Swatches


New for Spring 2014 in Sephora stores: the Nails Inc. Garden Party Special Effects Collection!  I was so excited when I found an empty display spot for these three polishes at my local Sephora.  Unfortunately, they were not currently available online, so I had to be patient and wait for them to show up.  Luckily when they did show up on the Sephora website I was able to see they were at the Sephora inside JCPenny store nearest me.  On that note, I have found that this pattern is often true for new Nails Inc. products.  They are first available at the Sephora inside JCPenny stores before the standalone Sephora stores (and sometimes even before being available online), so check there first when looking!


 base coat, 2 coats Sinful Colors My Turn, 1 coat Westbourne Gardens, no top coat

This collection consists of three multi-hued and multi-sized glitter toppers all in a clear base.  The first I have to share is Westbourne Gardens.  This polish is mostly pink, featuring small hexagonal glitter in metallic pink, matte pink, and matte white colors.  Smaller white matte hexes are strewn throughout, along with micro matte pink hexagonal glitter.  All of the pink glitter with the white glitter thrown in creates an overall soft pink hue making this glitter polish beautiful for any spring event!


  base coat, 2 coats Sinful Colors My Turn, 1 coat Westbourne Gardens, no top coat

Next up we'll look at Portobello Gardens.  This mostly blue glitter topper features small hexagonal glitter in a cobalt metallic blue, a matte turquoise-blue, and a matte white interspersed with smaller matte white and matte light green hexagonal glitter.  Filling up the rest of the clear base is micro turquoise-blue hexagonal-shaped glitter.


  base coat, 2 coats Sinful Colors My Turn, 1 coat Portobello Gardens, no top coat

The white glitter mixed in with the bright blue glitters along with a touch of green make this the perfect winter-to-spring shade!


 base coat, 2 coats Sinful Colors My Turn, 1 coat Portobello Gardens, no top coat

The last lacquer in this collection is Princes Gardens (which I either always want to add an apostrophe to or call "Princess Gardens").


 base coat, 2 coats Sinful Colors My Turn, 1 coat Princes Gardens, no top coat

This glitter is the most multi-hued of the three, featuring small metallic lilac/lavender, matte light blue, and matte light green hexagonal glitter.  There is smaller matte white hexagonal glitter throughout, along with micro light green hexagonal glitter.


base coat, 2 coats Sinful Colors My Turn, 1 coat Princes Gardens, no top coat

All three of these glitter polishes are now available on the Sephora website or in stores if you are in the United States.  Retail price is $11US each.  If you live in another country, have you seen this collection?

If you think you've heard of the Garden Party collection before, you have.  About a year ago there was a four polish collection available on QVC's UK website that contained only one glitter polish called Grosvenor Gardens.  These two collections don't seem to be connected except by name.

What do you think of this collection?  If you want to see photos of what the display looks like so you can keep an eye out for it at your local Sephora, check out my pictures on Twitter or Instagram!

Sunday, March 9, 2014

OPI Muppets Most Wanted Collection Spring 2014



In conjunction with the new Muppets movie, Muppets Most Wanted, OPI has released an eight polish collection for Spring 2014.  Here are six of the eight shades for your perusal.


no base coat, 2 coats Int'l Crime Caper, no top coat

Int'l Crime Caper is a pearlescent white polish that errs on the side of sheer.  What turns this polish from a boring sheer white to a beautiful polish you need to have is the opal-like facets.  A strong pink shimmer (that is much stronger to see in real life than in these photos) runs through the polish, and the pink shimmer is filled with tiny blue flecks.  The above photo is 2 coats, so you can see that the polish is quite build-able, and a third coat would have taken away more of the VNL (visible nail line).


 base coat, 2 coats Miss Piggy's Big Number, no top coat

Now when I was at my local beauty supply store scoping out this collection, I kept picking up and putting back this beauty, Miss Piggy's Big Number, because I knew it looked like a polish I had, I just couldn't remember what polish that was.  And then I got home, and discovered I found a perfect dupe for Chanel's Bel-Argus.



(from left to right in photo with base coat on all and no top coat) 2 coats Bel-Argus, 2 coats Miss Piggy's Big Number, 2 coats Bel Argus, 2 coats Miss Piggy's Big Number

Just like Bel-Argus, Miss Piggy's Big Number is a pearly blue that has a hint of purple at its edges.  This is almost a frost, but does not feature enough brush strokes to be a strict frost-finish.  The pearl/chrome-like finish means that this polish is highly reflective and has a beautiful blue shine that is stronger in direct lighting like direct sunlight.


 no base coat, 2 coats Kermit Me to Speak, no top coat

Kermit Me to Speak may have looked like Next Stop…The Bikini Zone from the recent OPI Brazil collection, or Peace & Love & OPI (which in turn looked similar to Not Like the Movies), in the promotional photos, but this polish is unique in color and duochrome shift.  The base color appears to be gold with a rose colored shift.  By itself, the rose-hued aspect overwhelms the gold, or any other color in the polish, making it look less like a duochrome, and more like a shimmer.


base coat, 2 coats Sinful Colors Whipped, 1 coat Kermit Me to Speak, no top coat

Put Kermit Me to Speak over black, and the duochrome finish is vastly enhanced.  Each color variation between the gold and rose can be seen when you move your fingers about.  


base coat, 2 coats Sinful Colors Whipped, 1 coat Kermit Me to Speak, no top coat

Also not seen unless you layer this polish over black is the green undertone of the duochrome that shows up if you hold your nails parallel to a flat surface, changing this polish from a duochrome to a trichrome.  

 base coat, 1 coat Sinful Colors Whipped, 1 coat Let's Do Anything We Want!, no top coat

One of the three glitters in this collection is Let's Do Anything We Want! which features small rose-pink hexagonal glitter and medium-large matte white square glitter in a clear base.  Although the prominent glitter is the rose-pink glitter, there are enough white squares that you don't have to fish out the squares from the bottle in order to try and get a few on each nail.  The different shapes and sizes of this glitter polish make it an adventurous combination, with soft pink and white coloring to tone down the extreme differences in the glitter.


 base coat, 1 coat Sinful Colors Whipped, 1 coat Gaining Mole-Mentum, no top coat

Gaining Mole-Mentum is made up of interesting shaped shard-like glitter pieces in a clear base.  The glitter pieces are mostly medium sized and are gold and copper/rose-pink in color.  One coat gives great distribution across the whole nail bed - no need for dabbling it on in bald spots because there are none to cover up!


base coat, 1 coat Sinful Colors Whipped, 1 coat Muppets World Tour, no top coat

The last glitter polish in this collection is Muppets World Tour.  Featuring micro silver glitter with larger  silver hexes and even larger pink, rose, and blue hexes (which are still relatively small in size) in a clear base.  One coat gives even coverage, but this polish is still not so glitter-packed as to be able to be worn alone as a full-coverage glitter polish.

The other two polishes in this collection that I did not pick up were I Love Applause, a slightly sheer pink creme, and Chillin' Like a Villain, a slightly sheer peach creme.  When I tested both of these on tape inside the store, both were streaky at one coat so I passed on them.  If you don't have a peach creme or a pink creme, you might want to take a look at these two.

The glitter polishes in this collection were quite unique and the other non-creme polishes pictured above all feature at least a slight shift of color that make them interesting and fun to wear.  Do you think you'll pick any of these lacquers up?  Have you already seen them in person?  Which is your favorite?

Saturday, March 1, 2014

Nails Inc Pop Art Collection for Spring 2014



New for Spring 2014!  Nails Inc. has released a matte glitter collection at Sephora.  I picked up these two polishes in a stand-alone Sephora store and have yet to see them on the Sephora website.


no base coat, 2 coats Knightsbridge Place, no top coat

The all matte glitter polish in this collection: Nails Inc. Knightsbridge Place.  Made up of all the same sized hexagonal glitter in matte red, light pink, and light blue in a clear base.  As you can see in the photos above and below, these polishes don't work so well as full-coverage polishes because even with the dabbling method where you dab on a blob of polish and push the glitter around on the nail to get the nail fully covered, as I did here, with two thick coats, there are still large un-covered spots on the nails, and there are areas that the glitter is starting to build-up and become bumpy.  


no base coat, 2 coats Knightsbridge Place, no top coat 

Nails Inc. Upper Street, the second polish in this collection, is made up of four colors of hexagonal glitter in a clear base.  Three are matte glitter: the white, light pink, and light blue.  The fourth color of glitter is a shiny gold, which adds a different dimension from Knightsbridge Place.


 no base coat, 2 coats Upper Street, no top coat

Like Knightsbridge Place, Upper Street does not work very well as a full coverage polish because of how chunky the glitter is, creating the same problems of balding and bumpiness that Knightsbridge Place has.


 no base coat, 2 coats Upper Street, no top coat

Where Knightsbridge Place and Upper Street really shine are as glitter toppers.  Both Knightsbridge Place and Upper Street are layered over Sally Hansen's Complete Salon Manicure in Thinking of Blue.

First let's see Knightsbridge Place as a topper.


 base coat, 1 coat Sally Hansen Thinking of Blue, 1 coat Knightsbridge Place, no top coat


 base coat, 1 coat Sally Hansen Thinking of Blue, 1 coat Knightsbridge Place, no top coat


  base coat, 1 coat Sally Hansen Thinking of Blue, 1 coat Upper Street, no top coat


base coat, 1 coat Sally Hansen Thinking of Blue, 1 coat Upper Street, no top coat

If you think you've seen these polishes before, you may have.  A few blogs have shared photos of these glitters in double ended bottles.  There appear to be three double ended polish duos where on one side of the duo, there is a creme polish, and the other end has one of the pop art glitters.  The third glitter topper, Cavendish Place, has turquoise, black, silver, and white glitter in it.  This was not at Sephora.  I'm not sure if this means that Cavendish Place will not be showing up at Sephora, or whether it was just not in stock at the particular Sephora store I frequent.  Please let me know if you see it around!

So what do you think of these polishes?  Which is your favorite?  Have you seen or tried any polishes from the Nails Inc. Pop Art collection?