Maybelline Gray-T Glamour

So, this was one of those Fashion Week polishes. There are still some picked-over displays in the drugstores around here. Anyway, I felt like most of the other polishes were dupes or dupish to something I already had, but I'm a sucker for a good gray. Which is weird because gray doesn't even look all that great on me.

This applied well -- I think I used two coats. But it dried to a weird not shiny finish. Not matte, not satin, but definitely not shiny. Not a huge deal since I use topcoat anyway.

There is also just a tiny bit of shimmer in this!




P.S. LADIES... I found a whole buttload of Sally Hansen Nail Prisms at my Dollar Tree today. Squee! I got pink rose diamond, purple diamond, white diamond (i think), and... something else. Three of those are holographics, so.. SCORE!

Maybellines!

I found a whole bunch of the blue jean Maybellines at Dollar Tree not too long ago. Since they came in 2-packs, I ended up with some colors I didn't really want. So, here are a bunch of old Maybellines!

Bamboo Yellow. This is four thick coats. This was super sheer, and it's sort of a shame since I actually liked this color.


Fly-By Berry. This is a mauve with what I think is supposed to be silver shimmer, but instead looks like... chunks of sand? Yeah.


Now on to the good stuff!
This is Blue Riders:


Boot Leg (which is AWESOME!):


Blue Bops:

Lemmings Fulfilled

So, a few weeks ago, I picked up a couple of colors I'd been lemming from l0verlada's blog sale. Go check her out -- she has a great blog! Dainty Darling Digits.

I got Maybelline's Vanishing Venus and China Glaze Crystal Ball. She even threw in a Sally Girl mini called "Your Majesty." I was happy! I actually wore Vanishing Venus for a few days and got a ton of compliments on it.

It IS a very interesting color. A nice plummy/burgundy shade with green shimmer. I feel like my photos don't do it justice.




And this is Crystal Ball. Another burgundy-ish shade, but this one has holographic glitter in it. It's beautiful!


And this is Your Majesty, a lovely royal purple jelly. I think this was three coats.

Huge huge huge Dolla Tree post

Lately I've been into old Maybellines. I read too many nail polish blogs. I never particularly liked Maybelline nail polish, but apparently they had some good stuff out back in the day, when I bit my nails.

Our Dollar Tree had a TON of really good stuff a few weeks ago. So I hauled. Is it really a haul when it comes from Dollar Tree? I mean, come on. At most, I spent $10.

Anywho, here's what I got. I must say... as lovely as some of these were in the bottle, the prettiest ones had horrible drying issues (as in, they wouldn't. ever.) and most were three coats. I guess I shouldn't complain about Dollar Tree polish.

All of these are Maybelline except for one Sally Hansen.

This is a Maybelline polish called "Ginger." It's not what I would expect from a Ginger. It was okay. I'll probably never wear this one again.


This is "Jaded Blues." I LOVED this color. Blue with gold shimmer and a green flash? Hell yes. This is three coats and it had drying issues.
This is under fluorescent lighting.


Same color, lookit the flash!


Diva Gold. This was actually completely dried up, but the polishes were 2 to a pack and I really wanted the other color. I put some Poshe Reviver in it and let it sit a couple of days. Voila, revived polish. Too bad it's a butt ugly color. This is so not flattering on me.


Khaki Fringe. I'd lemmed this color for awhile, and was thrilled when I finally saw it at DT! Too bad I nicked this manicure minutes after finishing it. :/


Brown Aluminum. Meh. Grey-brown, and not in that trendy "greige" way either. It's alright. Nothing special.


Toasted Host. This one applied okay, but holy brushstrokes! I really am not a fan of frosty nail polish.


Plushed Plum. I really liked this one, a LOT. The color is good for my skintone, it's just out of season for summer. I could see myself wearing this a lot in the wintertime.


Jean Jacket. Brightish blue with some purple shimmer. This is really a gorgeous color.


I put my hand on my leg to see if it was REALLY the color of denim. It's pretty close! But my jeans don't have purple shimmery stuff in them. :)


And the lone Sally Hansen - Snappy Creme. Since "Creme" actually just describes the finish, should the name of this just be "Snappy?" I've wondered that. I like saying "Snappy Creme," but I also like being correct. Heh. Anyway, you'd think a polish called "Snappy" would be a little more, you know, snappy and less looks-like-a-paper-bag-y.

More comparisons

You know you have a problem when you keep seeing dupish colors in your collection and yet you keep buying more nail polish. I'm hoarding for beauty armageddon.

Here are some taupes (and one brown).

From L to R:
Zoya Dea, Essie Mink Muffs, Orly Prince Charming, Sally Hansen Commander in Chic, and Maybelline Touch of Taupe.

They are in the same order on my hand, from thumb to pinky.


Dea is OBVIOUSLY way different from the rest. (One of these things is not like the others!) So here's a shot of just the four fingers.


As you can see, Mink Muffs and Prince Charming are similar, with Mink Muffs being just a titch darker. Commander in Chic is less brown and more grey. And Touch of Taupe is completely different, and I actually love this color for that reason. It's taupe without being just like every other taupe. And I got it for a dollar at the Dollar Tree. :)


Then I was looking at another mini from that Essie set, and thought that Angora Cardi looked a LOT like Butter London's Teddy Boy. They are quite similar in the bottle.


I just alternated fingers -- Angora Cardi is on my thumb, middle, and pinky, while Teddy Boy is on my ring and pointer fingers.


And in more direct lighting:


They are similar, but not exactly the same. Angora Cardi is more purple and a little deeper. I have no idea what to call this color. Mauve? I dunno. I do like it, even if it is a little boring.

So there you have it. I have one more post planned re: the asian beauty supply, but I probably won't post it til tomorrow or Saturday!

What a crazy week!!

I have been so busy this week, I haven't had time to do anything with this blog. And the thing is, looking back on the week, I have no idea what took up all my time. It just seems like I've been going, going, going!

First, I have mailed out five packages from my destashing post. It is now updated and current, as far as what I have left. Please go check it out here: http://lissasnails.blogspot.com/2010/04/destashing.html

Secondly, I am keeping an Excel spreadsheet of all the entries in my giveaway. I've discovered some new blogs this way -- it's pretty cool! If you haven't entered, go here:
http://lissasnails.blogspot.com/2010/04/giveaway.html

THIRD, I ordered some stuff from Urban Decay's Friends-and-Family 30% off sale. If you haven't shopped it yet, it ends Monday. Use code 1SFNF. I ordered a couple of things that were on clearance. Clearance + 30% off = dirt cheap. I got the Apocalyptic nail kit (of course), which appears to be gone now. I also got the Hall of Fame set. I'm debating placing another order to get their new nail set, but I'm not sold on the colors in it. Maybe I'll just wait til it goes on clearance... :D

Anywho, now that all that's been said... I actually do have some pictures to post. Oh yeah, and I chopped my nails off. After trying to get them to be long and pointy, I decided that I actually hate the way that looks, and shorter and squarer is just easier to deal with. So now they're just barely past my fingertips -- you'll see in the following pictures. :)

First of all, remember how I said I got that black glitter set at Icing for $5? I actually hate these polishes. The first coat is super sheer. The second coat drags and leaves bald spots. The third coat has to be really thick in order to cover up the mayhem left by the first and second coats. Then you have to deal with glitter removal, which I'm starting to really hate. Like, it's not even worth it to me to wear glitters because I hate removing them so much. Even with the cotton balls+tin foil trick, it's just a pain.

So I only ever wore three of these. Maybe I'll wear the other two one day, but I'm going to go ahead and post what I've got because I have a feeling that'll be a long time from now, if ever.


First up is the purple glitter, which I immediately gouged the hell out of by removing a power supply from a computer at work. This one is really pretty.


Then I wore... yellow? I guess? Or is that gold? Or a very light lime-green? It's sort of an ambiguous color.


Then blue, which I actually really liked, too.


The two remaining ones are orange and green (teal?), and yeah. Maybe one day. But not today.

This is China Glaze Strawberry Fields. I saw this on someone (a blogger, not IRL) recently and realized I had to have this polish! I couldn't seem to get a decent picture of it, but it's really pretty. I approve. I really like the tiny gold glass-flecks in it -- it makes it a very unique pink, in my opinion.


This was another of the Butter London polishes I got. It's called Teddy Boy, and it's a brownish-pinkish-mauvish color. I really liked this. However, those bottles suck. I found the application to be really difficult because of the way the cap is shaped. Then I read somewhere that they've changed their bottles (and obviously, the ones I got so dirt cheap were the old bottles... dammit). Maybe one day when I feel like shelling out too much money for nail polish, I'll try some of the newer ones. I just don't really like the idea of paying more than $10 or so for a bottle of polish. I've done it, but it's very rare for me. I am lemming Chanel's Illusion D'Or right now, though, and that's WAY more than I care to spend on polish, ever.


This was a polish I picked up at Sally's. It's Finger Paints "Magenta Mood." It's a pretty, foil-y, glitter-y magenta. Actually, it seemed to go back and forth between bright red and magenta. In certain lights, it looked magenta. In others, red.


I decided to do some fauxnading last weekend, and did this using China Glaze Light as Air for the base, and China Glaze Grape Pop for the stamping. I used a fauxnad plate that doesn't have a plate number, but these were just flowery. This is the last manicure I did before I chopped my nails off.


This was the first mani I did after chopping my nails off. This is China Glaze Grape Pop with Colorama Sonic Sunset (holy crap, I am loving the Colorama flakies!) on top. Later this day, I got my Urban Decay order in the mail, so I have only been wearing those colors since then. :)

Nail of the day... with flakies

Man. I thought about swatching all the polishes I won from Chromatic Misadventures' blog giveaway today. But I overdid it last night and me and my hangover didn't feel like painting my nails over and over.

I DID grab the Street Wear "Tar" she sent and the Colorama flaky topcoat in "Ruby Rays" and came up with something even JJ thinks is awesome.

MAN, I remember seeing those Colorama polishes and never bought them when they were actually being sold. I didn't know about the joy of flakies back then! DAMMIT! If only I'd known!!

Here is what I used:


Look at the flaky goodness in the bottle:


And when you put the two together you get this! It's awesome! The flakies switch from red to orange to yellow to green, depending on the angle and the lighting. It's like having nails OF FIRE.

No buy FAIL

Yeeeeah, I fell HARD off that no-buy wagon. Well, sorta hard. I fell anyway. At least what I bought was cheap! Super cheap! Dollar Tree cheap!

I spent a great deal of time today swatching, but I'll not post it all today.

What I will post are the goodies I picked up at Dollar Tree. Enjoy!

Maybelline - Touch of Taupe. This is a light taupe. I don't believe I have a taupe this light (well, I do now). It applied nicely in two coats.


Then I picked up two Sally Hansen Salons. The first one is "Stormy Blue," which is a slate blue that is nearly gunmetal gray. It's just okay. The formula was alright. This is two coats.


Then we have Arabian Night. I showed you this on my jacked up feet, but here it is on my hand. For the life of me, I could not pick up this color or the shimmer accurately. I'd describe this as a blurple (not quite blue, not quite purple) with gold shimmer in it. This really is a super awesome color. You may want to click on it to see the larger version.


Then we have Maybelline Salon Expert in Riveting Ruby. It's a red jelly with what looked like gold shimmer in the bottle. The gold does not show up on the nail, though. It's still pretty. I'll probably wear this on my toes soon.


Last is NYC Metallic Nail Glossies in Molten Metal. This is a really pretty foil-y pewter color. I really like this a lot! It's almost as shiny and blingy as the Orly FoilFX colors, but not quite. Still, this was part of a Dollar Tree 2-pack, and is well worth the 50 cents I paid for it.

Maybelline Go Go Green vs. Bijou Gems in B.Strong

Good morning!
One of the polishes Jill sent me last week was L'Oreal Bijou Gems in B.Strong. When I put it on, I thought, "This looks JUST LIKE Maybelline Go Go Green!" So I decided to do a comparison.



I don't have hundreds of bottles of nail polish, so I don't think I have many dupes, but these are almost exact dupes of each other. Go Go Green may have just a LITTLE more yellowy shimmer in it, but not much.

Here is my original photo of Go Go Green:


And here is my photo of B.Strong:


So, to compare, I put Go Go Green on my middle finger and pinky. B.Strong is on my index finger and ring finger.





Can YOU tell a difference?