The forces of the universe have been conspiring to prevent me from posting this collection. First, a while back, I decided to take a new approach to swatching. Instead of just painting my nails for a quick photo and just writing about my brief opinions, I decided to actually wear all the colors in collections I review. The result was a copious amount of notes on each color, similar to what I usually write for posts on manicures. But then, to my chagrin, the evil google virus did away with all my efforts. As far as nail polish goes, the notes lost, are the equivalent of the Library of Alexandria burning down. Sadly, here are my briefer impressions based on what I remember from wearing this colors.

Color Club had an interesting concept for this spring collection, these colors were intended to be mixed and matched to create various funky frenches. I can totally see where they were going with that idea, these colors (a mixture of shimmery sheers and opaques) do compliment each other well in the french format. However, this collection also lends itself to amazing layering combinations. I would have loved to have shown you guys the sheers from both Catwalk Queen and Femme Fatale over black and white but I’ve been so busy I just haven’t had the time. But, fear not, Scrangie has some great swatches of these shades over black.

Color Club Femme Fatale consists of ultra sparkly pink and yellow toned micro-glitter suspended in a gel like whitish polish that applies clear. This is 4 coats, it’s simply gorgeous over black. (Please excuse the perpetual yellowness of my nails.)

Color Club Oooooo La La is a stunning, wearable white with a pearl finish. I usually don’t like pearl finishes but I absolutely loved this color. This is 3 coats. The application was a bit off – the coats applied unevenly so you have to be careful to be apply as evenly as possible. While I would consider this color a PITA, it’s not impossible to work with and I think the pay off is worth the extra effort. This color is perfect as a base on which to layer the sheer colors in this collection.

Color Club Oui! Oui! Oui! consists of a very fine green shimmer in a sheer whitish base. My picture isn’t very accurate as far the shimmer, the green is way more obvious in real life. This one is also stunning over black. I believe this swatch is 4 coats.

Color Club Revvvolution is just, wow. WOW. I guess I might be biased because I love all holos – but this one is particularly brilliant. It’s a dark charcoal, pretty much black for all purposes, medium grain holo. The holo has a predominately greenish cast to it. Revvvoltion is very well pigmented. For me, it was essentially perfect in one coat but I applied two for good measure. I haven’t done a side by side swatch, but from memory, I can tell you that this is darker and more opaque than OPI My Private Jet. MPJ is one of my favorite polishes of all time, but I actually think that Revvvolution might take it’s place.

I’ve gotten a lot of complaints about the quality of my images of holographics so I’ve been trying to find alternative forms of lighting that are better suited to showing the holographic effect of these polishes. This picture isn’t as vivid as Revvvolution is in real life but I think you get the idea.

Color Club Where’s the Soiree? is a black creme that doesn’t dry glossy. It’s not exactly matte, but closer to a satin finish. It applies well in 2 to 3 coats. I would want to maintain the unique finish so I would probably either use no top coat or a matte top coat. Where’s the Soiree? is also perfect as a base for layering the other colors in this collection.

Color Club Worth the Risque is a medium grain holographic silver with a bluish cast. Like Revvvolution, the holo has a greenish cast to it. It’s a 2 to 3 coater. LOVE it.

Here it is in different lighting… *drool/dies*.

I know I’ve been apologizing a lot lately but I have one more. My computer caught a horrendous virus last week and I haven’t been able to do anything on it since then. My images are okay, but sadly all the notes I’ve taken on all the colors I’ve been swatching were lost. That means I have to go by memory and some of these colors were swatched so long ago I’ll only have a vague recollection of my impressions. Also, if you’ve sent me an email or left a comment, I swear I’m going to get to it soon, I’m just totally disorganized and I’m trying to get everything together.

In any case, to get back into the regular flow of nail polish blogging I’m starting off with the Lancome Pink Irreverence Collection which is in stores now. I have the Lancome Le Magnetiques but this is my first rodeo with their Le Vernis line. These are some pricey polishes but I have to say I’m pretty impressed overall. The formula for both these colors is excellent – smooth, perfect application. The brush size and wand length is absolute perfection. The wand is just long enough to keep the polish flowing consistently without cuticle pooling. The brush is like a toned-down version of OPI’s Pro-wide, making Lancome’s brush shape and size just perfect for the shape of my nails. My one major critizism is that Lancome opted to go with the non-removable square cap. Other companies like Chanel and Butter London make the square cap removable, which is preferrable because square caps can be awkward to hold. With that said, I love the over all style of the bottle – mirrorred cap and a sleek bottle body with a mirrored silver rose stamped in the corner.

(Ahhh, I’m kicking myself right now because I had such elaborate meticulous notes concerning this color.) Piha Black is black (I’m captain obvious) with glass fleck glitter. My picture doesn’t properly exhibit the sparkliness of the glitter – it’s visible but not in an ‘in your face’ kind of way. There are a few blacks with glass fleck glitter that have varying prices and are different degrees of rarity on the market. Just to name a few, there’s Dior Black Sequins, Sally Hansen Salon Raven’s Wing, OPI Baby It’s Coal Outside, Sally Hansen Diamond Strength Black Diamond and Pure Ice Electric. You can see comparisons of a few those on Steph’s Closet and if I can ever get it together, I’ll have comparisons of the latter 3. Without having side-by-side swatches for true comparitive value and by only eye balling the bottles, my initial impression is that none of these look exactly alike. There are slight variations in the depth of the black as well as the luster and density of the glitter for each polish, however, if you’re on a recession budget the lower end polishes (that Pure Ice will only set you back $1.50, tops) might be worth your consideration. What makes Piha Black stand out from the others, at least for me, is that it’s completely opaque in one coat. Making it not only perfect for nail art as pictured below, but also saving application and giving you double bang for your buck.

Sassiness is a soft translucent pink, perfect for french manicures. The subtle genius of the Pink Irrevence Collection is the dichotomy between the edgy black and the feminine pink… which together… kick butt. Instead of doing a traditional funky french, I decided to do a chevron and a half moon just for illustration purposes, I absolutely love the way these colors compliment each other. My index and middle fingers are 4 coats of Sassiness. It applies perfectly so one coat looked excellent but I wanted to test buildability. Sadly, it doesn’t build. Sassiness looks pretty much the same at 4 coats as it does at 2 coats, which is pretty much the hallmark of a good french manicure base color. I can only hope that the colection’s designer, Aaron De Mey, is secretly attempting to usher Lancome into the realm of nail art. I hope Lancome takes the plunge.

For a few seasons now, China Glaze has released thematic, well balanced collections. Their main seasonal collections have consistently included something for every taste. So, golf clap to China Glaze – their design department knows what’s up.

Like seasonal collections in the past, Romantique consists of two sets, one cool, the other warm. Most of these colors apply perfectly in one coat. One Coat. People have been saying that for a while but I dismissed it thinking that one coat meant one massive-absurdly-thick coat but no, really, opaque bottle color coverage in one normal coat. The theme in this collection is a frosty metallic finish. When I first saw the promotional images I thought these were going to be chrome, they aren’t. Instead the finish is shimmery, nearly foil like. These colors, with their amazing pigmentation and viscosity, are going to be perfect for use with the Konad. All these swatches are 1 coat of color over 1 coat of base coat.

A note on the color accuracy of these images: These colors, due to the finish, are really difficult to capture accurately with my lighting set up. Most of the colors are deeper in real life. Additionally, the finish is not uniformly reflective like it appears to be in some of these photos. These colors have  a lot of frosty sparkle. I really recommend looking at Scrangie’s swatches which were taken in sunlight, in my opinion her images are a better depiction of these colors.

China Glaze Awaken is described as a platinum silver, I think it’s more like a silvery charcoal. This color is grunge-y. To me it has a steampunk feel to it. This swatch is one coat of color, no top coat.

China Glaze Cherish is a metallic-y moss green. I couldn’t capture the color correctly, it’s much more green toned in real life. This swatch is one coat, no top coat.

Adore is a metallic-y turquoise. This one is a standout for me. I’m going to go nuts using this color with Konad over black. 1 coat color, 1 coat base.

Devotion is a metallic-y lavender. This is my second favorite from this set. It may just be me but I feel like this shade of lavender was made to be worn with this finish. 1 coat of color, 1 coat of base.

Harmony is metallic-y purple. My third favorite, I feel like this color flattered my skin tone the most – I consider myself a warm tone even though I’ve never really understood all that jazz about cool tones and warm tones. 1 coat of color, 1 coat of base.

Joy is a metallic-y purple toned mauve. This is 1 coat of color, 1 coat of base.

I’ll report back with my Konading experiments at a future date.

CND Black Platinum and Zoya Freja are pretty close but not the same. Black Platinum is slightly more frosty and metallic. Freja has a slightly more bluish tinge. CND Hyde in the Dark has the best coverage of the bunch, it two coats where all the others (except for Dying Love) looked best with three. It’s my favorite from this bunch. Color Club After Hours gave me some cuticle drag issues. That didn’t happen to me before when I swatched this color so I’m going to blame my haste in painting. Finally, Misa Dying Love is the darkest from this set, close too black. It also had great coverage at two coats.

OPI My Private Jet is definitely in the top half of my top 20 favorite polishes of all time. Released with the OPI Night Brights in 2007, My Private Jet has recently gone the way of the Dodo. Rather, OPI has made the baffling decision to discontinue this most beloved color. When we caught wind that this color was discontinued, most girls decided to pick up an extra bottle for posterity. It was around that time that the color discrepancy between the original batches of My Private Jet and the more recent batches became apparent.

The original MPJ is large bright dense prismatic holographic glitter suspended is semi-jelly-ish charcoal polish. The color is not exactly black, but pretty close. I’ve always preferred wearing it with 4 coats to build the opacity of the base color. Other girls circumvent the multiple coats but layering the original over black or charcoal. The new MPJ is more opaque, lighter colored, with finer less prismatic holographic glitter.

It’s hard to tell the difference in this photo but I assure you, they’re not very similar at all. This swatch is 4 coats of the original MPJ and 3 coats of the new MPJ. I could have easily gotten away with 2 coats on New MPJ but I’ve evolved into a habitual 3 coater, I can’t stop myself. I do like the new version, but the old version is always going to have a special place in my stash.

The fall blitzkrieg is mostly over and now we’re barreling towards the winter collections. The OPI Holiday in Toyland collection is composed of 6 very unique colors and 6 reds. I’m splitting this collection up into two posts accordingly. The Nailphile has swatches of the whole collection up right now in case you’d like to see the reds as well. (As a side note, I apologize for the lack of posting lately, this is my last year of law school and I’ve been swamped with the job search, etc.)

OPI You’re A Doll is a sheer muted pink with silverish frost-shimmer finish. The unique aspect of this color is the multi-sized reddish copper flecks that run throughout. This color is fairly sheer, I used 3 coats to get full coverage and bottle color. This is what I would like to refer to as a ’sneaky professional color’, like Rescue Beauty Lounge Grunge. It’s definitely professional and work appropriate but you can have the personal satisfaction of knowing you’re operating outside the status quo with your little coppery flecks. That might be something that only amuses me though, I know, I’m weird.

OPI Baby, It’s “Coal” Outside is probably my favorite from this collection. It’s slightly more gray than a pure black and it’s infused with silvery glitter. The glitter is potentially multi-sized. It’s hard to tell because the glitter is so small. This is 2 coats. The image above is without flash, below is with flash.

OPI Brand New Skates is silvery charcoal with irridescent glitter that flashes green and copper tones. This shade applies sheer but is buildable. This is 3 coats.

OPI Glamour Game, my second favorite from this set, is a gorgeous, chic… um… that’s where my powers of description end. It’s a very light champagne gold sheer with a finish that is both shimmery and frosty. Glamour Game has green to copper toned flecks of glitter similar to the ones found in Brand New Skates. This swatch is 3 coats. The image above was taken in indoor lighting, the image below was taken in direct sunlight.

OPI Play ‘Til Midnight is a deep blurple (more purple than blue, my picture is inaccurate as always) with blue and purple shimmer throughout. I used 3 coats because I tend apply very thin coats of polish – I think most people can get away with 2 coats. The ‘me’ of yesteryear would have loved the daylights out of this color but I think my collection has reached critical mass when it comes to purples. I can’t believe my fingers just typed those words.

OPI “Sheer” Your Toys! is another sheer, simultaneously frosty and shimmery subtly pinkish gray with multi-sized reddish copper flecks. This is 3 coats as well. I like the creative thematic design scheme present in this collection, the repeated use of green to copper toned glitter, combine frost and shimmer finish, and reddish-coppery flecks gives this collection that extra… oomph of uniqueness. I really love this set of colors.

This collection is up for sale now on transdesign.com.

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.

I know that everyone has been dying to see the new Fall Color Clubs, here they finally are for your viewing pleasure. All and all, Musique is a solid collection. I was expecting some of these to be metallic but they’re actually just really shimmery. Even though these look highly pigmented in the bottle, they actually apply thinly. If you typically do thin coats like I do, these colors are going to be three coaters. However, I don’t think it would be difficult to get opacity in 2 coats if you typically like working with thicker coats.

Color Club Feel the Beat is a burnt orange shimmer. I’d almost say that it’s borderline metallic. ‘Feel the Beat’ is an appropriate name, I’m not really sure why but this color really reminds me of Miami (my home, sweet, home) and Gloria Stefan.

Color Club Slow Jam is a reddish brown with golden shimmer. It’s a redder version of OPI Espresso Your Style. Slow Jam is one of those rare brown shades that actually flatter my skin tone… now, if only I could find a creme brown that did the same. *sigh*

Color Club Groove Thang is dark purple shimmer – oh man, I. love. it. It is definitely the stand out from this collection. I expected to love it even more than I do because Groove Thang is actually a beetle duochrome in the bottle, unfortunately, I couldn’t get the beetle effect to show up on the nail. I’m not giving up though. I merely swatched Groove Thang. It’s possible that as a full mani, completely dry, in non-direct sunlight, I’ll get the beetle effect that I love so much and promptly die from happiness soon thereafter. Since I know this is going to come up, in my opinion, Groove Thang is not dupish to China Glaze Midnight Ride, which has violet shimmer as opposed to dark purple shimmer. I’ll do comparisons soon.

Here’s Groove Thang again, you can almost see the color change, almost.

As usual, my camera is perpetually deficient when photographing purples. Color Club Electronica is more purple than it looks in this swatch. Electronica, with fuchsia flecks and blurple shimmer, seems like a tamer version of OPI Ink. The main difference seems to be amount of glittery shimmer, Ink apparently has chunkier more abundant bling. I sound like a broken record but I’ll do comparisons soon.

Color Club After Hours is a medium charcoal gray with multi-toned silver, red, and green shimmer. The shimmer is very similar to the shimmer in CND Hyde in the Dark but After Hours is darker and has less silver throughout. After Hour is less dark and more shimmery than Misa Dying Love. Comparisons of all these will be up soon. After Hours is a great addition to my nail-breakage-in-mourning collection.

Last but not least, Color Club Velvet Rope, a magenta red with gold shimmer. I, surprisingly, liked this color on myself, which is rare for me as I am not a fan of shimmery reds. I can’t really give you guys much guidance in the way of dupes and comparisons because I really don’t own many shimmery reds. Sooorrrryyy.

Special thanks to Color Club.

Sorry about that hiatus, I started a new soul-destroying job and I’ve had zero free time and zero sunlight with which to take swatch images. I’m going to invest in a light box so that I don’t have to be so sun dependent, until then, you guys will have to make due with sub-par indoor lighting.

Ok no more excuses for the moment, let’s get back to the Fall Blitzkrieg. That’s what I’ve decided to dub the insanity that is about to ensue when all the fall colors hit the shelves. It’s really like all the nail polish companies got together and conspired to empty out some bank accounts.

Here’s Lippmann Collection’s 4 new shades for fall:

Lippmann Collection Rhapsody in White is a frosty white with a tinge of silver. This is two coats in sunlight, (the only sunlight picture I was able to get today.) It’s a great color but I got a lot of noticeable brush strokes. I am not a fan of brush strokes.

Lippmann Stop and Stare is a magenta based bright jelly creme red. Gorgeous. This is 3 coats, but it’s wearable at 2 coats if you don’t mind VPL. This one had great application, not a streak in sight, smooth and perfect. I’m tempted to say that Lippmann Stop and Stare is dupish to Essie Jelly Apple, but I’m hesitant because JA is more a true red, and SaS has a magenta tone to it. I’ll do comparison swatches soon.

To be honest, I was a little surprised to see a true black in Lippmann’s fall collection. Not to hate on Lippmann, but black is black is… black. However, black is supposed to be making a come back this fall so I guess it makes sense. This is a normal, glossy, unadulterated true black creme. The application was excellent, it’s opaque in coat, but I preferred it with two. Now that I think about it, I wonder if every black really is created equal. I’ve never actually done side by side comparisons of my black cremes. My HG go-to black for layering is Milani Black Magic. It’s cheap and gets the job done so I’ve never really questioned the difference between tones, application, and wear in blacks. *light bulb goes on for article*

Lippmann Collection Pump Up the Jam is definitely the stand out color from the new Lippmann fall shades. I’m really loving these shimmery vampies. Judging by the enthusiasm for them on the nail board, I expect that vampy shimmers are going to be big this Fall. Lippmann describes this color as “Boysenberry Bijoux”. Not really sure what that means, but man, I love this color. It’s aubergine shimmer with a blackish base. This image does not do this polish justice, this one is a definite ‘must have’. I’ll definitely revisit this color for you guys when the sun comes back out, darn Florida weather.

Special thanks to Lippmann.

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.

All next week is Hard-to-Find Week on the MUA nail board. In preparation for the festivities the girls, myself included, have been rummaging through stashes in order to find those elusive polishes we all love so much. So I decided that I’m going to dedicate the next few posts to my favorite hard-to-finds. To kick things off, I present to you, a flash back to the year 2000 – Cover Girl Crackle Lacquer.

These two are Halloween themed, Boo Hou and Jack-o-Lantern, but if my memory serves me, there was a full line of these. I think I remember owning a white one that I used to layer over black nail polish. Oh ho, my teenage self was *so* edgy. If I had it now, I would use it over gold polish to rip off the MAC Antiquitease mani.

Crackle actually has an interesting back story (here’s the original press release), apparently the person who invented it did so by accident while trying to invent something else- then tweaked the formula to be marketed as cracking nail polish. The patent is held under the title “Nail Enamel Composition Having Decorative Appearance”, which I find highly amusing.

This bottle of Crackle was given to me by MUA’s lovely lindyspendy. I almost died when I got it since I’d been hunting Crackles unsuccessfully for a long time. Seriously, opening that package was like opening Tutankhamun’s tomb. The formula has thinned out over the years. This bottle may very well be over 8 years old. You can’t really do multiple layers with Crackle so there’s no way to curb the thinness of the formula – but – I actually think it actually looks cool over black. The thinness gives it an eerie faded quality.

This bottle of Crackle is from evilbay. It was a bit pricey but not horrible, totally worth it. This bottle’s formula was too thick, also probably from age. However, it dried with excellent cracks, so I won’t complain. You guys will notice I only swatched 2 nails for each color whereas I usually do a full hand. That’s how special this polish is too me, I feel bad putting it on just to take it off!

The first time I saw the ManGlaze guy post on the nail board, the boyfriend pointed out that ‘ManGlaze’ is a euphemism for man spunk. I said, “no way, it’s just a play on China Glaze”… then I saw the ManGlaze website. Go ahead, click the link, then put your mouse on the yellow image. After seeing that advertisement, there wasn’t a doubt in my mind about the meaning behind the name ManGlaze. I know it’s probably not obvious since this is a blog about nail polish but I am a hardcore militant fundamentalist feminist. It goes without saying that that sort of imagery is offensive to me, and that’s what I told the ManGlaze guy in his post. But then he offered me free nail polish. After which I said, “feminism?… what feminism?” (Sorry girls, I have zero integrity when it comes to free nail polish.)

These swatches are two coats of color with no top coat. Usually, it would be blasphemy to not use a top coat. I made an exception this time because the ManGlaze guy BEGGED me not to put top coat on his polish. ManGlaze’s whole angle is “glossy has been canceled.” Their polish is supposed to gritty, matte… those things, I suppose, are thought to be synonymous with manliness… or something. Anyway, originally I was going to stick it to them by putting a million coats of top coat on but their polish, but I decided against it. I love this polish now, but my blue-haired 16 year-old self would have *really* loved this polish. The polish really is pretty awesome without a shiny top coat.

However – the girls on the board that have ManGlaze have been putting top coat on it. It looks amazing. Both ManGlaze Black and Grey have this ultra subtle multicolored micro-shimmer that can’t really be seen when it dries matte. One coat of top coat brings out all that hidden shimmer and it’s really very stunning.

ManGlaze Black reminds me black asphalt and black electronics casing. Take a look at Scrangie’s comparison pic of it. With top coat on, it kind of reminds me of the way the sky looks when you are out in the middle of no where.

This is my NOTD. I really love it. I’m wearing it as is, matte, all day. Tomorrow, I think I’ll slap some top coat on it. (Sorry – ManGlaze guy.)

ManGlaze should name these colors (every other aspect of their marketing is geared towards disgruntled male youth, the price is $6.66, the name, the ads, why not have a matching ‘edgy’ name for the colors? I’m thinking something like Rubber, Asphalt, or Coal for the black and something like Steel or Grit for the Grey.) ManGlaze should also release a matte top coat – like I said, not using a top coat is taboo. Also, they should put out a matte dark blue and blood red… oh man… I would LOVE that.