Monday, September 28, 2009

LA Girl Rock Star Swatches

So.... I've had these since June and didn't finish swatching them until August.... And now that it's almost October I'm finally getting to post them...

Anyway, these are awesome. I've found two new favorite polishes with this collection, and I just looooove looking at these. My first experience with LA Girl has been very positive!


Addict. This is kind of a jelly red-burgundy-wine shade with tons of tiny little shimmering flakes. Some of the flakes look gold, but some take on a redder shade because of the jelly base. Really sexy looking and it reminds me of fall. It's a warmer version of China Glaze Stroll.


Backstage. My least favorite... it's pink. Actually, it's not so bad, it's really pretty cool. It has a bit of duochrome to it. It's a medium almost-dusty pink with tons of shimmer. Different kinds of shimmer. Sort of glass-fleck, little round particles like OPI Hollywood Blonde, tiny broken flakes... And it has a little gold duochrome or flash.


Crowd Surfing. I'm thinking this was meant for layering, it's very sheer. I think this is four coats? Three or four, it's been a while and I don't remember. Haha. It's a sheer blue-green base with green pearly shimmer particles and opalescent flakes.



Double Platinum. A taupe-grey-charcoal toned holographic glitter. It looks cooler indoors and warmer outdoors (I didn't get an indoor picture). I think there's a mix of regular silvery glitter and holo glitter in this, and the base is slightly tinted a smoky color. This is three coats. I've had issues with this one settling- the glitter settles in the bottom a bit so be sure to shake it a lot before you use it.


Electric Guitar. Golden orange shimmer base with glitter and flakes. I can't decide if the glitter in this is holographic or opal-type glitter... It changes colors, but not all of the colors like holo... Either way it's really, really fascinating and pretty.



Groupie. This is one of my new favorite polishes. It may have taken OPI Ink's spot in my top favorite polish list. It's a rich, eye-catching purple (I know, it looks blue in the pictures) with a glass-fleck-like shimmer... The shimmer particles are large and sparkly, like little pearls or diamonds. It also has crazy awesome duochrome that I wasn't able to capture in a picture. It goes all different shades of purple and blue, a little red, maybe a *hint* of gold and green if you catch it at sunset. I need backups.


Head Banging. Shimmery bold teal. Teal doesn't normally make me think of fall, but this one does. I have no idea why. I want to wear this with plaid. This is another shimmer that seems glass-fleck- it has those large, defined shimmer particles and it looks awesome in the sunlight.



Heavy Metal. Black with silver shimmer particles. I'm not calling this glitter, it's too small and fine and not as sparkly/reflective as true glitter. It's large particle shimmer like the rest of the polishes in this line. I am not normally wild about the black with silver shimmer combo, but this one gets my attention. I don't know why... it seems like it stands out more than other similar shades. The shimmer in this one is... more shimmery?


Live On Stage. Gold and holographic glitter in a slightly gold-tinted base. This is kind of similar to Claire's Goldmine and CND VIP Status, but it's not a duplicate of either. The main differences between Live On Stage and those other polishes is that this is a more neutral shade of gold, the glitter balance is slightly different (this has less holo glitter) and the glitter is less dense in this. This is three coats. This one also settles on me like Double Platinum, so I make sure to shake it before applying.


Overdose. A combination of bright blue glitter, red-toned purple glitter and tiny silver glitter. This is so pretty. Right off the bat, I'm sure people will say this is a duplicate of Sally Hansen Rockstar Pink, Wet n Wild Glitz, Sinful Frenzy or Pure Ice... something... Pure Ice has one kinda like this but I can't remember the name. Anyway, this is different than all of those- the overall tone of this one ends up looking blue once applied, and the tiny flecks if silver really brighten the whole look. I prefer this to all of them.

Paparazzi. Pretty hot pink shimmer. Okay, you know I'm not crazy about pink but this isn't so bad. It has depth. It is pretty- look at it! It has large particle shimmer and a sort of violet-pink duochrome.



Party Animal. This one is really cool but wouldn't photograph well. My bottle had also dried up significantly when I went to swatch this so I kinda globbed it on and covered it in topcoat. LOL. Anyway, this is a super, super dark and rich vampy burgundy with lots of little metallic broken flakes, or really big, flat shimmer. Sort of like Addict but darker. Definitely one of my top favorites from this collection.


Punk. Ahhh, this is so cool, I wish I could have gotten better pictures of this!! Are you tired of hearing me say "large particle shimmer" or "glass fleck" yet? Cause I have to say it again. This one is also. It's really vibrant blue with lots of duochrome. The most dominant color of the duochrome is a darker blue or purple shade. There's some pink too... There is more duochrome in the bottle than on the nail, but it is still ridiculously hot.


Rock Star. This is a tough one to describe. It's kind of like that awesome Hot Topic Iridescent Black I had last summer... It's a dark base, black, or maybe black-red. It has tiny little flecks of flat, weird shaped shimmer and they change color. When you change the angle of your nails, you can see that the flecks are iridescent. I didn't seem to capture any of the color shift in either of these pictures, but it's there in real life.



Scandal. I didn't think I'd like this one as much as I do. It's a soft purple, maybe lavender? But it has strong pink duochrome. So it's like a pearly, pinky, purply glass-fleck shimmer with a subtle touch of gold. Not a whole lot of gold, but there's a little in there. This is really sheer, I'm pretty sure this is four or five coats. Probably meant to be sheer, but I don't like sheers. Might be good for layering.


Supernova. A smoky grey base with stringy holographic glitter. This is so cool! I love these types of glitter. It's thinner than bar glitter, so I think that makes it stringy. This is great for layering, but I like it alone too. I did four coats in this picture (and I smudged my middle finger right before I snapped the picture, ugh).


I think this is all of them.... Am I missing one? I ordered all of them so they should all have been photographed... I just can't remember!

The formula on these is... just okay. Not awesome, not horrible. They're a little thick and some are pretty sheer. The drying time is kinda slow but not awful. With Seche Vite these seem to take maybe half an hour to an hour to be *fully* dry and non dentable. They're set almost instantly, and mostly dry in about 10 minutes, but they stay dentable for a little while. I think it's cause I do so many coats.

I love these. Love love love. This is one of the coolest polish lines EVER. I mean... it says Rock Star right on the bottle, I had to have them! I love the names, I love the colors, I love that they're packed with shimmer and glitter and flakes and duochrome. I could go on about these for hours. They rock.

I got all of mine from LA Girl's website. That model on the main page... omg... So cheesy.

23 comments:

  1. Groupie is really great! I have it too and looks amazing :) One of my favourites.

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  2. those swatches makes my wishlist grow even bigger ^^

    i especially love groupie, heavy metal and rock star

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  3. I loved these too! I got all of them except the black, the stringy, and the dark blue and dark purple duochromey ones (because I thought they looked like dupes of the HT Irridescent ones.

    But I totally have to agree, these are AWESOME! I usually don't love golds or especially bronze colors, but I am in *LOVE* with Electic Guitar! It's glitter totally sets it apart from everything else!

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  4. Awesome, rockstar indeed. Looks like my halloween costume nailpolish has been found

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  5. I have the whole collection. They all look gorgeous on you. I've had them such a long while and finally decided to wear one last night. What a coincidence? I'm wearing Groupie! It sure does look different onscreen. I had to look twice to see if I read that right. Really looks blue and it's a beautiful purple on the nails.

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  6. I just want to say how much I love you and your blog. Your nails are GORGEOUS!!!!!

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  7. All these polishes are great. They really do live up to the name "Rock Star"...so glam! Awesome swatches! :)

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  8. Another coincidence as I too am wearing Groupie today and I've just scheduled a post for next week comparing it to Ink! (it's miles better IMO).

    I love all this collection though and am so happy that Kelly from Vampy Varnish was kind enough to send some as part of a swap.

    Gorgeous, all of them, and your photos are sooooo good.

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  9. Gorgeous swatches. I hope to get my hands on Groupie. (That sounds wrong.)

    And for some reason, the cheesy model on that website reminds me a lot of Donald Trump - definitely not a good thing when you're a young woman! Hahahah...

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  10. great colors! groupie is my fav of them all :-) just love this color!

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  11. the swatches are all so awesome. thank you so much for sharing them with us!

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  12. I really loved these. Someone got me one [groupie] from a store nearby and by the time I got there, the shelves were empty :(

    So I just picked up what they had left which was punk and that light green one.

    The sheer green, I layered over Misa A Sin Worth Committing and the effect was AWESOME.

    I got soo many compliments from Punk.

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  13. Thanks, Scrangie for swatching these. I have been waiting for you to post these ever since the bottle pics. It was worth the wait, as always, so that wise purchases can be made! Appreciated!

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  14. Ahh... Finally! Worth waiting for. ;) When you first posted the bottle pics of these, I had lemmings so bad that I despite saying I would wait for your swatches (!!!) ended up ordering 12 of the 14 colors. Of course they do all look prettier on you! Both Groupie and Punk are my favourites in this collection, but I like all of them too. I have found a dupe though, Heavy Metal is pretty much identical to OPI Baby It's "Coal" Outside, and Head Banging is very close but way more sheer, to ChG Watermelon Rind. But that's OK, I like them anyway. ;D

    <3

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  15. *dies* These are so awesome!!
    I wish I could get hold of some... Well actually I could, I live in the UK, but according to the LA Girl site I could have them delivered to my UK address for a measly $71.49 shipping!!! I wonder how many people go for that, lol

    Kath (donnyspal254 on MUA)

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  16. Curtis: You can order them from Cherryculture.com. They ship to Europe and it doesn't cost much at all! :-)

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  17. i loved these swatches & ended up choosing a few to buy off cherryculture~ was a bit disappointed that groupie was out of stock, but i'm hoping i won't be disappointed about the ones i got. thanks for the swatches!

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  18. I LOVE all of these!!! Especially SuperNova.

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  19. awesome! I just bought mine at cherry culture!!!

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  20. Oh wow! Just had to look up your other L.A. Girl reviews and swatches after reading your recent L.A. Girl Metal post... and although most of these are really gorgeous, my first thought when seeing Supernova was that it looks like your nails are growing HAIR!!!! LOL!!! :-D

    I HAVE to keep looking back at your pics of Supernova - they're sort of... disturbing... yet... fascinating!!

    Now I NEED to buy Supernova just for the "weird" factor alone! I want to see if my nails will look "hairy", too! ;-D

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