Wizard of Ooh Ahz

I was in Sally's Thursday, and they were having a special--$1.00 off of China Glaze. That, coupled with the discount from the discount card, meant pretty good prices. I'd originally planned to order some more CG polish online, but this totally beat online prices, since I didn't have to pay for shipping! I got all six from the Wizard of Ooh Ahz collection, and I ALSO copped a bottle of CG Emerald Sparkle, because I feel this color DEFINITELY should have been included with the collection. And plus, Emerald Sparkle was on sale for only $1.99. For less than twenty-six dollars, I got seven bottles of polish! I think that's a great deal for this brand.



I wore Dorothy Who? today. In the bottle, it looks like a pure blue. On my nails, however, it looked like it had teal undertones, like it was even sort of greenish. Also, the photo below doesn't do it justice. The flash makes the color appear to be sort of transluscent, but on my nails, to my eye, it looks opaque. This is three coats:

Big Lots Haul

A week ago I went to Big Lots. I occasionally find stuff there for good prices. I've bought video games, books, craft supplies, and cleaning supplies there, but I've generally stayed away from the food and cosmetics. However, upon finding out that nail polish doesn't really go bad, I decided that this store might be a good place to shop for polish.

This is what I walked away with: two blister packed two-packs of Revlon polish: Power Walk Pink, Twinkled Pink, Wine With Everything, and Rose Zing. Each bottle is the standard half-ouncer. I also picked up some Sally Hansen polishes--four packs of minis. Unfortunately, the colors are not labeled. Each package comes with a mini nail file. Since Big Lots sells discontinued merchandise, I know these polishes haven't been in "regular" stores for quite a while. The back of the packages say copyright 2008, so I figure these are at least two years old. The blue package claims to be from the "Xtreme Wear" line. There is a metallic rust orange, a metallic royal blue, a metallic silver, a metallic deep red, and a metallic teal. There is a purple package of polishes from the "Xtreme Wear" line as well: a shimmery pink, a shimmery fuchsia, a shimmery purple, a shimmery dark turquoise, and a shimmery jade green. The pink package contains colors from the "Diamond Strength" line. There is a lighter shimmery pink, a fuchsia creme, a shimmery wine-red, a shimmery mauve, and a shimmery light tan. And finally, in the black packaging, there are polishes from the "Lacquer Shine" collection: a shimmery magenta, a shimmery dark purple, a shimmery blue, a shimmery red, and a shimmery reddish-black.

Quite an assortment. I'm a big fan of Sally Hansen polishes, so these will be fun to eventually use. There are twenty unique colors, all miniature sized (.13 oz). The Revlon polishes pictured are the only Revlon polishes that I own, so I'm not sure how they will perform on my nails!

I spent maybe twelve dollars, including tax, for everything purchased. Big Lots frequently puts their own price tag on merchandise, even though they leave the original price tag intact.

Sally Hansen Complete Salon Manicure

I did a lot of reading about this product before I purchased it. I waited until it went on sale, and then I got two bottles at the buy one, get one 1/2 off price. Still, it was $12 for only two bottles of polish, which I consider on the pricey side.

Lots of people don't seem to be a fan of the brush, but I LOVE it. It's wide and thick, and it does a very good job of covering my nails in one swipe. While their color selection isn't that great (too many browns, pinks, and reds as usual), I ironically picked two neutrals for my first purchase. I got colors that I can wear to work or to play, Choco-Latte and So Much Fawn:



For the past couple of days I've been wearing So Much Fawn. This product claims to have a base coat and top coat built in, and I didn't put on a base coat before painting my nails, but I did top with Seche Vite. As with any other polish I've used, it started to chip around day two, so I consider this to be pretty good.

I would like to buy four more bottles of this in different colors, simply because I love the brush so much! I have my eye on Commander in Chic, among other colors!

So, I completed my L.A. Girl Disco Brites collection on Thursday--YAY! I now have all 23 colors plus the clear coat:



That is a LOT of polish. Sometimes I think I have too much, but I know that, compared to others, I don't have many polishes at all. So I keep buying them.

When I was at the store buying the Disco Brites, I saw a 2 for $.99 display, so I looked and bought an L.A. Girl Rock Star polish, and a NYX polish:



On Friday, I got a couple of polishes from Walgreens, neither on sale:



I must say that I LOVE this line by Sally Hansen. The colors apply great and they wear very well. Most importantly, the prices are VERY reasonable.

Yesterday (Saturday) DH sent me to Tarjay to get the 3D glasses for the Grammys, and while I was there, I helped myself to a few inexpensive polishes. I got these N.Y.C. polishes, and they were all only a dollar:



I promised myself that, after buying these six yesterday, I won't buy so much polish for awhile. I will just concentrate on the ones I have, and doing nice manicures. BUT--and there is always a but--there are just a few more items on my "must-have" list. I hate to say it, but I need a few more China Glaze polishes. So far, this is my China Glaze "collection":



I only have forty or so China Glazes, so buying seven or eight more won't be THAT reprehensible of me!

Still Buying Polish

I bought two new polishes tonight, inexpensive ones. However, I don't have pictures of them right now, so I'll have to post them tomorrow, I guess.

What I DO have is pictures of my latest China Glaze acquisition! I bought the entire Up and Away collection, and I also got a bottle of GR8 and Solar Flare. First up is the gold polishes--a holographic shimmer and a chunky glitter:



I just noticed that I inadvertantly saved the above image as a .jpg and not a .png. Unfortunately.

Next up is the Up and Away polishes. They are all cremes and they are all so gorgeous! I was a little stumped by Four Leaf Clover, as it looks (to me, at least) more teal than true green. But I put it on my toes this morning (this was the first of the collection that I tried) and against my brown toes, it really does look like a bright green. I took a picture, but my toenails looked BLUE in the photo, so I'm not going to worry about posting it. But here are the China Glazes:



From left to right, they are: Something Sweet, Re-Fresh Mint, Flyin' High, Grape Pop, Lemon Fizz, Sugar High, Happy Go Lucky, High Hopes, Heli-Yum, Peachy Keen, Four Leaf Clover, and Light As Air!!!

New Polishes!

Yesterday I stumbled upon a display of Sinful Colors at a local beauty supply store. I helped myself to two: Well Prepared, a dark mauve creme, and Show Me the Way, a dark lime-green shimmer.

Today was even better, though: I went to a different beauty supply store and came across a display of NYX lipstick! This was so thrilling to me because my favorite--my absolute favorite lipstick of all time--is NYX Chaos, a creamy, pigmented red with lots of staying power. I think I first bought it four or five years ago, and a couple of years ago it became very scarce and hard to find. They changed the packaging, and now the brand can be found in places like Ulta, but Chaos was either not carried or not in stock. This store tonight had SIX in their display, so I'm horrible, but I bought four of them. I mean, at $1.49 each, I couldn't resist!

I also helped myself to eleven new polishes: another bottle of Kleancolor Firework and ten more disco brites:



From left to right, top row then bottom row: Disco Fever, Funkadelic, Chic, Retro, Disco Ball, Hustle, Turntable, Stayin' Alive, Boogie, and Dance Craze.

I now have twelve of the 24 Disco Brites! I hope to buy the rest of the collection soon!

I'm off to swatch these in my spiral-bound index card notebook. It small and I can throw it in my purse, so that when I go shopping, I'll have the brands, names, and colors of polishes I already own. I won't accidentally buy duplicates, or two colors that are too close to each other!

Top Coats Galore

So, I went back to Sally's and bough a few polishes. I got China Glaze's Fairy Dust and Golden Enchantment. These are supposed to be holographic top coats. I also got a duo; the sticker price said $3.99 but it was sold to me for $1.99. Two Orly polishes for $2.00! And since Nars Zulu will never be mine, Orly Enchanted Forest is as close as it's gonna get. That set also came with a "prismatic" top coat. I wish I could switch them tonight, but it's almost 3 in the morning, and I'm just so tired!

Found!

I'm going to create a new tag, or category, called "Found." I'm doing this because I found four bottles of polish in a back room. Two were on a table underneath "stuff" and I obviosly haven't used them in MONTHS, if not YEARS. I found two more in a bag of candy in the same back room. I'd bought the candy from Disney World five months ago, and I was so glad to find these two because one of them is my long-lost China Glaze Chiaroscuro! I'd always loved the color; I bought the bottle of polish some time last year. I have only used the polish two or three times, so the bottle is still full. I recently ordered a bunch of China Glaze online, and I turned it over and over in my mind, whether or not I should buy another Chiaroscuro. I finally decided NOT to, convinced that I'd find my original bottle eventually--and I did!

The other three colors and brands that I came across this evening: Sally Hansen Diamond Strength (unknown color name, but the polish is a shimmery pinkish-tan), Kiss Colors (unknown color name, but the polish is a french-manicure-type shade--a very very pale pinkish/orange creme), Tea Tango (this is a creme as well, a very deep burgundy shade). I find it interesting that most of these are neutrals. I guess that's what I mainly bought before I got into the brighter shades!

New Polishes!

I've gone kind of crazy in the last couple of days! I bought four new polishes last night when I stopped by Walgreens after work. Their Sinful Colors polishes are always $1.99, so I picked up Vacation Time, a mauve-ish creme, and Dancing Nails, a dusty rose shimmer. I put Vacation Time on my nails last night, and right now it's slightly chipped, even though I put the Seche Vite top coat on it. I only owned one other Sinful Colors polish prior to last night--Aqua. I didn't use it much, and I remember now that that is because yes, it is prone to chip. Sinful Colors and other polishes that chip easily are good for when I want my nails a particular color for no longer than a day. And since all polishes chip on me within two or three days, and since I change polish color frequently, it really doesn't matter.

Also from Walgreens, I picked up two Wet N Wild polishes from their "Craze" line. There was a sale on the $1.99 polishes--buy one, get one half-off. I got a color called Shield, which is a metallic cross between gold and silver, and a color called Goldmine, which is a mettalic shimmery true gold.

Today I went polish crazy at a beauty supply store that stocks a TON of inexpensive cosmetics. I'd bought a couple of Kleancolor eyeshadow sets from there before, but I don't think I've ever bought polish from there. They have the NYX polishes (I almost got a glittery neon yellow one), Milani, Kleancolor, L.A. Girl, you name it. AND they have a large selection. They had ALL of the Kleancolor polishes for $.99 each! I wish I could have bought all of them. But I did get six: Pearl Jungle, Neon Fuschia, Firework, Chunky Silver, Brown, and Green Grass. I also got two of the L.A. Girl Disco Brites polishes: Groovy (a purple) and Deejay (a blue). Both are cremes, and the bottle claims they glow under blacklight. The Disco Brites were only $1.99, and again, I wish I could have bought them all!

Celeb City Manicure

I like this color a LOT more than I thought I would. It's Sally Hansen's Celeb City, a shiny opaque silver, and it brushes on like a dream. It's very metallic, very reflective, and very bold! I put it on my nails three or four hours ago, topped by Seche Vite fast dry. The flash washes it out a bit, and to be honest, it mutes the color so that it looks more like a shiny gray than a flashy silver. I posted a picture of this polish in my previous post, and on my nails, it looks just like the bottle. Here is a picture:



This is the type of polish that I'd love to wear every day. It looks so much like jewelry! Alas, it is a bit too flashy for work, so I will take this off after a day or so. It will probably go back on next weekend, though, and it will remain one of my favorite polishes of all time!