MAC Blue India

I haven't had much good to say about MAC polish since the Style Black Collection. A few collections have come and gone without me mentioning them, because they were frankly boring crap.

But I picked up MAC Blue India from the Give Me Liberty of London Collection and I really like it. It's a great blue/Grey creme, One coat perfect, and I don't have anything like it! A winner! The other polish in this collection is Vestral White, a boring rerelease. If you can't find WHITE CREME cheaper than this, turn in your polish brush, please.

MAC Blue India:

MollyHell's Grab Bag! - Maybelline Denim Inspired Polishes

I go crazy over denim inspired polishes. I have no idea why, I am not crazy over blue jeans, even though I wear them a lot like most people. But denim type nail polish makes me nuts. Go figure.

Maybelline Jean Jacket. Shimmer soaked. Has a great purple shine, kinda like OPI Ink. Really reminds me of new unwashed denim.


Maybelline Button Fly is a creme, love this so very much.


I don't think Maybelline Blue Chill is denim inspired, but it still reminds me of very old, very faded denim. Great grey/blue with blue shimmer.


I've posted Zoya Jo before but it also reminds me of denim.


Any other denim polishes you know of you can hip me to, dude, I'd love it.

FINALLY!!! OPI Suede Collection!!!!!

I was pretty scathing in my review of the OPI Matte Collection. I wondered aloud if OPI made the Suedes because they immediately realized how crappy their Mattes were next to other companies like Nubar and Zoya, and those brands' magnificent semi-matte velvety finishes. It appears I was right, because OPI completely redeemed themselves with Suede. Everything that was wrong with Matte is right with Suede. OPI, come back, all is forgiven!!!

They did as I tried to do with the Mattes, they raised the darker colors several shades so you could SEE them, and added a massive quantity of metallic powder to them so they would have some depth, shine and texture. These are about the texture of soft whipped butter. They spread well, and dry quickly. When they dry they look like your fingernails were professionally powder-coat painted. It's such an easy way to get manicured-looking nails within minutes. I would say try to get these in one coat, and not apply two, they can tend to ripple and clump if you use too much polish. I applied these over wet and dry base coat, had no shrinkage or rippling problems with either, they dried quickly and no matte finish was lost.

For those who hate and fear matte polish, I would reconsider. These are not flat. These are like velvet - they have a glow, or like the back side of satin. They have both texture and a mixture of matte and shine. As I said about Zoya's MatteVelvets, these look like velvet made with satin, they have a soft matte but glowing textured layer over a base of shine. They really do look a lot like suede, but if the lowest layer of the suede was shiny. These are terrific. I would have preferred a red instead of two reddish purples, and a green instead of two blues, but otherwise I am over the moon about these polishes.

OPI Lincoln Park After Dark Suede, a much needed color lightening, and doing so made it such a gorgeous color!


OPI Suzi Skis in the Pyrenees Suede is OPI's version of Zoya Loredana, or ManGlaze Fuggen Ugly. It's more the color of Fuggen Ugly, but the texture of Loredana. Needless to say I love it!


OPI Russian Navy Suede does lose a little bit in translation, but it's still pretty. It loses the characteristic purple shimmer, so it could have been tossed for a gorgeous dark green, imagine how great it would have been if they had lightened Here Today, Aragon Tomorrow like they did Lincoln Park and made it Suede!?


OPI You Don't Know Jacques Suede is SO much better Suede than Matte. A boring taupeish brown becomes a sleek sophisticated brown. A real standout.


OPI Ink Suede is more successfully interpreted that Russian Navy. Love it! Somehow manages to keep the purple quality!


OPI We'll Always Have Paris Suede, pretty but this coulda been lost for a red or a vampy burgundy.


Well took me a while, but worth the wait, saved a lot by buying these online. I seriously adore them!!

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.

Essie Cuddle With Color Fall 2009 Collection

I'm a bit late with this one, but I wasn't going to buy it til it came on at internet prices and I could buy the mini set. And I'm glad because while it's more exciting than normal Essie offerings it's all been done before. I did not buy or swatch bright tights, it's just a neon orange. I'm sure the formula is fine. Buy it if you like neon oranges. As I said I bought the mini set, plus one full size bottle, Chinchilly.

Essie Pink Parka. Neon pink. It's got more blue to the pink than their summer offering, Punchy Pink, and I adore the color. It's pretty much exactly the base color of Color Club's summer offering Electro candy, but without the blue shimmer. I do like it but a mini will be quite enough. Sometimes neon pinks can get a bit orangey, and this one absolutely is not orangey.


Essie Chinchilly. A grey with a healthy helping of taupe. Would have preferred a straight grey, this reminds me of dirty filing cabinets.


Essie Midnight Cami is another midnight navy blue with a slight shimmer. It has a nice cobalt tone, if it's been a few shades lighter it woulda been to die for, but as is it's just yet another almost black.


Essie Angora Cardi, a simple creme, kinda a bit redder/purplier than raisin.


Essie Mink Muffs is a cool-tone brown. Nice for work.


The formula is standard decent Essie, the colors add some needed variety to Essie's line, but are kinda unremarkable. I think it'd be a nice work set, barring the neons.

China Glaze for Days! - China Glaze Recycle

Recycle is a major favorite of mine. A simple grey creme that is both edgy and sophisticated. I feel like a hi tech cyberspy wearing this.

China Glaze Recycle:

China Glaze Retro Diva Fall 2009 Collection

I love China Glaze, it is easily one of my top 3 favorite polishes in the world, maybe even #1. They have endless colors, nice jellies and shimmers, super glitters like Ruby Pumps, and they have the GLASS FLECKS, which rock all corners of ass. This year has not been their best year, but they have a super bunch of polishes already, so some slack can be cut.

The Retro Diva Collection for Fall 2009 features their regular formula, which is good. It's not the best or the worst formula, but it is very good and easy to use. I make sure my brush stick is scraped and wipe one side of the brush against the bottle opening so I have a good load of polish, but only on one side of the brush. This minimizes sloppy application.

As for the colors, if you like orange/brown, purple and dark red you are in luck. If not, you're kinda screwed. The collection is mostly metallic frosts, with a few simple shimmers and one drool-worthy glass fleck thrown in. It's lovely if you like the colors. I do have to be honest, while I adore these jewel tones, which are rich and glowing like Zoya's Truth or Dare Collections, I prefer the big grain shimmer of Zoyas' offering to these metallic frosts. But that's a personal opinion on style. These are pretty polishes, and eye-catching, but I know I am going to reach for the Zoyas more often. No biggie, China Glaze is an incredible line, and I hear from AllLacqueredUp's tweets that they are going to put out Emerald Sparkle with gold glass fleck for the holidays!! Who can beat THAT?!

So this collection is a lot like the summer Custom Kicks collection, in that there are kinda too many polishes with similar colors. A fewer similar colors would have been nice. Here we go, arranged by color!

China Glaze Cords, a kind of grey-taupe metallic frost:


China Glaze Far Out, a warm brown frost that I like but makes me worry about the "Poo" factor.:


China Glaze Cruisin', an orange metallic frost. A jelly frost, if you will, it's sheerish.:


China Glaze Free Love, an orange frost. We needed this AND Cruisin', how?:


China Glaze Street Racing, a metallic frost in a super red-orange sort of blood orange shade. I adore this one!:


China Glaze Drive In, a darker orange-red metallic frost:


China Glaze Thunderbird, a gorgeous wine colored frost with metallic shimmer to it. Love this one.:


China Glaze Stroll, the queen of the collection. An incredible burgundy jelly with glass fleck shimmer. Just gorgeous and so much better than the picture. This polish is a must have.:


China Glaze Short & Sassy. Easing from red to purple here, and back to the metallic frosts. Pretty!:


China Glaze Skate Night, a juicy red-purple metallic frost:


China Glaze Stella, a yummy Tyrian metallic frost:


China Glaze Let's Groove, a gorgeous grape shimmer. This is actually tons of shimmer in a very dark almost black purple jelly. It reminds me a lot of Rimmel Night Before. Stunning.:


There you have it. Not earth-shattering for the most part, but if all I get out of this is Stroll, it would be enough.

Orly Once Upon a Time Collection!

I no sooner heard about this in an email than it was in my hot little hands! I can't find info on it anywhere on Orly's site, so I have no real information other than what it says on the box. It says "6 Pix from the Once Upon a Time Color Collection". So I don't know if there are more, if this is Fall or Winter, or what. "Once Upon a Time... Orly's collection of modern nail lacquer shades, inspired by the darkness and drama of classic fairy tale stories". Update: This is a Fall 2009 Collection that comes out in September!

The collection pretty much does bring out that feeling for me. It is a change from the brighter more jeweled colors and mattes being offered. It has a typical decent Orly formula, I had a few mishaps but nothing horrible. The colors are richly pigmented and except for Pixie Dust, were easily two coat perfect. It's a nice palette of cool tones, a chocolate brown creme, a medium red jelly, a light grey creme, a light bluish grey shimmer jelly, a dark bluish green fir tree colored creme, and a dark pomegranate with purple shimmer.

Prince Charming, a sort of melted chocolate ice cream colored creme. Not my idea of Prince Charming, but it meshes with the collection nicely. Manages not to look like poo.
Orly Prince Charming:


Mirror Mirror is a light grey creme that really floats my boat. Apparently I have a grey fetish where other people have a green fetish, I am coming to learn. That suits me just fine. I love this color. Reminds me of urban camo.
Orly Mirror Mirror:


Poison Apple is my least favorite. It is simply not apple colored, this is a tomato. It's a jelly on the opaque side. A richer candy apple red would have meshed better with this collection, IMO.
Orly Poison Apple:


Orly Enchanted Forest, a kind of dark, solid wall of foreboding blue green fir trees sort of creme. Well done!
Orly Enchanted Forest:


Pixie Dust is a bluish grey, almost denim. It's light, and it's a sheerish jelly. This was 4 coats, but you could do three, I probably only needed 4 on one nail. or you could do one for a sheerer look, which would also be pretty! It's got a ton of shimmer, I think it's very nice.
Orly Pixie Dust:


Happily Ever After is a juicy reddish purple with a darker purple shimmer. Very sexy, one of the best of the collection.
Orly Happily Ever After:


I hope I helped you make some decisions regarding this collection!

Every Day an Essie! - Essie Huckle Buckle

Huckle Buckle is a sort of grey-lavender jelly with tons of blue shimmer in it. I thinks it's very sweet. Deceptively tame. But has a ton of shimmer to it!

Essie Huckle Buckle:

Comparison of Zoya Matte Velvets and ManGlaze Matte Polishes

So how close are ManGlaze Mattes Fuggen Ugly and The Death Tar and Zoya Matte Velvets Dovima and Loredana? The answer is a lot and not much.

Zoya Loredana and ManGlaze Fuggen Ugly are both dark grey, Loredana being lighter. The big difference here is Zoya's polish is far more matte. I think it is the clear winner here. Loredana has a slightly better formula than the other two Zoya mattes, but ManGlaze is the clear winner in ease of application, having a formula almost indistinguishable from regular nail polish. Zoya's is thicker and stickier. But the winner despite formula, for me, is Loredana.

Top to Bottom:
ManGlaze Fuggen Ugly
Zoya Loredana



In the black category, Zoya Dovima is pitted against ManGlaze The Death Tar. The colors here are again similar, but Dovima is a lighter black, with a more velvet soft matte finish. It is again more matte than the manGlaze offering. But the formula once again is better with ManGlaze - it's far easier to work with. I prefer the darker color of the ManGlaze, and the finish of Zoya Dovima. Here I'd say they tie, and you need both. Yay for needing both!

Top to Bottom:
ManGlaze The Death Tar
Zoya Dovima



On Twitter I begged Mr. ManGlaze to make us some new colors. As I asked yesterday, why not the colors of forest and desert camouflage?

Zoya Matte Velvets - New Collection!

So now that I have a moment, let's talk about the new Zoya Mattes. There are three, one dark grey, Loredana, one black, Dovima, and one red, Posh.

The basics: these are thick, and start to dry FAST, like neons. LOAD your brush well, and do not hesitate. You can always clean afterwards. Slap that stuff on thick and do not go back and restroke polished areas! Just dive in. You can always remove and redo. One coat should be fine except for Loredana, which I found much thinner than Posh and Dovima. I needed two coats for Loredana.

Zoya instructions are to wear these polishes with no base or top coat. I will admit I DID use base coat in these pictures. My nails or too thin and ridgy not to. I had no loss of matte-riffic beauty. I have some matte topcoats coming in and will discuss if they are useful for these or not, but I did not use topcoat this time, shiny topcoat certainly would not work. I think they do not want polish slippage and problems from overlapping strokes, but I had pretty similar an experience with plain nail application and with base. Maybe be extra careful if you use base. This stuff is worth the extra time.

Dovima, the black, is gorgeous and so edgy. I think it's hot. I don't think you need to be Goth anymore to wear black nail polish, or even a rocker or metalhead. It's just cool, and would look great out on the town. Okay maybe not on Paris Hilton, but thank god for that anyway.

Zoya Dovima:



The grey is a nice dark grey, with a lot of texture. This required two coats, though your bottle may vary.

Zoya Loredana:



While I love the first two, I think Posh is the scene stealer here. It's a lovely deep wine red, and man this looks just like velvet. Red velvet. It has a shine that comes from below, like the shinier fabric that the velvet pile is based on, and it makes the whole nail look glowing and soft and deeply plush. I will need about four bottles of this, because what if I run out in 2023 or something???? God I love this.

Zoya Posh:


So there's the scoop. Use a bit of care and learn to work with this polish and you will be a knockout.

Another Month of Zoyas! - Zoya Ki

Ahhh I wish I could truly capture the magnificence that is Zoya Ki. It's a base of shimmery charcoal, with a prismatic effect shimmer of purple, green and sometimes a flash of blue. Check the bottle to see all the colors it has, the nails only show the purple aspect. Sooooo cool. A big favorite of mine. if you like duochromes or dark shimmers you will not be disappointed.

Zoya Ki:

Zoya Mattes Sneak Peek!

http://zoyanailpolish.blogspot.com/2009/05/matte-nail-polish-its-baaaack-and-zoya.html

Loredana (ZP498) - all out glam gray
Dovima (ZP499) - striking black
Posh (ZP500) - pinup pretty deep red

I for one am excited! I like mattes, but only in certain colors, rich ones like this collection. I am excited to try these!

Polish of the Day - Color Club Revvvolution

I FINALLY got Color Club Revvvolution. I had no money, then Head2Toe Beauty didn't have it in, then I had no... cycle. Anyway both situations finally came together and now I have CC Revvv. Is it as hot as OPI My Private Jet (original formula)? I say oh heck yes. And even better, CC Revvvolution is AVAILABLE, unlike OPI My Private Jet Original.

Color Club Revvvolution:


OPI My Private Jet (original formula):


I quite like Color Club's formula. Many of the polishes are one coat, true one coat, and they apply well and stay put. Nice and glossy, too! They have some minis, too which is nice, in their One & Done Collection - on Head2Toe Beauty, all of $1.50. Here are three of those:

Color Club Earthy Mama:


Color Club Recycle This!:


Color Club Sign My Petition: