Chanel Riva/China Glaze Moody Blue Dupe...

pic: direct lamp light

Well, this quick and dirty mani was inspired by China Glaze's Moody Blue, the "Chanel Riva dupe" mentioned on Lacquerized.  I found Moody Blue yesterday while nail polish shopping with a fellow MUAer "faerieberry".  

Color Description:  This color has been described as a "pretty eggshell blue... the perfect shade of blue for your next exotic vacation."  And I'd have to agree.  Very pretty light blue but both Moody Blue and this one are very sheer and a pain to apply.

ChG Moody Blue/Unnamed Lacquer

Price Point:  This is a huge (1 oz.) unnamed lacquer that I picked up at a really old beauty supply Downtown L.A. for $1.00.

Similar To:  I swatched the unnamed light blue and China Glaze's Moody Blue on one hand, alternating fingers and couldn't tell the difference.  Then I decided to take it all off and just wear the unnamed polish, since I had this one first.  So, I guess that means that this unnamed polish is a Chanel Riva dupe, as well. (p.s. bottle pics look slightly  different but on nail, they're just about the same)

pic: w/ lightbox

This Look:  Because this is a Q&D mani, I have on only 4 coats of the unnamed light blue. Oh, and don't "look" too close - I called it a quick and dirty mani for a reason (lol).

Thanks so much for stopping by my well-polished ones and have an awesome weekend!

Maybelline Colorama Pink Pinata over Revlon Pink Lingerie (12/28/2010)

Pink was so nice I had to wear it twice!  Today's review will be on Pink Pinata.

Color Description: Pink Pinata has iridescent flakies in a translucent pinky/peach base.

Price Point: This is a discontinued collection, however, it pops up in dollar stores and Big Lots across the country.  I've yet to see any at my local stores, so when I got this in a swap (as an EXTRA, nonetheless) I was like, "SCORE!"

Similar To: Pink Pinata is similar Hidden Treasure or Nubar 2010.  I believe, you could tell the difference over a white polish; the pink base would be apparent.  However, if you were to layer this over a black or darker nail color, they would be the same.  (See it over black in Steph's Closet swatch here).

This Look:  As mentioned in my previous post Revlon's Pink Lingerie and Wet 'n Wild's Flirty Rose Creme are almost identical.  So I decided to keep the pink theme going by wearing Pink Lingerie with a twist, layering the Maybelline Colorama - Pink Pinata (my top coat is Sally Hansen Mega Shine).

Well, that's all my well-polished folks.  Looks like I'll be wearing pink for the next few days! :)

OPI - DS Mystery (12/21/2010)

This color is crazy-beautiful.  And yes, it's a mystery...  Is it black, is it blue, is it a creme or a glitter?  It's all of the above.

Color Description:  Mystery has been described by OPI as, "an alluring dark violet diamond sparkle."  My take on it is an inky indigo with fine dark gold glitter that to the normal eye would look black.

Price Point:  OPI's Designer Series boasts of having diamond dust in the formula, which brings the price tag up quite a bit to $12.50 per bottle.  OPI says that this collection, "is reserved only for the privileged few who recognize its elegance, its special allure and its rare beauty."  I think anyone reading this blog fits this description! :)

Similar To:  I have nothing that is an absolute dupe of Mystery, however, a few similarities lie in Sally Hansen Midnight in NY (black base with fine gold glitter) or NYX's Collection Noir.  Comparisons have been made to Avon Golden Twilight and China Glaze's Wagon Trail and though they are similar, they lean towards brown, in my opinion, which Mystery is definitely not.

This Look:  One coat of DS Mystery layered over my my previous platinum gold mani, with one coat of Sally Hansen Mega Shine to top things off.

Thanks so much for stopping by!  What are your favorite DS's?  Would love to hear from you "privileged few" (lol) well-polished beauties.  Have a great day. :)

NYX Girls - Mushroom Glitter (12/17/2010)

NYX - Mushroom Glitter

This polish reminds me of that Pillow Pet Commercial Jingle: ♪♫ "It's a glit-ter, it's a foil, it's a glitter-foil!" ♪♫

Color Description: NYX Girls Mushroom Glitter is so fine it's almost a foil.  Everything but the shine on this glitter is soft from the light pale gold almost platinum coloring, to the superfine glitter - it's just breathtaking and the shine is out of this world.

Price Point: This is a super inexpensive nail polish that runs about $3.00 retail and can be purchased at CherryCulture.com. I found this at a local beauty supply.

Similar To:  This reminds me of Orly's Gold Luxe, however, it's a much more subtle gold leaning towards taupe with very little yellow in it, whereas, Luxe is very yellow and a bit more brash.

This Look:  One coat of Starting Over After Artificials, 3 coats of Mushroom Glitter, and one coat of Sally Hansen Mega Shine.  This was one smooth glitter and was topcoat optional for both the texture and the shine but to be on the safe side and because as with foils and glitters, they stay dentable for a long time, I made sure to top it off with a quick dry.

Thank you so much for stopping by and see you next week sometime!  Would ♥ to hear from you and keep it well-polished!

Glitter Glam-Up: Nabi Mix Big Glitter over Barielle Elle's Spell

Introducing the Nabi Mix Big Glitter - what a name (lol)!  Last night I was playing in my glitter collex and thought this look came out pretty funky and fun, at the same time. 

This is a "less than 24-hour" mani that will be removed this evening but it's gonna be fun while it lasts!!!  See you tomorrow with my real "glitter" mani that will stay on the entire weekend.  As usual, stay well-polished...

Barielle - Elle's Spell (12/13/2010)

I was so excited to find this at Ulta on Saturday!  I called and the store said, "No, we don't have it but we have the Too Faced Enchanted Kit".  I went to the store thinking, "One out of two isn't bad."  Low and behold, I perused the aisles and there it was.  The only Barielle of note (IMO) in the collection.

Color Description: Elle's Spell (ES) has a deep ruby jelly base with medium size golden-orange flakies.  This is definitely a nail fanatic must-have, however, like many jelly finishes, it is extremely difficult to capture in pictures.  I did the best I could. :)

Price Point:  Barielle's are reasonably priced (for a salon brand) at $6.00.  So far, I've only seen these at Ulta and Barielle.com, but I'm sure these can be found at a few boutique salons and beauty supply stores.

Similar To:  I have no other red flaky in my collection, however, from pictures of Nfu Oh #59 (see PHD's awesome post here), it looks like #59 is the closest thing on the market and is probably as accessible as ES.  I own about five other red lacquers with gold or red glitter which are: Rush Glamour (old school Sally Beauty brand), Essie Ruby Slippers, Maybelline Red Carpet, China Glaze Ruby Pumps and the newest edition Milani Red Sparkle. All of these put me in the same mind frame as ES (also included in the bottle pic below).

This Look: 1 coat of Starting Over After Artificials, 3 coats of ES and 1 coat of Sherani Tufcoat.

Well, thanks for stopping by and I believe my next mani will be full on glitter.  Can't wait to post this soon. 

Stay well-polished and dry today; it's raining here in Sunny Los Angeles!

Maybelline - Gray T Glamour (12/10/2010)

Glamour and sophistication rolled into one!  This nail lacquer even gets compliments from men...  This particular gentleman said, "♥ your nails, the color is so nice!"  I told him that it was my hobby and he says, "Looks like they're professionally done!"  It's the color, I tell you!  it covers all flaws and this compliment came after two days of wear.  On to the review...

Color Description: Gray T Glamour (GTG) is a dark gray with hidden shimmer (depending on the light) which makes it oh so shiny on the nail. It's one of those colors that you don't want to change. This gray is definitely on the blue side so it goes well with jeans, or anything else, for that matter.

Price Point:  This was a Limited Edition Fall 2010 color for Maybelline and retailed for about $4.50.  You may be able to scour your clearance bins at some drugstores for this color.  Sometimes LE's are placed back on the regular display - this is definitely worth a look-see if you don't own it already.

Similar To:  GTG reminds me of a deeper version of Orly's Pixie Dust (which is still one of my untrieds). 

After surveying my collection of over 20 grays, nothing else comes close.  GTG is unique!

This Look:  No base coat (I know, I know, I am so bad!), 2 coats of GTG, 1 coat of SH Mega Shine.

Well off to change my mani to Barielle Elle's Spell!  Can't wait to see what this looks like...  I wanted this one as bad as HT, but didn't do much driving around just a lot of calling around.  Talk to you well-polished readers later. :)

QwicPic: NDB Sweet Pea over Daisy Asian Pear (12/09/2010)

This "qwicpic" is with lacquer found at the Nail Expo (Daisy - Asian Pear) last month and a beauty supply yesterday (NDB - Sweet Pea).

Asian Pear (l); Sweat Pea (r)

I thought it was about time I pulled out my mint greens again and obviously yesterday's find, Sweet Pea, prompted my selection.
 
Hope you have a wonderful Thursday and talk to you lovely and well-polished ones soon...

OPI - Tasmanian Devil Made Me Do It (12/3/2010)

Yesterday while at Sally's Beauty Supply two sales associates at different times asked me what color this was.  Here I am thinking, "Wow, they work at Sally's with over a hundred shades of nail polish and they're curious about this color - that's amazing!"  I was beaming and was happy to give them the 411.

Color Description:  Tasmanian Devil Made Me Do It (TDMMDI - whew!) is an orange-red, leaning towards neon, but not quite.  Vivid and vivacious, TDMMDI reminds me of the safety orange vests worn in Earthquake Drills (a California, thing!), but this color is anything but safe.  It's out there, as far as color goes, but can be worn with pretty much any outfit.

Price Point:  OPI generally goes for $8.00 each.  There are times when you can find them on promotion (BOGO) in places like Ulta; add a coupon to the deal and you can get them for nearly half off.  Those are the times to stock up on your favorite colors.

Similar To:  By doing a bottle comparison, it looks as if there are three shades in my collection that are extremely close, but not exact.  These are Revlon's Red Hot Tamale, China Glaze's Rose Among Thorns (Neon), and Borghese's Castello Cherry.  

This Look:  One coat of Salon Science's Starting Over After Artificials, two coats of TDMMDI, and one coat of Sherani's Tufcoat.

I really ♥ colors like this and especially this one!  This is definitely a feel good color that really turns heads.  Well, that's it and that's all my well-polished readers.  Let me know what you think and what I really want to know is why, oh why, did OPI name this color TDMMDI?  Puzzling. :)

Q&D - Milani Gems Glitter Comps

New Stuff: Whoa, Nelly!!!  Have you seen the new glitter offerings from Milani?  There are at least six and I purchased three (Silver Dazzle, not shown) and I'm swatching two: Purple Gleam and Blue Flash. Big shout out to Chloe's Nails for posting all the colors for your perusal!

Picture: To the right, you have from top to bottom Wet n Wild Night Prowl (NP), Milani Purple Gleam (PG), China Glaze Dorothy Who? (DW), Milani Blue Flash (BF)

Comps:  I wanted to do a "quick & dirty" comp because these new glitters (in the bottle) reminded me of a few that I already own: Wet n Wild Night Prowl and China Glaze Dorothy Who?.

The Milani Gems were one coaters, dried a bit matte and chunky but with a top coat (cheap or otherwise) look awesome.  The comps were two coaters and were still sheer, showing VNL, especially, DW.  NP has much more black in the base than PG, which makes them totally different.  With a few more coats, however, DW could stand up to BF.

Well, just in case you were curious as to how these stacked up to what you may already own, they're intensely opaque and chock full-o-glitter. Now on to my "real" mani post - coming soon!

Sally Hansen - Rockstar Candy (11/30/2010)

I'm not quite sure what kind of candy Rockstar's eat, but Sally Hansen's Complete Salon Manicure's rendition, Rockstar Candy (RC), is gorgeous and is definitely eye candy for us nail polish fanatics!

Color Description:  As you can see in the pics, RC looks totally different in varying lights.  It can look like a soft shimmering mauve with purplish pink hues or it can look like a flat out raspberry frost in all of its glory.  IRL, however, it looks more like the first picture than the second.

Price Point:  This nail lacquer goes for about $8.00 in drugstores but if you wait for a deal and double up on your coupons you can get them for a steal.

Similar To:  I honestly can't tell you what this looks like to me because I don't have anything else like it.  I don't usually buy these types of pinks.  This is definitely a more mature and sophisticated pink, IMO.

The Brand:  Sally Hansen's Complete Salon Manicure lacquers boast of being the "salon manicure made simple" with an all inclusive, Base Coat, Strengthener, Growth Treatment, Color, Top Coat in one polish.  As well as a patented Vita-Care Technology for advanced wear, more shine, and nourishing care.

This Look:  I don't know about all of that so to keep my precious nails looking there best this week, I used (from bottom to top): one coat of Starting over After Artificials, one coat of Sally Hansen Hard As Wraps Acrylic Gel, 3 coats of Rockstar Candy, and one coat of Sally Hansen's Mega Shine.  

Thanks so much for stopping by today!  Do you own this color?  Are you having second thoughts of passing it up?  I'm glad I gave it try and maybe you will be too.  Stay well-polished and warm, and see you soon!

CQ - Shimmering Bark (11/23/2010)

Color Description:  What's the 411? CQ's Shimmering Bark (SB) #411 is, to be exact! A beautiful mauve with a delicate dusty rose shimmer, SB is a very subdued and classic nail lacquer.  This color has been compared to Chanel's Paradoxal, and although they are in the same family (in the bottle), they are not even close when it comes to depth or color or application. Chanel is one coat to CQ's 3 or 4, with the Chanel being much, much darker on the nail.

Price Point:  This is a drugstore brand readily found at Rite Aid and can be purchased for a whopping $2.99.  Well worth the price!

Similar To:  As mentioned earlier, you could say this is Paradoxal's fairer, more delicate, distant relative.  Believe it or not, it also puts me in the mind of Essie's Demure Vixen with it's gorgeous "secret" shimmer, making it ever so shiny.  There are many others that Shimmering Bark could be compared to but it's definitely in a class of it's own.  Can't wait to get my hands on Revlon's Perplex to see how it stacks up.

This Look:  One coat of Starting over After Artificials (base coat), 3 coats of CQ Shimmering Bark (very, very sheer), topped off with one coat of Sherani's Tufcoat.  So far, I've been liking this base and topcoat combination.  Wears very well and haven't had a broken nail in weeks!

Do you own any CQ's?  What's your favorite?  This is the first time I've ever worn this brand and though it's only been hours, so far so good!  Take care my well-polished peeps...

Savina - Purple Confetti (11/18/2010)

Can you say, "party over here, party over there!"?  Savina's Purple Confetti is literally a PARTY IN A BOTTLE!!!  Pictures don't really show the depth of this color but here goes it...

Color Description:  Though this color has "purple" in its name, it's actually a magenta or raspberry and it's a JELLY!  A raspberry jelly with holographic glitter reflecting, gold, blue, red - every glitter color in the rainbow.

Price Point:  This nail lacquer can be found at Nordstrom Rack and only costs $3.97 before tax.  For this price you get so much bang for your buck.  I mean, bang, like firecracker bang!  Absolutely beautiful...

Similar to:  Even though I haven't seen a magenta/raspberry jelly with holo glitter on the market, Purple Confetti, is very similar to it's red counterparts Ulta's Bombshell and Massini's Slammin' Red.  Also, it's blue equal was a Finger Paints sold at Sally's called Sapphire Shimmer (another delicious jelly with holo glitter).

This Look:  1 coat of Starting Over After Artificials, 2 Coats of Purple Confetti, and 1 coat of Sherani Tufcoat.

Thanks for stopping by and if you live near a Nordstrom Rack, this color is still readily available.  Hope this post was helpful and found you well-polished!

Nubar - Jewel (11/10/2010)

Outdoor lighting.

Nubar Jewel is very pretty but I will say that I think you would be able to get the same effect by using a medium brown frost and layer China Glaze Fairy dust over it.  

Nubar's holographic offerings are not my favorite but they do look like jewelry for the nails.   

(I really ♥ the China Glaze OMG Collection) 

Indoor lighting.

This Look: one coat of Starting Over After Artificials (as a base coat), three coats of Jewel, and one coat of Sherani's Tufcoat (as a topcoat).

This polish dried fairly bumpy but the topcoat helped some. Well, that's it for now.  I will talk to you well-polished darlings later :).

Nail Expo in Review...

Hello All -  Jackie S. of CANDY COATED TIPS and I had a nice time perusing the aisles of the Nail Expo.  This Expo boasted over 30 exhibitors, including Nubar, OPI, Seche, CND, and many others.  However, it was geared toward nail art and not nail polish.

There were in-booth demonstrations, class room education, and competitions, but what we really wanted to see were the new collections (i.e. OPI Texas for Spring/Summer 2011, etc.) and that wasn't happening.  If you wanted to learn more about gel nails, this was your place.  Almost, every booth had some form of colored gel as an offering.

Nail art and crackle-effect nail polish in every color you could imagine, were all the rage.  I picked up a white and a silver - because crackle is really not my thing.  Boring, colors but I thought this would be a good place to start.

OPI, had older colors and it was interesting that the girls in the booth didn't know the collections or if they were discontinued colors, and I had a feeling they knew nothing of the Texas Collection.  The polish offerings that they had were 6/$24 or $4 ea.  What can I say, the price was right - I purchased Comet Loves Cupid from the 2009 holiday collection (can you believe  this is on  sale at Amazon, right now, for $25.99 - that's just ridiculous).

We had the most fun with the China Glaze girls!  They had the latest collections out but it was nothing we hadn't already seen. 

One of the girls was wearing Four Leaf Clover (she's holding a similar color but FLC was not available at the Expo - it's in the core line at Sally's, however).  Again, the price was right, though @ 6/$12.  So, I picked up six: Frostbite, Up All Night, Sexy Silhouette, Make An Entrance, Oxygen, and Fifth Avenue (pictured above).
  

We also found a booth that had their polishes (Daisy) on sale for $1 each (great quality for the price) and if you buy 5 they would throw a sixth one in for free.  This was refreshing since Nubar had only the Finest Silk Collection available to purchase, everything else was nail arts driven.  

So, to sum it all up, acrylics, gel, and nail art were really the theme of the day.  And though, very few booths had nail polish, they brought their files, and foot baths and every thing in between.   

Though, the nail polish selection wasn't "all that", we had a nice time and as a nail blogger, I think it was something that I just had to experience - if only once!  Have a well-polished day. :)

NAIL EXPO - Long Beach, CA (November 8, 2010)

UPDATE (11/9/2010): The Nail Expo was yesterday and I can now that I have a new nail buddy, Jackie S. of CANDY COATED TIPS! We had a great time and found some nice deals and ideas.  New pics and post to come soon...

The Plan: We'll meet up at the OPI booth, of course (lol).  If you're planning on going, please feel free to contact me for more details.  Now, the question is, what color nail polish should I wear for the occasion?

ORIGINAL POST (10/4/2010): 
To my California Girls!  Who's going to the the Nail Expo at the Long Beach Convention Center on Monday, November 8, 2010?  Here's a list of exhibitors, including, Seche and OPI... 

I've never been to one of these but wouldn't it be nice to have a Los Angeles Area round-up of all nail fanatics?

Let me know your thoughts...  I just might rearrange my schedule to attend this event.  Sounds like fun!

One more step on the road to being well-polished!  Have a great Monday :)

Finger Paints - Autumn Blaze (11/3/2010)

In this lighting a blue/magenta flash
is very visible :)

I'm a sucker for colors like this.  Finger Paints Autumn Blaze is special for its beautiful shimmer and blue/magenta flash.  These pics show the subtle differences. 

It looks different in many lights.  This Look: 1 coat each of base and topcoats and 2 coats of Autumn Blaze.  

Here's the magenta flash w/ burgundy hue

This color was one of the Limited Edition shades from Sally's Beauty Supply.  Funny thing is I purchased this one twice!  Once at full price and the other once it went on clearance.  I was almost certain that I didn't have this one in my collection and then when I got it home, I was a bit bummed.  

Shows a darker hue, here
(looks like this most of the time).

Off to the swap-box it goes...  Speaking of swaps, within the next few weeks ago, I plan to set-up swap tab on my page for all of my unintentional dupes and unloveds to find a good home.

Take care now, my well-polished lovelies and see you around the web!

Dare 2 Wear Mood Polish - Blue Charcoal 2 Green

My latest mani is Dare 2 Wear Blue Charcoal to Green and was an extra in a lovely swap package that I received a few months ago.  

I had this color well before I purchased Essie Sew Psyched and once compared it's surprisingly similar except with more shimmer, as you can see.  

The shimmer is not noticeable without the flash, but for some reason the flash makes this this color look like a frost, which it is not.

The mood polish blue to green effect is no longer working. EDIT: Though, I've seen no charcoal blue, there is a darker green that is apparent when my hands are in cold water. The picture to the right shows what "cold" does to the polish. This after one day and tip wear is showing.  I really do like it, though. :)

Thanks for checking me out and have a well-polished Sunday evening!

NYC - Empire State Blue (10/29/2010)

This is one difficult color to capture.  NYC Empire State Blue has that "lit from within" green shimmer happening and it is sooo pretty. 

I picked this up a few weeks ago at the CVS BOGO 50% off.  I purchased this and Love Letters, the sheer pink glimmer coat, which gives a similar finish as the CND Effects line.

Anyway, back to Empire State Blue, it's actually a bit more green than my pics are showing.  Again, very hard to capture but definitely worth checking out at this price point.  I would compare the color to the Sephora by OPI's Mermaid to Order.

This Look: no base coat (I know, shame on me!), two coats of NYC ESB, and 1 coat SH Mega Shine.

Alrighty, then off to start planning my weekend.  I will be doing lots of housework and possibly a little remodel work so I really am hoping not to damage my nails, at all.  The mani won't survive, I'm sure but will definitely try to protect the hands.

In real life, this color looks more like the picture to the left.  This is an extremely old Sally Hansen called Funky Frost topped with Pure Ice Heartbreaker. 

I have have been trying to create the look of Empire State Blue since July but now I found it and yay for only 0.99 cents...

Have an awesemely well-polished weekend and talk to you soon. :)

VERDICT: MAC Bad Fairy (to ♥ or not to ♥)

Here's an update to my post from a few days ago on MAC Bad Fairy.  

Well, I'm keeping her!  My thumb nail chipped today so I decided to re-do both thumbs in OPI DS Perfection.  While they are similar, on me, they are no where near dupes.  I'm almost embarrased to walk out of the house with a mismatched mani.  However, unless someone is really checking out my hands they won't notice a thing. 

This Look: 3 coats of each Bad Fairy on fingers and DS Perfection on thumb.  The OPI is much pinker and lighter than the MAC.  BF definitely has much more depth and range of color on me.

So with that said, while it's not ♥, it's definitely a keeper...

Hope this helps someone out there stay well-polished!

The Many Faces of MAC Bad Fairy (10/26/2010)

BF at window with much maneuvering.

I now reveal the many faces of Bad Fairy, as I see it.  I promised myself I would try MAC's BF with a full mani before returning it to Nordstrom. 

When I first swatched it the duochrome was not easily identifiable or in your face, like I thought it would be.  But that was only on one finger...

This is the way BF looks 90% of the ti

This Look: 1 coat: SH Hard As Wraps base coat; 3 coats: MAC Bad Fairy; and 1 coat: SH Mega Shine topcoat.

What's the verdict? Indoors (90% of the time) this color looks like a dark rose foil; that's it and that's all!  So, with that, I'm still not 100% in love.  Once I get outside in the sunlight I will make my final decision to return or not to return.  

Here is one more window shot for your viewing pleasure.  I am almost certain that to get the most enjoyment from BF you will need to be outdoors (a lot).  


Alrighty, then!  Off to see the duochrome - or not.  Will update post with my ♥ or not to ♥.  Have a well-polished day:)