Barielle Holiday Hustle Collection for Winter/Holiday 2010

I was at Costco this week and noticed that they had already taken down the Halloween decoration aisle and put up the Christmas decoration aisle! It's September! I've never seen them do that before. I feel like I'm being rushed! Luckily that is not the case with Holiday polish collections... I'm the opposite with those- I want them in June! Ha!

Here's Barielle's Holiday offering:


Coaldest Day Of The Year. Yes, Coal-dest. I know. *groan* I think it wants to be OPI's Baby It's "Coal" Outside, from the looks of things. This is a black/charcoal with blue-toned silver large particle shimmer. It's not round shimmer, it's more like broken pieces of shimmer. Icy.



Elle's Spell. My favorite of the collection. This is a dark candy apple or light wine red sheer base with red/orange toned opal flakes, a la Nfu Oh. This is rather sheer and not quite as jelly like as I had thought from looking at it in the bottle so it may look better layered if you want a stronger flaky effect.


Get Me To The Party. A deep bronzy gold. Looks sort of duochrome, doesn't it? Has the lighter gold area in the center and the deeper more bronze color on the edges. A little frosty but more metallic than pure frost, but definitely not chrome.



Jess' Champagne Toast. This one is painful. Look how AMAZING it looks in the bottle! It's spectacular! I could barely believe what I was seeing when I held the bottle up in the sunlight. It's a periwinkle leaning toward light lilac frosty metallic base with lots of pink microglitter. Sadly, it doesn't translate on the nail. It looks lumpy and bubbly because the frost base is too, well, frosty? And the glitter is too delicate to be seen through the thick frost. It always makes me wonder when I see a polish like this.... Did they actually wear the color on the nail before they decided to release it? This totally could have been saved with a thinner, more sheer metallic base!


Snow Day. This one is more like a chrome. It's a super reflective metallic blue-toned silver. Very blue toned... Maybe it's actually a silvery blue! Ha! But yes, you will need to be careful with brushstrokes. Frosty.


Wrap Me In Ribbon. This does remind me of ribbon. Pretty. It's a mauve metallic frost, again not a plain frost but more of the China Glaze Romantique Chrome reflective type of frost. You can see how reflective it is in the picture but you can also see some brush strokes.

The formula on these was odd. Elle's Spell and Coaldest Day Of The Year were really thick and a little goopy but the rest of the colors were oddly... soft feeling? I can't even describe it. It's like they're oily or too soft or maybe airy? Know what I'm talking about? They feel strange going on. Maybe it's the too-soft brush. I'm really not digging Barielle's brush lately, it doesn't conform to my nail and I can never get a nice application with it. Drying time is long.


I don't know what to say about this collection. I like some of the colors like Elle's Spell and Get Me To The Party. It just seems like Barielle is making so many frosts lately. I miss the Barielle I fell in love with in 2008.

(These were sent to me for review.)

All MAC Browns

I don't normally go for browns on my eyes unless there's glitter involved, but thought I'd venture out of my comfort zone and do an all brown look...




This was:

MAC Paint Pot in Painterly
MAC Patina on lid
MAC Smut in crease
MAC Glitter Liner in Enbronze

I tried to get a blurry shot to show the glitter in Enbronze, but I could only get a few sparkles to show up:


See the sparkles? It's not really a very glittery glitter liner, but it does have some sparkle to it. It flakes if you apply too much, though. I prefer Too Faced's glitter liners over MAC, but sometimes MAC has really nice colors.

Patina is a really nice shade. It's a really soft light brown with some read pearl in it, sort of duochrome-ish, you get the brown/tan base and then at some angles you get the red pearl. Very soft color.

OPI Here Today Aragon Tomorrow Suede Fall 2010

OPI's converted another one of their shades into a matte-finish Suede polish. This time it's the dark blackened green from last Fall's Spain collection called Here Today, Aragon Tomorrow.


Here Today, Aragon Tomorrow Suede. Why do I always stick my finger in the polish and ruin it?! It seems like it always happens on the best colors, too. Sorry about the big lumpy smudge on my ring finger. Anyway, this is a rich emerald green matte that's jam-packed with tons of foily silver shimmer. As you can see, it looks absolutely nothing like the original Here Today, Aragon Tomorrow:

OPI Here Today, Aragon Tomorrow (La Coleccion de España, Fall 2009)

Seems to be a common theme among OPI's suede polishes- looking pretty much nothing like their namesake.

The finish is the full-on no shine chalky matte that I adore and it seems to stay matte much longer than I'm used to. Doesn't get shiny by the end of the day. It dries super fast. It does not wear as long as normal polish because it is a matte, but I got three days with no chips when I used this with Gelous basecoat.

If you thought it was beautiful with its natural matte finish, wait until you see this:

OPI Here Today, Aragon Tomorrow Suede with one coat of Seche Vite Topcoat. I can't handle all this awesome. Can you believe this?? It's the most ridiculously sparkly luminous evergreen shade ever when you add topcoat. It sparkles more than most glitter polishes and there's not even any glitter in this! Must be because of all those little foil particles that OPI uses in their suede polishes. It's good matte, but it's AMAZING with topcoat.

The formula was great. Totally smooth, not too thick, didn't dry too fast. Use enough polish on the brush when you apply and you won't have any problems. I did two coats here. Dry time is super fast. Wear isn't great, but it is good for a matte, I got three days before it chipped with the basecoat I used.

You know what I like about this color? It reminds me of these Christmas ornaments I have. They come in frosted forest green and deep burgundy red. I hung them from the chandelier last year instead of putting them on the tree and they looked really pretty. I love Christmas, so anything that reminds me of it becomes a favorite of mine. Hell, I love every holiday so anything that reminds me of any holiday gets high praise from me. Especially if it sparkles!

(This was sent to me for review.)

Finger Paints Breast Cancer Awareness Shades 2010

October is Breast Cancer Awareness Month, and Sally Beauty's Finger Paints brand has released two pink shades to help raise awareness:

I'm A Survivor. This is a deep candy pink with large silver shimmer flecks.

And...

I Pink I Can. This one is a pale baby pink with a very fine silvery shimmer.


None of the proceeds from the sale of the individual polishes will be donated, but Sally Beauty will be making a $65,000 donation to Cancer Support Community in October.

These will be available at Sally Beauty starting October 1st and they retail for $4.99 each.

(These were sent to me for review.)

Fyrinnae Purple, Green and Peach look

I haven't been taking any pictures of my makeup lately. Truth is, seeing all these macro pictures of my eyebrows made me a little neurotic, so I did something I know I should never, ever do... I sat down in front of the 16x magnifying mirror and over-tweezed my eyebrows. D'oh. So I've been growing them out again and they look really rough right now and I can't bear to look at them in macro.

But, I do have a lot of older pictures I haven't gotten around to posting. This one's from July and I really liked the peachy-gold and purple combination with my eye color:




This was (to the best of my memory):

Too Faced Shadow Insurance
Fyrinnae Rapunzel Had Extensions applied wet on lid
MAC Purple Shower in crease, topped with a little Fyrinnae Meerkat
Fyrinnae Dragon's Wing wet as liner
Cover Girl Lash Blast

Rapunzel Had Extensions is a Fyrinnae must have if you ask me. It's just so pretty and easy to wear. Peachy-pinky gold duochrome. Very lovely. Goes well with a lot of different colors.

I think I may have mentioned that I gave up on The Falsies mascara and I'm onto Revlon Grow Luscious now. There was nothing wrong with my beloved Lash Blast, but you know me... Always wanting to try something new even if the thing I currently have works just fine. But yeah, that Revlon Grow Luscious? AWESOME. I may even like it better than Lash Blast. It makes my lashes so... what's the word I'm looking for? Luxurious? Lush? Lush, that's it. Really full and lush looking. I'm glad I tried it. It was on sale at CVS and had a free eyeliner packaged with it so I had to get it. I like the eyeliner, too, it's a Color Stay black retractable eyeliner. Maybe I'll do a review. I want to, I get distracted easily so I always forget these things...

China Glaze Rodeo Diva Fall 2008 Revisited

This collection was released in 2008 but to this day, even after the dozens of new collections that have been released since then, China Glaze's Rodeo Diva remains one of my favorite collections of all time. This is what a fall collection should look like.

When I posted my swatches two years ago I was so excited about these colors that I rushed and posted pretty crappy pictures. I just couldn't wait, I was so thrilled that I had to post them immediately! But the lighting was bad, my application was shaky and I had some broken nails. So, I figured it was about time I try to do these amazing polishes justice.

Here they are once again, the incredible China Glaze Rodeo Diva polishes.


Branding Iron. A deep blackened red shimmer. One of my favorite kinds of colors! See how it looks dark on the edges and light in the middle? I can't get enough of those colors.



Cowgirl Up. Amazing red-purple shimmer. Possibly in frost territory? The shimmer is really fine like a frost but this is just too pretty and smooth to be a true streaky-silvery frost. This shade looks really amazing in the sunlight, it has hidden iridescent shimmer!



Golden Spurs. A warm light suede brown base with gold shimmer. This one doesn't look that great on me but I still love the color. So much pretty gold shimmer!



Gussied Up Green. I remember this being my favorite one when I first got this collection, but now I can't pick a favorite. This is a blackened blue-leaning green shimmer. Very dark but when the sunlight hits it it really sparkles.



Lasso My Heart. A mauve purple foil. Not as dense or silver-toned like most foils, this one is pure color and very smooth.


Midnight Ride. Extremely dark purple shimmer. Dark and dramatic. Looks mostly black indoors but in the sunlight you get glints of glorious purple.



Prize-Winning Mare. Similar to Golden Spurs in concept- a light brown base with gold shimmer. This one is much more shiny and metallic, though, and not as warm. The overall effect of this one is actually more of a bronze foil metallic look than just a plain shimmer.



Red Stallion. This color never photographs right for me! It's so metallic and shiny that my camera freaks out. It's a bright metallic red, very glowy, almost radioactive.


Rodeo Fanatic. Medium blue shimmer. Seems to be a tiny bit on the teal side- doesn't look like straight pure blue to me. Maybe there's a touch of green in the formula?



Side Saddle. The base of Side Saddle is a dark brown-toned plum shade. Raisin perhaps? Brown and purple, a bit like Lancome Lizzie Jagger. The shimmer in this is very shiny light gold.


Wagon Trail. What a cool color. It's a black base with gold shimmer but it combines on the nail to look like a olive green. Looks amazing in the sunlight.



Yee-Haw! Orangey, coral-ish pink and gold shimmer. Quite warm. Has an almost duochrome look to is because the pink-coral-peach base and the gold shimmer are each so strong that you see more gold where the light hits it and more pink where the light is indirect.


This was during the area where China Glaze's formula was on the iffy side. Runny, drippy yet thick. Remember those days? The formula on these was actually not bad, but not the easiest to control. I did three coats in all these pictures. Drying time is on the long side for some colors but not for all of them.

Still love this collection... Still get excited about it every time I see the colors. Not very many polish collections have that sort of effect on me!

I don't think any of these colors are particularly hard to find even though they're a few years old. I wonder if any of them have been made permanent? I'll have to find out!

NARS: Old Zulu versus New Zulu

You know... I don't know if I've ever reviewed Zulu all by itself! I suppose that will have to wait until I'm done with this post!

As you all may know by now, NARS has listened to all of us begging them to bring back the beloved green polish and has re-released Zulu along with a few others that were discontinued around the same time (like Mash and Midnight Express).

My first thought when I heard that was "WOOHOO!", but my second thought was "Oh no, I hope it's still the same."

So, I grabbed my original bottle of Zulu and compared:

With flash
Left: Original Zulu, three coats
Right: New Zulu, three coats


Different angle. You can see a bit of a difference in the bottle color.



Left: New Zulu
Right: Old Zulu

Flash shows a slight shade difference.
Left: New Zulu
Right: Old Zulu

The question is, "are they different?" Yes and no. For one, the new version has received a formula update and is more opaque and less streaky than the original. But, color-wise, I detect a small deviation from the original color. It's most apparent on the first coat, but the original is a more saturated color and has a touch more blue. You can see in the bottles that the original looks slightly richer and more jelly-like. The new one isn't quite as jelly-like or as rich of a green.

Is it totally different? No. They're nearly spot on with only minor differences. And, unless you're like me and can see the difference between nail polishes that seem identical to 'normal' people, you probably won't even notice a difference. Especially not at three coats.

And just for fun, here's a really old picture of me wearing the original Zulu, two coats I believe:

You can really see the rich green base color here. At three coats it's near-black, which I love, but at two it's quite green. And yes, a bit streaky, but if you're careful and don't rush (like me, I rush, patience? What's that?) you can get a smooth even coat each time.


Very happy to see one of my favorite colors of all time return. I know everyone's been looking forward to this, myself included. And it still amazes me how almost no company has been able to duplicate this color. I've seen two that are close, but one is already discontinued and very hard to find. I supposed that's irrelevant now that it's actually back!

(The new Zulu was sent to me for review.)

Jessica Paint The Town Collection 2010

I love nail polish with a gimmick. These Jessicas come in little paint cans! How cute is that? They also have some that come in teddy bear shaped bottles like the old Fing'rs polishes (I'll post those soon too).

Though, unlike most products that have a gimmick, the colors/product are actually quite nice.


Funkytown. I know that there are a lot of these types of glitters- the blue/pink/purple glitter in a clear base combination. This one, though, is the prettiest of them all. I don't know why but this one sparkles way more than the others I have like this. Maybe they use a special kind of glitter, I don't know, all I know is that this one is blindingly sparkly and I love it.


Girls Night Out. My least favorite of the bunch but still not bad. Much nicer in real life. It's a cranberry red shimmer. It has more depth of finish and color but I couldn't seem to capture it. This shade of berry red does weird things to my camera.



Pajama Party. Awesome color. Hard to photograph. Let me describe. It's a dark blue-based purple base with strong blue shimmer. It sits on the color like a flash or duochrome but it doesn't really shift with the angle. It's more like a blue overlay. It reminds me a lot of the old Jane polish Gem X if you remember that one.


Scene Stealer. A nice teal shimmer. Color is more accurate in the indoor picture. Sunlight picture shows the reflective metallic qualities of the finish.


Shake Your Booty. I love this name. It makes me want to wear it just because of the silly name. Besides, how many polishes do you know of with the word 'booty' in the name? Ignore the fact that I can't stand the word booty unless it is referring to something a pirate obtains. Anyway... pretty standard medium blue shimmer with green accents. Seems like I see this color a lot. Not a bad shade, just a little common.


Shopping Spree. THIS is my favorite of the collection. It looks like velvet on the nails. It's a shimmering red-based purple and it has so much depth. Reminds me of China Glaze Cowgirl Up. It's so pretty.

Formula on these is okay, a little bit runny and sheer on some shades. I did three coats of all and all of them needed the third. Application is a little tricky because the brush doesn't like to conform to my nails or flex as easily as I think it should. Drying time is long.

Love the paint can bottles. We need more cute shaped bottles. I want someone to make some old retro looking bottles with the fancy elongated handles and really intricate designs on the glass, maybe like an Anna Sui or KO bottle.

(These were sent to me for review.)