Hard Candy New Polishes at Walmart

These are a fine formula. They seem to be a lot of dupes of other polishes, so if the polish you want to dupe is over $5, you can buy these. Some of the polishes are quite pretty!

Hard Candy Envy is a black jelly with dark bluish green shimmer. Screams Zoya Suvi with way less shimmer. This is less $$ but also less pretty.


Hard Candy Hot Pants. When I saw this I said "Oh, hey! Nubar!" But it's cheaper and just as nice as their jelly glitters, so hey why not?


Hard Candy Mr. Wrong. Now this is a fairly close dupe of the incredible Sally Arabian Night I posted not too long ago, and while the base color isn't quite the same (I think Sally's is prettier) there is far more golden shimmer here, this is a STUNNER I would suggest everyone buy!!


There's another I have but I haven't swatched it yet. Stay tuned.

Orly Metallic Matte Collection

Been on vacation but I am back!!

As you can probably tell from the pictures, these are a lot like OPI's Suede Collection. A nice satiny finish with a ton of metal shimmer underneath. Tons of texture and depth. They give us a couple nice new shades for matte, gold and bronze, and we have the black already but it's very nice in the satin/suede finish!

These apply just like regular polishes, and do not dry too fast. But try hard to remove any overlap, or brushstrokes that clump, because it will show up in the final polish. Just mess with it til it is smooth.

Orly Glam Rock:


Orly Iron Butterfly:


Orly Solid Gold:

Black Phoenix Claw Polish

I was the very lucky recipient of some of the illustrious Black Phoenix Alchemy Lab's nail polish, which they call Claw Polish (love it)! BPAL doesn't just make hundreds of incredible artisan perfume oils in "magickal, pagan and mythological blends, Renaissance, Medieval and Victorian formulas, and horror / Gothic-themed scents", they do jewelry, Tshirts and assorted neat stuff which fortunately includes a growing offering of nail polishes (under the Black Phoenix Trading Post arm of the site). Mostly now it is blacks and browns, deep reds and a few pinks, and one glow in the dark. I hope to see them branch out! They certainly have enough inspiration.

First thing that is notable is the formula was quite surprising. It was terrific. A polish line in which the CREMES are more manageable than the jellies??? Wow. Dries fast, hard and just like glass. It's incredibly shiny stuff. I would use topcoat for protection but it is in no way needed for a glossy finish. It's kickass. The brush may be a bit stubby for you long brush lovers, but otherwise is standard. Anyway all due accolades to the talented people at Black Phoenix Alchemy Lab. Thank you!!

I tried a different style photograph for these polishes, inspired by the "Claw Polish" name. Yes, Napoleon, I have large talons. If you hate it feel free to call me an asswipe.

You're going to have to take my word for it that Destroying Angel is not black. it's a dark chocolate, but it's browner than the picture. I am sure I will try again at some point.


Smokestack is actually a very dark blurple jelly with a ton of very fine subtle shimmer. It packs far more punch than you think it will. Very nice.


Croquet they call a flamingo pink, I think it's a bit softer and a great deal prettier than flamingo. Bet the Sissies will love this one!


Malediction is simply black, with that stunning super-gloss that China Glaze Patent Leather has. This is a jelly, not a creme.


Sed Non Satiata is a smooth, sleek berry.


Robotic Scarab is a gleaming bronze shimmer. I drool on this.


Bordello is a beautiful lightly metallic raspberry shimmer. Suckable!

MollyHell's Grab Bag! - China Glaze Wagon Trail

So I finally got China Glaze Wagon Trail! So let's compare it to MAC Seriously Hip and OPI At Your Quebec & Call, shall we? I will probably do an on-finger comparison too, later, but for now we can compare photos.

China Glaze Wagon Trail, olive brown shimmer with pinpoint rainbow shimmer:

MAC Seriously Hip is a black jelly, though, with olive shimmer, whereas Wagon's has a brown tone added. So similar, but not exact:

OPI At Your Quebec & Call - much lighter, but same color as Seriously Hip, if you get me. Has the pinpoint rainbow shimmer, maybe not as much as China Glaze Wagon trail?


All in all my fave is still OPI At Your Quebec & Call.

O! A Daily OPI! - OPI My Private Jet

Absolutely one of my favorite OPIs of all time - but they have changed the formula, I think it is the same basic shade but they toned the glitter way down and it isn't a holographic anymore, just kind of a shimmer. Screw that noise. WHY? So now my alternative is Color Club Revvvolution.

So you'll see I did some glue ons again. I highly prefer photographing my own natural nails, and all of my pictures are natural nail except this one, a few I will be taking here soon of OPI Holiday polishes, and the ones I took recently that I labeled as glue-on nails. It doesn't really make that much of a diference, I guess, but I want you to be able to evaluate how the polishes will look on you, and I feel letting you know which pictures are glue-on nails is important. Glue-ons suck. they damage my nails.

This is the last in a two month Daily OPI series, next month will be MollyHell's Grab Bag. I hope you enjoy!

OPI My Private Jet:

Color Club Dark Romance Matte Collection

Frankly I hate these. There are three polishes in this set of mini bottles, a black, a white, and a silver shimmer, and you are also given a matte topcoat. The black and white are not really matte, they are kinda just dullish, like old car paint. They never get totally matte. The matte topcoat produces much the same effect, a kind of half shiny half dull look. In my opinion the silver is the only one worth anything, it's kind of neat. But using say, Essie's matte topcoat over a silver polish will do the same thing. But I don't know of any silvers quite the same as this one, though I am sure one exists. The set is so cheap it may be worth it just for the silver if you like it.


Color Club Dark Romance Matte


Color Club Alabaster Matte


Color Club Smoke and Mirrors Matte

O! A Daily OPI! - OPI Black Cherry Chutney

OPI Black Cherry Chutney is so perfectly named. It's so very, very black cherry, with a great little shimmer. A fave.

OPI Black Cherry Chutney:

Color Club Master of Disguise Halloween Themed Mini Nail Polish Set

You know I'm behind minis all the way, especially for Polish Monkeys with tons of polish. There's always a new polish being released somewhere, so why not try a bunch of them as inexpensively as possible? Especially when dealing with themed polishes, such as Halloween sets. I like this set just fine. Only $5.95 at Victoria Nail Supply, that's cheaper than one bottle of OPI bought in a brick and mortar store.

This set gives your obligatory white and black, but the orange is so much more fun than the creme oranges, and they add in a great blue shimmer.


Color Club Master of Disguise, your standard glossy black. Formula just fine.


Color Club Ghost of Chance. Hmm is this Chance's Ghost, or did they leave out the "a"? Anyway this one was gluey and hard to deal with.


Color Club Abracadabra is a great orange jelly with big ol' gold glitter, so much funner than a creme! So much more holiday oriented! Love this one!


Color Club TaBoo! is very much like OPI Ink, which I featured today, except it is lighter and much more cobalt than Ink's navy blue. It has the same great deep purple shimmer, again, like Ink, my camera was unable to capture it. A great alternative polish to throw in this set, and very lovely.


The funny thing about this set is it lists the four colors as TaBoo! Abracadabra, Ghost of Chance and "Witchy Woman" not Master of Disguise. I am ASSuming it's just a mistake, and perhaps they decided not to name the black Witchy Woman, but Master of Disguise.

Color Club Wild At Heart Fall 2009 Collection

FINALLY I have these. I am in love with this set. It's got great vibrant colors, a healthy helping of holographic glitter, and only one boring color. Even the boring color has glitter! The formula is good, Color Club formula is nice and manageable for the most part, though frosts are almost always streaky and the ones in this set are pretty much no exception.

Onto the colors!

Color Club With Abandon is a strangely named black jelly with large grain brown shimmer. It manages to be dark but STILL be brown!! Would OPI please take notice?? Easy to apply since it's a jelly, needs two or more coats. I woulda named this one Do It In the Dirt.


Color Club On the Wild Side... ah here's that aforementioned streaky frost. What a waste of a gorgeous shade. Pure frosts like this look so old-fashioned and messy. But what a color!


Color Club Wild at Heart, well, I don't think I have ever taken a better picture. It applies like a dream, and looks like it was sprayed on by a professional. Trust me, this one will look just as good on you. It's not a holographic, but it has enough holo glitter to pack a very nice punch and to look sleek and shiny. And what a great, deep purple.


Color Club Love 'em Leave 'em, huh? I woulda named this Renegade Attorney, or Slightly Naughty Secretary. It's BEIGE. This needed to be canned and replaced by a rich ruby red with holographic glitter. they could have filled a large need in the polish world but gave us something you could probably get away with at work, but frankly is too boring for anywhere else, despite the nice holo glitter.


Rule Breaker is a gorgeous teal frost but it has so much shimmer added as well that it applies a bit better than On the Wild Side. Beautiful color, just I think it'd be best worn without color coordinating your clothes with it.


Color Club Wild and Willing is not done justice by my picture. It's a slightly sheer golden brown jelly with very vibrant shimmer. It reflects tons of light. it also has a small shot of gorgeous rose/green duochrome. Just fabulous.


So why am I so interested in the names? Who knows. I know no one cares about the names. They just made me go WTF this time. Heh.

Orly Matte Couture Collection and a Note About Basecoats and Matte Polishes

Orly made a decent stab at mattes. I'd call these an eggshell finish, rather than OPI's hideous flat finish. They manage to have a bit of depth and not look like if you scraped your finger over these it'd sound like fingers on a blackboard. That said, they're a sophomore effort and nice, but I'll reach for other mattes first. But they're decent polishes, and I am in no way horrified by them. They have a beautiful formula, not gloppy or sticky at all, and you have plenty of time to get them where you want them before you dry. they take a tad longer to dry than other mattes, but in my opinion it's well worth it.

Also I wanted to say a word about basecoats and matte polishes. I ALWAYS use base coat. not only does it improve adhesion, but it fortifies my thin nails, protects them, and - this is hugely important - smoothes out my ridges. Every picture I have ever posted of matte nail polish, and there have been many, I am wearing base coat. It in no way harms the polish's ability to give a lovely matte finish. So don't be scared to wear basecoat with mattes.

Orly Purple Velvet is my favorite, a reddish purple with a nice depth.


Orly Blue Suede is a great light navy shade which we've been lacking in mattes.


Orly Matte Vinyl is your standard black.

China Glaze Spellbound Halloween Set and Fortune Teller!!

It's China Glaze, I don't THINK I need to tell you this stuff is incredibly cool and fun. But I will anyway. It's incredibly cool and fun.

The Spellbound set (I bought mine at Head2Toe Beauty and got them almost instantly, 4 piece set $8.97 or $2.99 each) has four polishes. White Out, which I didn't buy, I am ASSuming is a glossy white cream, and perfectly nice. The other three are:

China Glaze Liquid Leather, which I blogged about during China Glaze for days, which is a great, easy to apply black jelly that shines like patent leather:


China Glaze Ghoulish Glow is a slightly milky, slightly yellow clear topcoat. I have tried three GITD topcoats so far (will post about others later, already blogged about the Wet n' Wild one here. This one applies just fine, is a bit less yellow than others, and seems to be somewhat brighter than the others, but it fades fairly quickly. Not a bad choice if you want a glow in the dark polish.


China Glaze Spellbound is large orange glitter with medium sized silver glitter in a clear base. It's... like wearing a Las Vegas showgirl on your finger. WOW. This is four coats, it dried fairly quickly.


China Glaze Fortune Teller is sold separately, and is basically Lubu Heels but with orange glitter in the black jelly instead of red glitter. So it can't help but be fantastic, right? It's so fantastic even in the bottle, as I was in line at Sally's the woman behind me admired it then went to grab her own bottle. Now that's fantastic.

Halloween's A'Comin'! Break Out the Scary Nails!

I wanted to share some Halloween ideas I have for nails this year! Let's start with an easy to do idea I call MollyHell's Vampire Scratch. I bought some cheap fake nails with round tips, some packs of stick on adhesive, and some of the plastic fingers they call "practice" fingers. All of this cost less than $10 at Sally Beauty. I put the peel off adhesive on the practice fingers to hold the nail, and then lightly pressed on the unpainted fake nail, lightly so you can peel it back off easily. Remember to shape the nail to fit your before you paint it. I made a nail for each finger before I painted them, I made sure to put them in order in a row so I knew which fingernail was which.

For this idea I used Orly Matte Vinyl as a base color, and Butter London Blowing Raspberries for the blood. I chose the matte black Orly because it isn't as nasty as the OPI black matte (Sephora by OPI What's a Tire Jack), because the Orly is a softer texture, and because it has no sparkle/velvet finish to it like the other mattes. You can also, of course, do this with shiny black, such as China Glaze Liquid Leather. After painting the matte black on the nail, and letting it dry (I used two coats) I took the red polish brush and thickly loaded it to dripping. I scratched the top of the nail along the brush to get a thick drop of polish on the tip, then I reattached it lightly to the fake finger, and tilted it so the nail was pointed up, with the red polish dripping down. I left it that way 24 hours. The next day I added a bit of regular glossy topcoat to the red polish, to enhance the shine. The result:





You can fool around with the colors you use, but if you use a very dark base I don't suggest using a jelly as a drip color, as it might not show up enough. I think I'll also try neon green, to be like slime! Have fun, hope you enjoyed my idea.

OPI Tattoo Ta-Boo Halloween Nail Polish Set

It's Halloween! Let's repackage old colors and give them cheesy names! Basically that's this kit in a nutshell.


There's four mini-size polishes, white creme, black creme, orange creme and a cornflower blue jelly that glows in the dark. Unless you want this set for the Glow in the dark polish, just save your money. Or buy it online cheap - $6.11 at Transdesign. Then you can have the lil tattoo pack. Which will surely change your life.


Let's start with the only reason to buy this pack, other than you don't have these colors at all and minis would be a good idea. The glow in the dark polish is a sheer cornflower blue. This pic is 3 thick coats and no topcoat. It spreads decently and dries very quickly, like matte polish. It's thick. It glows fairly well, you can see it but nobody is going to stop you and scream "OMG YOUR NAILS ARE GLOWING!!". I like it well enough that it made this pack worth it. It's very grainy.
OPI Glow-Ink In the Dark:


On to the filler. A black creme, decent formula, no different than anyone else's glossy black really but easy to use. The SCARY name is OPI Witch Arm?:


The white is gluey, thick, full of some unnameable chunky glop, and was a real pain in the ass. I hate its guts. It's called OPI I Love Mummy:


The orange is called OPI Tattoo You Want Candy and frankly it looks summer citrus to me and not at all Fall pumpkin.


Whatever, I'd save my cash unless you are already making an order and want the glowing polish.

O! A Daily OPI! - OPI Black Tie Optional

As you can see this is one of my earliest pics. An old cult favorite, BTO is. I think it's hot as hell!

OPI Black Tie Optional: