Nubar is quickly becoming my go-to brand for duo/multi-chrome polishes. Nubar Peacock Feathers is a particularly popular multi-chrome among polish addicts, with good reason. It’s a pretty impressive shade. A lot of duo-chromes are duds, very flashy in the bottle but they lack the same intensity and variation of color on the nail. Peacock Feathers is the exact opposite of a dud. I actually got flashes of frosty purple, blue, and green, constantly. It’s purple in most lighting. When it’s not purple, it’s green – the blue comes out mostly in-doors but it is there. Sometimes between the blue and purple flash I got a very pretty greenish, gray ashy shade. My picture doesn’t do this color justice but you can see some of the variation of color reflected in the bottle. The only downside is that I’m currently going through an evil weird “ugh purple” phase that just came out of no where. Purples are the roots of my addiction. I *love* purple but lately I just can’t stand the sight of the color. I hope I get back to my purple loving self soon because it seriously comprises 35% of my collection. As an aside, my bottle of Seche is reaching the dead zone, the stage at which even an ocean thinner cannot revive it – that’s why the gap area looks so weird.

(And since I know girls are going to ask… Nubar is available from www.bynubar.com.)

Nail polish is one hell of drug. I’ve been lemming Clarins 209 Ocean Bleu Abysse since time began. I had just about given up hope when someone (who I am now forever indebted too) alerted me to this weird nail polish e-tailer. I say it’s weird because the site carried several discontinued Clarins colors for half price – absolutely shocking. This site also had Dior Liquorice in stock. That definitely raised some red flags because Liquorice was supposed to be a Nordstrom exclusive. But I figured, whatever, I’ll take the gamble. I’m glad I did – I mean, sure, my bottle of Liquorice has the serial number shaved off with a dremmel but it’s all good. Now I own the coveted Clarins 209 *and* I got to stick it to the man. As a side not, The Nailphile is planning to post a comparison soon as well and according to her, Sparitual Solitude is dead on for Clarins 209.

For those of you who want Clarins 209 but don’t have access to it you can try L.A. Girl Flare Bedazzle which is still readily available online.

It’s not an exact dupe but definitely good enough. 209 is darker and more pigmented. In fact, I’d say that 209 is borderline too thick especially when compared to Bedazzle that needed 3 coats to reach opacity and bottle color. Bedazzle can also potentially cause a good bit of cuticle drag so it’s going to require a longer wait period between coats. Finally, 209 dries glossy and Bedazzle dries matte like a neon. Of course, I think it’s worth it to own both. ; )

I think I’m just going to stop raving about Rescue Beauty Lounge because I’m starting to sound like a broken record. These colors are just so disgustingly gorgeous – it’s almost overwhelming. I’m starting to suspect that the nail polish gods have bestowed Ji Baek with the logos. This collection is so perfect, I practically started speaking in tongues when the FedEx guy dropped it off. ¹ So now I’m spreading the gospel to you guys – *cue the trumpets* – behold:

Rescue Beauty Lounge Teal is tough to describe. Is it blue, is it green? It does look green in some lights, blue in others. It’s not really teal… is it? I’m not sure. I just know that it’s drop dead gorgeous. As always great application – almost complete coverage in one coat.

I’m wearing Rescue Beauty Lounge Bruise right now. Like Teal, it’s tough to pin down in one color category. It’s a purple-y muted maroon-ish brown. Those colors don’t even seem like they are part of the same spectrum but Bruise looks like all three at same time. On short nails and in non-conservative offices, I’d say this one is work appropriate. Also, great application.

Rescue Beauty Lounge No More War is the controversial color from this collection. People either absolutely LOVE it or absolutely HATE this olive green, there doesn’t seem to be an in between. I’m sure this won’t be shocking to anyone but I’m in the ‘f-r-e-a-k-i-n-g love it’ camp. Plus, the tiny little dirty tree hugging hippie inside me loves the name.

So does this collection have anyone else speaking Glossolalia, or is it just me?

________

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’m a little late to the party (check out Scrangie’s swatches) but, of course, I have to give you guys my take on one of the biggest collections to hit us this Fall. I wasn’t all that excited for OPI France when I initially saw the promotional images. OPI has a proclivity for releasing several reds and ‘almost blacks’ in just about every collection and, frankly, it gets old. The promos of France made it seem like more of the same. Consequently, I wasn’t expecting to like these. I was pleasantly surprised to find that this collection is actually pretty cool.

Sure, a few of the colors were fairly run of the mill OPI type stuff. I’m not doing back flips for OPI Louvre me Louvre Me Not (ducks to avoid thrown stones, tomatoes, assorted rotting vegetables), but there are several solid gorgeous, unique colors in this collection. There have been a few complaints about colors in the France collection being thick and difficult to apply but I didn’t have any real trouble with them.

As a side note, I really feel like OPI did a good job of designing colors that are representative of French culture and fashion. I say that because I felt like they could have done more with the Indian collection, it’s good to see that they were spot on with France.

*Dies* OPI You Don’t Know Jacques is my absolute favorite color from this collection. Seriously, every once a while an amazing color like this comes out and renews my passion for nail polish. The color is tough to describe, grayish, brownish, dirty, mushroomy? This is my current NOTD, 2 coats, love it. I’ve said it a million times and I’ll say it again, love these grayed out mushroomy colors. I just can’t get enough.

OPI Yes… I Can-Can! is a shimmery eggplant type color. The base color seems similar to OPI Lincoln Park After Dark. The shimmer seems multi-colored, I see flashes of green, silver, and violet in the bottle. On the nail, it’s silvery and serves to give Yes… I Can-Can! depth. This swatch is 3 coats but with careful application good coverage is possible at 2 coats.

OPI Tickle My France-y is my second favorite color from this collection. It’s a grayed out subtle nude pink – it is chic and sophisticated perfection. Earlier last week, when I went back into the professional nail color purgatory, Tickle My France-y was the first color I chose for the big switch. This color was so beautiful, so flattering that I didn’t even care about being forced to wear professional colors. This mani was 3 coats.

OPI Parlez-vous OPI?, another stand out color, is a grayed-out (or smokey as OPI puts it) plum. The application was slightly troublesome, my bottle was chalky and thick but it’s workable. This is 2 coats.

OPI Louvre Me Lourve Me Not is my least favorite color from this collection. Sorry guys, I know I’m completely alone, everyone else loves this one. There’s nothing inherently wrong with this color but I have a predisposition to disliking shimmers and I’ve just had my fill of shimmery mid-range purples this fall. You can’t really see it in my image but Louvre Me Lourve Me Not has blurple and violet shimmer. This swatch is 3 coats.

OPI I’m Fondue of You is a reddish light chocolaty brown with reddish brown shimmer. I don’t love this one. It’s pretty but not special. This swatch is 2 coats, I think the color would look better with 3.

OPI Eiffel for this Color is an ‘almost black’. OPI says it’s wine but it looks dark purple with violet shimmer to me. It’s similar to Yes… I Can-Can! but they’re different enough to warrant owning both if one is so inclined to do so. Normally, I would say boo to an almost black but I, surprisingly, like this color. This swatch is 2 coats.

Scrangie called OPI Crepes Suzi-ette a ‘mom’ color… it is – but – it’s hot. I think this one ventures into the realm of work appropriate. I’m actually surprised that I like this color too. I probably wouldn’t have batted an eye at this creamy reddish caramel in a store, but it’s actually very flattering on the nail. I would even dare say that it’s unique. This swatch is 2 coats.

There will always be reds in an OPI collection, shockingly there were only two in the France Collection. One of which, OPI Bastille My Heart, is a deep burgandy with violet shimmer throughout. Pretty, but standard.

OPI Baguette Me Not, a creamy salmon, is another shocker. Totally didn’t expect to like this ‘mom’ (haha) color but I love it. Very chic, very work appropriate. This swatch is 2 coats.

OPI A Oui Bit of Red, the other red in the France Collection, is a mid-range bright red. I love reds and I would have loved this one too, but for the shimmer. The saving grace is that the fuschia shimmer is very subtle, hardly noticeable. This swatch is 2 coats.

Finally, OPI We’ll Always Have Paris. Love. It. This is the color that I wanted the annoyingly almost black OPI Lincoln Park After Dark to be. I love LPAD but I always wanted it to be more noticeably purple and vampy. OPI granted my wish with We’ll Always Have Paris. Strangely, OPI says this color is dark coffee… definitely looks dark reddish purple to me.

Special thanks to OPI.

Please read the bold disclaimers under Agent Lavender & Secret Peri-wink-le.

China Glaze has really gone above and beyond this Fall – all three of their new collections are mostly composed of what I consider to be unique colors. Operation Colour is particularly special because these colors are not typically reminiscent of Fall. It’s like China Glaze is saying, hey, you don’t have to spend the entire fall in muted, dark colors – extend the summer just a bit (which to me, as a Floridian, makes perfect sense). Rumor has it that this collection will be available online in about a week or so.

I know I say this in just about every post and sadly I will have to continue to do so until I’m no longer an impoverished student that cannot afford a better camera: this color is not blue in real life, China Glaze Agent Lavender is very visibly a light lavender. The consistency of the polish reminded me of China Glaze Second-hand Silk – it’s a chalky 3 coater. My bottle was a bit on the thick side but I don’t think that is going to be representative of the polish as a rule. Every blog that has covered China Glaze this season has complained about application issues, always in reference to different colors. If you happen to unluckily chance upon a thick bottle of polish, from any brand, a few drops of generic nail polish thinner will do the trick – do not use nail polish remover for this purpose. (In real life Agent Lavender is much lighter than it appears in this photo, I’m really sorry guys I know how annoying this is – swatches are supposed to be accurate.)

China Glaze Code Orange is pumpkin with pinkish shimmer. The shimmer is very obvious outdoors although not as pink as it looks in the bottle. In doors, not surprisingly, it looks like a creme. The color is a slightly darker orange than it appears in the image above. There were no application issues with this color – I think it looks better with 3 coats but it’s definitely wearable at 2.

China Glaze Golden Opportunity is a shimmery mustard yellow. I had some major cuticle drag with this color, but it’s workable at 3 coats.

China Glaze Pink Underground is a Barbie pink laced with magenta toned shimmer. It, too, was chalky and a bit on the thick side. The base color is 2 or 3 shades darker than China Glaze Second-hand Silk.

China Glaze Revolution is an ultra glossy bright orangey-red. It had the best application of the bunch, easy, smooth, perfect in 2 coats. No matter how often I see them, I never ever *ever* get tired of these bright reds. Gorgeous.

And finally, China Glaze Secret Peri-wink-le. Geez. I’m almost ashamed to post this picture – unlike my depiction of this color, it is not blue at all, it actually is periwinkle. This is the standout color from the collection as far as I’m concerned. I absolutely love out of the ordinary colors with a creme finish. To me the absence of shimmer is synonymous with chic sophistication, no offense to shimmer lovers. For as long as I can remember unique colors are almost always also shimmery. It happens so often that I associate shimmer with commonness. Don’t get me wrong. I wear shimmers, most of the time begrudgingly. I mean, I don’t hate them per se. I just prefer cremes and it’s just great to see some variation in finish choice. (In real life Secret Peri-wink-le is lighter and not as bright blue as it appears in this photo, again I am SO sorry, this really is unacceptable but despite trying different settings, my camera always takes inaccurate images when it comes to blues and purples. The best I can do for now is try to accurately describe these for you.)

Special thanks to China Glaze.

After my Essie Starry Starry Night post many of you suggested in the comments section that I should try out Nubar Purple Rain Glitter since it’s the purple more blingy cousin of SSN. Purple Rain Glitter, a recent acquisition along with several other unique Nubars, was freshly sitting in my “untried box”. These are the last few days that I’ll be able to wear blingy nail polish for a very long time so I decided to give it a whirl. Man. I. Love. It.

My love for Purple Rain Glitter is no shocker. Ever since seeing Nubar on the lovely girls on MUA and most recently featured on Sminkan, One Inch Nails, and Scrangie, I have been harboring crazy jump off the cliff lemmings for their polish. Scrangie’s blog is the origin of my specific lemming for Purple Rain Glitter. It’s a deep purple jelly with holographic glitter. Enough said.

The color is more violet-purple in real life than in my image, as usual. Purple Rain Glitter reminded me of the ink from an exploded blue bic pen. It’s extremely unique, I don’t own anything else even remotely similar to it. I’m really glad you guys coaxed me into trying it, or else who knows how long this beauty would have gone untried since I seem to habitually neglect awesome polish.

With all that said, this manicure was my first time using a Nubar polish. I’m very pleased with the results. I used 1 coat of Nubar Foundation Base Coat, 3 coats of Nubar Purple Rain Glitter, and 1 coat of Seche Vite. I got pretty good wear even though I did get some tip pull. My bottle of Seche is too blame, it’s reaching the dump out stage of thickness that causes tip pull. I was very pleased with the application, which is surprising because Nubar is Big 3 free. They bill themselves as ‘the healthy alternative for beautiful nails.’

I could not possibly care less about buying nail polish that is free of toxins. I like my toxins just fine, thank you very much, but I know some people really do care. Nubar is a good company to look into if you want to exclusively buy Big 3 Free. The one thing that really sold me, personally, on Nubar is that their collection has an excellent range of unique colors. We’re talking glitters, duochromes, and mutlichromes – you guys know how I feel about those. Their site is a little difficult to navigate but if you poke around you’ll see what I’m talking about.

Finally, here’s the remaining colors from the China Glaze Rodeo Diva Swatches, I apologize for the delay. You can see the first set here. The sun cooperated a whole lot of not at all in photographing of these swatches. The remaining colors in the Rodeo Diva Collection applied very well, 2 coats each, excellent consistency, except where noted.

China Glaze Red Stallion is a shimmery mid-tone red. It’s a pretty color but you guys know how I feel about shimmery reds.

China Glaze Prize Winning Mare is more my type of thing. I actually like it more in the shade than in the sunlight with full on shimmer. In the shade, it’s a more subtle gold speckled brown, very beautiful. Scrangie thinks it’s somewhat similar to Dior Gold Nugget.

China Glaze Golden Spurs is tan with gold shimmer. I noticed that when I applied it with 2 thin coats I got a lighter shade than when I used 2 thick coats which gave me a darker tan shade.

Oh man China Glaze Cowgirl Up was a pain in the butt to photograph. I apologize for the glare, the sun was setting and there were many clouds over head (Tropical Storm Fay hates nail polish apparently). I was only able to take a few snaps before the weather thwarted my efforts completely. Cowgirl Up, a violet with multi-toned blurple shimmer, is a much loved color from this collection, but again, probably not for me.

China Glaze Branding Iron is a brownish red with gorgeous red shimmer. Branding Iron is like a browner lighter version OPI Midnight in Moscow. I did have some difficulties with the application of Branding Iron – my bottle was really thick.

China Glaze Yee-Haw! is my least favorite color in this entire collection. It’s peach with gold shimmer. As soon as I saw this one I knew I would feel that way so I decided to use it for a manicure. Sometimes colors grow on me, that’s not the case here. There’s nothing wrong with Yee-Haw! per se, it’s actually a really pretty color – but colors like this just don’t suit me.

Special thanks to China Glaze.

First, I thought I would make it easier for everyone and just have one page with links to all the fall collections that I’ve posted so far. So I’ve added a page, Swatches of the Fall 2008 Collections, for ease of access to these swatches. Right now I only have my own posts linked but I want to link to other blogs that have covered fall collections as well. If you have collections you want featured on that page, let me know and I’ll add your links.

I recently posted the Lippmann Fall Collection, in the post I promised you guys a sunlight image of Pump Up the Jam. Some of you requested a comparison of Lippmann Pump Up the Jam and OPI Lincoln Park After Midnight, so here’s the whole shebang:

I was actually surprised to find that in the sunlight Lippmann Pump Up the Jam’s shimmer leans more toward reddish violet – it’s definitely a lot dark indoors. I’m not sure why I’m surprised by that, every shimmer ever works exactly the same way. “Whoa, Bam” outdoors, “Oh that’s nice” indoors.

I might be alone here but I think that Lippmann Pump Up the Jam looks *nothing* like OPI Lincoln Park At Midnight. PUtJ has a darker base color, almost black, unlike LPAM, which has a visibly purple base color. Even the shimmer is different as you can see above, as I said before, PUtJ has an aubergine shimmer to it. The only thing similar about them is that they are both dark colors that incorporate shimmery purple. In my opinion, both are definitely different enough to justify owning both, especially if shimmery purplish vampies are your thing.

The China Glaze Rodeo Diva collection is split up into two parts. Now, here I thought that that I was giving you guys one full box set only to find, after looking at the China Glaze website, that mine were packaged differently. So basically my swatches will be split up into two posts, the polish selection being arbitrary and willy nilly.

Everyone (Scrangie, Sminkan, Hill here and here, Misa Masa, Makeup My Lack, RocketQueen, and ALU – as you can see, I’m super late to this party) has been raving about this collection and the reason for that is obvious to me. These colors are great and for the most part, very unique. For me, they applied really well although Scrangie mentions that some colors gave her a bit of trouble. If you bothered to click all those links I just gave you, you’ll see that no one has similar looking swatches of this collection. That’s because the whole collection is incredibly chameleon-like. They look different, at different angles and in different forms of light. They aren’t duochrome, but the shimmer in them tends to give the colors different tones depending on the aforementioned variables. I don’t think anyone who buys this collection will be displeased but if you are a major stickler for color accuracy in swatches I really recommend looking at everyone’s swatches and searching nailgal.com before buying.

Now on to my swatches:

Gussied Up Green is probably my hands down favorite from this collection. I think it’s really great that China Glaze listened to the masses and finally released a good green. In the bottle, Gussied Up Green has an amazing multi-chromatic effect – it goes from green to blue to purple, but sadly, it doesn’t do that on the nail. Applied, it reminds me of the shimmery dark green used to paint carnival rides and roller coasters. The darkness of the green varies to some extent as well, being very dark in some lights and lighter in others.

China Glaze Side-Saddle is a little tough to describe. It’s a reddish, purplish, brown, with gold shimmer. In the shade it almost looks like a reddish brown creme.

China Glaze Rodeo Fanatic is definitely one of the fan favorites from this collection. It’s sort of a dark turquoise-y blue with light greenish blue shimmer. In the bottle is has a blue to purple duochrome that is not present when applied on the nail. Siobhan from MUA discovered that Rodeo Fanatic is a fairly close dupe to the coveted Mac Whirlwind – which is great for me since I missed out on Whirlwind when it first came out.

China Glaze Midnight Ride is another of my personal favorites from this collection. I’ve been on this dark purple shimmer kick lately so Midnight Ride is right up my alley. It’s different from Color Club Groove Thang which has a darker purple shimmer too it, but that difference in shimmer might not be too noticeable to the non-nail board eye.

I almost died when I saw China Glaze Wagon Trial, really. I don’t know what else to say other than, holy sh*t, I freaking love this color. It looks olive on the nail and in the bottle, but as Scrangie astutely pointed out, it’s probably actually black with gold shimmer. It’s very dark olive in some lights and bright shimmery light olive in others, you can sort of see the transition of color on my nails above.

China Glaze Lasso My Heart is another fan favorite but it’s not for me – not that I dislike it per se, I just don’t usually wear shimmers that are red, pink, or pinkish purple. Maybe some day these colors will grow on me… but that’s a huge maybe. Lasso My Heart is pinkish purple, perhaps violet, with gold shimmer. Don’t judge it based on my taste though, I’m definitely alone, everyone else loves it.

Special thanks to China Glaze.

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.

I’ve been eyeballing the Adorée duochromes, as I know some of you have, for some time now. I was hoping for some opaque duochrome-y goodness but alas [throws arm over forehead] these are… sheer. There must be something about the chemical formula that creates the multichromatic effect that causes most high intensity duochromes to be sheer. It’s not that I dislike these colors, I was just expecting something different. Ultimately, I’ve accepted this cruel… cruel fate, I love duochromes and I just have to deal with the fact that, to my chagrin, duochromes tend to be sheer.

Adorée African Violet is super sheer, this swatch is 4 coats. I couldn’t get good pictures of the duochromatic effect but it is visible despite the sheerness. This color by itself with no colored base creates a greenish cast at some angles. It’s very pretty and seems to be a distant cousin of the coveted OPI Sugarplum Yum. Ultimately, due to my preference for opacity, this African Violet is probably not something that I would wear on its own but it’s a great color for layering.

Adorée Salmon Stream has gotten nothing but raves from the people who own it. It’s not very me but I can see what polish lovers like about his color. It’s less sheer than African Violet, this swatch is also 3 coats. I guess the best description of this color would be copper with a fuchsia tinge and a green cast at some angles.

Now, *this* is more like it. African Violet and Salmon Stream over black create amazing colors. African Violet over black is dark purple and Salmon Stream becomes a fuchsia toned purple.

This swatch above is representative of the grayish transitory color that the wearer would get at some angles before reaching the dark green extreme of the chromatic spectrum. The swatches below are representative of the green end of the chromatic spectrum.

Don’t mind my silly finger contortions. It was the only way to get these greens to photograph.

Adorée is available from Esther’s Nail Center in the U.S. and Nail Pro Store in Europe.

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.

I was pretty excited when Zoya announced this promo. I really put a lot of thought into which colors I would choose. Primarily I wanted to choose colors that I personally liked but also had good application and weren’t very popular. I didn’t want to choose colors I know a lot of people already own since that would defeat the purpose of getting a free bottle of polish. So here they are:

Zoya Stephanie. Ok, I do love this color, but let’s face it, I’m biased because it’s my namesake. It’s a very chic almost white light pink. The downside is that the application can be troublesome. It’s a 4 coater if you want opacity. I apply it using Barielle Camo as a base, that fixed the streakiness issues for me.

Zoya Miley. Those of you who follow my blog know that lilac is one of my white whales, so I just had to include it in my mini-collection. Miley is also a 4 coater but the application is perfect even without Camo. It reminds me of my beloved Orly Bon bon, although I think Bon bon leans a bit more towards periwinkle. This picture shows Miley as being more bluish than it is in real life – sorry guys, I tried to get the color depiction as accurate as I could but it’s almost impossible to photograph purples accurately without sunlight.

Zoya Rea is just ridiculously gorgeous. Rea is metallic with a foil like finish. Perfect in two coats, smooth application, no visible brush strokes. It was my favorite color from the Downtown collection by far. (Sorry, Kotori and Suvi fans.) The color is hard to describe, Zoya says it’s sparkling metallic plum – I’d say pinkish-purple. Whatever, bottomline, I love it.

I realize my colors are a bit conservative so if you’re looking for something more exciting, check out Casual Lavish for a list of all the blogs participating in this promotion. There really is a mini-collection for everyone.

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?