Vintage NYPD

Vintage Wet N Wild - NYPD (Crystalic 491B)

Not much to say here. It's a pretty, pearl-y blurple (I kinda hate that word, but it's what they call it!) I got in a box of vintages hand-me-downs. It's nice, but I think it'll be going into the swap-box soon. First three fingers have two coats. Pinky has only one coat, because I like to see what things look like with only one coat. I'm silly like that. :P No clean-up, so sorry for the slight mess.

Beau's Pistachio Ocean

Sinful Colors Beau Khaki (Haute Rebel collection)
L'Oreal Pistachio Dream (Versailles Romance collection)
Sinful Colors Green Ocean

I love creating the post titles out of the polish names, haha. Anyway, I was excited to try all of these colors, but unfortunately, I don't think the resulting combination was all that great. They're all good colors, just maybe not together.

Beau Khaki is a beautiful sage green. It has the same thick formula that most Sinful Colors cremes share. And I'm getting better at application! This is one coat, no mistakes! (It took me a while to realize why EVERYONE was talking about the name, by the way. I mean, I know what they're going for, but it doesn't sound THAT similar. And then I realized that everyone was pronouncing the Japanese word with an American accent. Ah, that explains it. And if you don't know what I'm talking about, you probably DON'T want to know :D) 

Pistachio Dream is a lovely pastel minty green. It was slightly streaky. This is two coats. Still debating whether or not to go back and get the pastel pink and blue. I'm leaning yes. :)

And then the Green Ocean, which is popular this time of year. It's cute, but I don't think it did anything for the already awkward color combination.

But while I was brushing my teeth last night, I noticed that the Pistachio Dream matched the towel I had in the bathroom! The girls on the MUA nailboard have been playing a game recently about taking pictures of ridiculous things their nails matched, like cat-litter boxes and bleach containers. I hurried to take a picture and share. My husband told me I was ridiculous. :D

Sinful Colors sells at Walgreens for $2. The Haute Rebel collection may still be available in your area. Green Ocean sells every year around St. Patrick's Day. The L'Oreal Versailles Romance collection doesn't seem to be very popular, so there very well might be a full display at your Walgreens! They sell for $6.50.

Hint of Rain

Sinful Colors Rain Storm (Haute Rebel collection)
Klean Color Take a Hint
NYC Matte Me Crazy

Started out with Rain Storm this morning. Again, made a little bit of a mess with it, so I decided to clean up after work. Note the tip wear throughout the pictures. I really need to learn how to properly wrap tips. The formula was just slightly thick, like the other SC cremes I've tried. It was darker than I normally like to wear, so I thought I was going to hate it, but the color is just too pretty to hate.

After work and cleanup, I added a couple coats Take a Hint. It's a pretty, iridescent hex glitter I haven't used before.

Now for the fun part: Matte-ifying! I've never matted anything before! It was soo much fun watching the matte dry! Turned out fine except for that time that I decided after it was dry that I missed a little next to my cuticles on a couple of nails and went back to get it. Oops. (It evened out a few hours later.)

Again, my pictures don't do the nails justice. Super pretty, I love them, especially with the matte. <3 I've heard that Matte Me Crazy isn't the best matte top coat out there, but it works fine for me, especially as my first matte. I've also heard that mattes chip easily, so I'm prepared to be sad when these nails don't last long after tonight. :/

The Haute Rebel collection may still be available at Walgreens where you live. SC sells for $2. NYC is $2 at Walmart. I haven't been able to find Klean Color anywhere in the wild, but here's their website. It looks like the glitter's no longer available on the site, but the other colors sell for $3.49.

Wear: Two days. The chipping was horrendous by the end of the second day, with the paint peeling off in sheets, but then the removal process was even worse! My acetone polish remover hardly even affected it. I LOVED the matte effect, but I will definitely think twice before putting it on again. I will definitely also need to grab some pure acetone before I attempt it again.

Sheer Pink Comparison

OPI You Callin' Me a Lyre? (NYC Ballet Collection)
Sinful Colors Social Ladder
Rimmel French Lingerie
Sinful Colors Glass Pink
Sally Hansen Linen (Smooth & Perfect line)

Wear: Six days. (I was loathe to remove my adorable pinks, so I kept them on as long as possible. Added another strengthening top coat on day three. Minor tip wear on day five, worse on day six, but still not majorly noticeable, considering the shades. Rimmel chipped first, followed by Sally Hansen.)

I'm getting tired of not being able to take good pictures. Maybe I'll invest in an actual lightbox, since my DIY project doesn't seem to be working at all. These colors are BEAUTIFUL. I've been staring at them all day because they're so gorgeous. I just wish I could take a picture that showed that.

Rimmel was the only one that gave me trouble, as you can see. It was a bit of a streak-fest, even at three coats. I want to play with it in the future to see if I can get it to behave. Apart from being the most streaky, it was also the whitest of the five.

The Sinfuls were wonderful to me, as usual. I feel that they work well as one-coaters, but I like my polish sheer. I applied two coats to show more of the color, although it doesn't matter now because of the pictures! Glass Pink is one of my favorites, one of the first ones I picked up when I first began buying. I hesitated buying Social Ladder because it looked so similar, but finally caved last week during the coupon sale. Upon closer inspection, Social Ladder has a milkier base and less prominent sparkle.

The Sally Hansen is a beautiful milky-pearl pink that I just can't get over. I loved Sea when I tried it, so I bought three more of the Smooth & Perfect collection. They're such lovely sheers, and I have no troubles with the application, which I hear (ironically) was one of the biggest problems people had with the line. I used two coats to show the color.

I was so excited to try You Callin' Me a Lyre, which was part of the 2011 NYC Ballet collection, and it didn't disappoint. It's a delicious, shiny sheer jelly, just the palest of pinks. I applied two coats, but mussed it up somehow when I put on the top coat, so I added another coat of the polish to fix it.

I love all of the colors sooo much! If I had to choose one, however, I think I would go with Linen. The application and color just work for me.

I want to do a sheer white comparison soon. I'm excited for all of these beautiful colors to stay on my fingers for a while, and even more excited for the next batch of pretties!

Sno Caps

China Glaze White Cap over unknown vintage chocolate brown

Wear: three days

After owning White Cap (a mini, in case you couldn't tell from the final picture) for only a few days, I began to dream of what I could do with it (as we do all polishes, of course). The name reminded me of those movie theater candies, Sno Caps, the ones that look like little chocolate mountains covered in white confetti snow, and I had the perfect chocolate polish, a vintage I received in a box from my mother-in-law.

I was a little sloppy putting the chocolate on this morning, and I was running late for work, so I decided to finish everything when I got home. The dent on my middle finger is from a three-year-old that was playing with my fingers.

The polish turned out to be GORGEOUS. It's a beautiful chocolate brown with copper shimmer. Sooo pretty! I wish I was a better photographer so that I could capture how wonderful it is. However, I don't think it's really for me. Brown is a color I wear regularly, clothes-wise, but I'm just not comfortable wearing dark polish. I think it'll go in my swap pile soon enough, and hopefully I can find it a good home!

The White Cap turned out to be different than expected. Not bad, just unexpected. I assumed it would be a shimmery white, opaque enough to tell that it's white, but sheer enough to see the undie. Perhaps it may be that way with two or more coats, but with only one, it's a gold-ish, multi-color microglitter. As I said, not bad, just not what I had in mind. Turns out I didn't get my Sno Caps after all.

Vintage Silver-Blue Comparison

Vintage unnamed Wet n Wild
Vintage Fetish Run for Cover Silver Spoon
Sally Hansen Glass Slipper (Diamond Strength line)
Wear: Three days

I mentioned to the nail board on Makeup Alley that I was craving (or "lemming," as they say) the rare and popular Illamasqua Raindrops, half-hoping they could help me find it. Instead they recommended frankening a dupe. Someone mentioned Sally Hansen's Glass Slipper, and as soon as they said that, I knew I had to try! I had a couple of vintages that I wanted to try as the base, but before I gave it a go, I decided to test the old polishes first.

And I'm glad I did. The vintages are actually more similar to each other than I imagined they'd be, even down to the pearly frost finish. It's a little hard to tell the difference, isn't it? I got confused a couple of times as I was applying them! The Wet n Wild is just the slightest bit more blue.

However, because there's that hint of frost in the finish (which I've mentioned before that I don't enjoy), I don't think they're good enough for my Raindrops-franken-dupe. Raindrops is a nice jelly and more blue than either of these. These just wouldn't cut it for me. Ah well. Looks like I'll be on the lookout for a blue-grey jelly!

But just for the heck of it, I decided to add a couple of layers of Glass Slipper, anyway. (And then promptly proceeded to destroy the paint on my pinky directly after the above picture was taken. Pffft.)

Mint Stars

Pure Ice Mint Dream
Wet n Wild Star of the Show (Fast Dry Line)

Wear: Two days (Slight tip wear that wasn't a problem, but when one of the stars curled, it frustrated me until I removed it, leaving small bare area. I could have left it for another day, but I got excited about trying something new.)

Pure Ice is one of my least favorite brands. They make a lot of frosty colors, and frosty polishes are streaky and finicky. I got Mint Dream from a friend, though, so I thought I'd give it a try.

Mint Dream is a green duo-chrome that would probably be best over a solid creme. Not knowing that ahead of time and wanting my usual sheer break after a few days of wearing a creme, I tried it by itself. And man, it's pretty boring, actually. The formula and application were really smooth, I just wish there was a little more to it.

I wanted a top coat to spruce it up and found one I hadn't shown here yet. Star of the Show, in truth, should be named, "Fishing for Stars," because that's all I ever do with it. Even the bar glitter isn't very prominent! Meh. A lame top coat for a lame polish. Better luck next time!

Mint Dream and Star of the Show can both be found currently at Walgreens or Walmart for about $2, if you were so inclined to pick them up, but there are much better things you could buy instead.

Update: It's grown a little on me throughout the day. The green isn't really a pretty green, in my opinion, but it's unique. The pictures really don't show the color. I think I'm just not a fan of duo-chrome finish, but this polish is fine enough. Well, I like it enough that I'll wear it until it chips rather than removing it tonight, so that's saying something!

Heavenly Sugar Rush

Revlon Heavenly over Sinful Colors Sugar Rush (from the Sugar Rush collection)

Wear time: 4 days

While at Walgreens the other day, I was excited to see two things. First, Sinful Colors has a new collection out called Sugar Rush. It was full of yummy pastels, perhaps in anticipation of Easter? The only color that I thought I would actually wear was the namesake, a soft blue. I bought it and have been humming the song since.

The second thing was that Revlons were on sale for $4, woo! I bought Celestial FX, which I've been meaning to get my hands on for a while as well as Heavenly, because I don't have an iridescent glitter yet, despite how prevalent they are.

Sugar Rush was actually a bit of a disappointment to apply. It was thick, finicky, and streaky, but I'm getting the feeling that most non-sheer Sinful Colors are like that. My Cinderella and Glass Pink are fine, but everything else I've tried so far have been a bit of a pain. (So, hence the non-ideal application on the pictures.)

(Also, it's February and pretty cold, which I've noticed shows in my hands. I need to wear lotion, but I wash my hands almost constantly at work, so it's not really practical.)

Heavenly, on the other hand, was a dream. There were plenty of glitters (hex and square) in each stroke, and the milky base was very friendly, especially after the fight Sugar Rush gave me.

As always, Sinful Colors sells for $2 at Walgreens (and Walmart, I've been told), and the Sugar Rush collection just came out, so they should be around for a month or two. Revlon is normally about $5.50 and can be found at Walgreens, Walmart, and some grocery stores.

Shooting Star over Glass Pink

Sinful Colors Glass Pink and Rainbow Polish Shooting Star
Wear: four days

I knew I wanted to wear Glass Pink today, but I had actually planned to wear it over white. Because the last polish I wore was so opaque, however, I really wanted something sheer. And because the indie I bought just came in yesterday, I wanted to try that out.

Rainbow Polish's "Shooting Star" has a sheer white base and is packed full of holo glitter. I only got one star out on my first use (it's on the other hand), but there are so many other glitters, I don't even care.

And look at me! Cropped pictures and everything! I went outside to get some sunlight, but it was cloudy today. So I had to settle for a cloudy picture and some artificial light because I don't have the light box set up yet.

Sinful Colors is sold at Walgreens for $2, and Glass Pink is in the permanent collection. Rainbow Polish's etsy store can be found online here.

Cool Gray and Glitter

Sinful Colors Cool Gray (from the Haute Rebel Collection) and a franken of Wet n Wild Hallucinate.
Wear: two days

I love greys, especially with glitter, so I was very excited to try this combination. The Hallucinate turned the Cool Gray a slight blue tint, which I found lovely.
 
I noticed that Hallucinate chips very easily, so I added another glitter polish to it, hoping it would strengthen it. (That's where the red glitters come from, obviously.) I've had it on for two days and no chips so far, so it must have worked!
 
Please excuse the mess on my pinky. I didn't even notice it was there until I uploaded the pictures. It's not noticeable IRL.
 
I have plans to make a DIY light box in the future. Hopefully that will turn out well! And maybe eventually I'll actually crop my pictures, too.

Sally Hansen Sea and Vintage Wet n Wild Glitter

I had plans this morning to take off my Nail French, which was starting to chip on a few nails, and put on my new Sally Hansen Smooth and Perfect #07 "Sea" and some glitter top coat. I ran into trouble, however, when I couldn't remove the shimmery white. I know glitters are notoriously tough to take off, but this was just a shimmer... Ah well. I've had trouble with my current nail polish remover in the past. It may be time to upgrade. I decided to make the most of it and apply Sea anyway.

Sea is a translucent pale green that appears almost white when applied in only one coat, as I like to do with my solids (cremes). The brush is thicker and wider than most brushes, for easier application, perhaps. It was originally $6.50, which is more than I normally spend on polish, but Sally Hansen must be phasing this set out. I found it on sale for $2.50.

Over it I layered a vintage Wet n Wild (which, I guess, is what we call anything that hasn't been sold in the past three or four years?) whose sticker has been lost. It says "460C," but I couldn't find any information about it online. It's a clear base with blue and purple medium glitters and small silver glitters. I received it as a hand-me-down, and my bottle has an almost unnoticeable amount of small red glitters that don't really match, which tells me that it was probably frankened before it was given to me.

So, that's how I roll, a half-removed Japanese commercial, one coat of a translucent, and a franken glitter I didn't make, all piled on top of one another in kind of a crazy mix. I was disappointed with the results at first, but it's started to grow on me.

I've discovered part of my problem with the pictures. I live in a western-facing apartment, so in the morning, which I thought would give me the best light, the sun is actually on the other side of the building, and I'm only shooting in ambient light. But even when I go outside, my pictures just suck. I don't know what to do. How do those fancy nail-bloggers get their pictures to be so great?

Also, I'm starting to wonder if "Just embrace it," was really the best advice to give myself concerning my polish hobby. I've wasted plenty of hours searching the internet, lost a lot of sleep because my brain won't stop thinking about polish, and I've already spent $20 on polish this week and am planning to spend more. I actually consider myself to be a minimalist, but it seems that minimalism went right out the window when I told myself, "Just embrace it." Eh. Life.

Edit: Aha. I think I found a dupe for my vintage Wet n Wild--Sally Hansen's Ice Queen.

Winmax New York - Nail French #11

As much as I liked wearing my blue speckled franken this week (which I've decided reminds me of a robin egg), I'm glad to be back to my normal sheers. I have young, healthy nails, and I like to show them off, not hide them behind solid colors. So I normally wear sheers, shimmers, glitters, and translucent solids that appear sheer with one coat. This is actually my favorite polish, the one that got me into the hobby. I had painted my nails when I was younger, but told myself I had grown out of it by the time I got to be a teenager. However, when I saw this color at a hyaku-en mise (dollar store) in Japan in 2010, it was so pretty that I had to get it. And that's what started my obsession. It's a sheer, shimmery white, pearlescent and perfect. I love it.