Birthday Haul!

For my birthday this year, I wanted something simple. I wanted something useful. And I wanted it to come through the mail because it is HOT outside.

So, I ordered nail polish from Walgreens. As far as I know, they're the only place online to order Sinful Colors, and while a lot of the more expensive brands have released some cool colors, I was feeling extraordinarily cheap. But I do like Sinful, I think they might be the very best drugstore brand, and they certainly have the most colors.

From L-R, on my scarred up old desk, Sinful Colors "Love Nails", "24/7", "Midnight Blue", "Purple Diamond", Wet N' Wild "FuchsiaRama", Sinful Colors "Boogie Nights"

I'm a bit disappointed with "Love Nails" because it looks so similar to the other shimmery blue polishes I have from them. Shimmery blue is to Sinful Colors as orangey reds are to Essie. But I'll give it a try.

I plan on swatching these throughout the week (I'm on vacation, y'all!), and tomorrow REIT will be showing how awesome her nails look today.

Feels good to blog about nail polish again!

Wet N' Wild Fast Dry "Gray's Anatomy"

As Scrangie pointed out, Wet N' Wild's "Gray's Anatomy is a spot-on dupe of Deborah Lippman's "Wicked Game". For those keeping score at home, that's two new Wet N' Wild polishes that mimic Lippmans. And thank god, because I would feel really guilty layering sixteen dollar polish over seven dollar polish, which is what I did with "Gray's Anatomy".

But first, "Gray's Anatomy" on its own:

The coverage on this one was... strange. There were spots on my nails where it seemed like no matter how many coats I used, the polish wasn't going there. My nails were clean and free from oils, and I used a basecoat, so I'm wondering what went wrong. Next time, I'll try a different basecoat, maybe it just doesn't get along with OPI.

I love this color. I love it because it's gray, but it's still delicate. I love the rosey flash to it, and I love that the green flash doesn't look sickly. I also love that it's a buildable color, so it works for layering. Like here, when I wore it over Essie "Sexy Divide":I wish the picture did this combo justice. "Gray's Anatomy" turned "Sexy Divide" into a chameleon. In some lights, it was a shimmery purple ("Sexy Divide" is a dark purple shimmer to begin with). In others, it was black. In my bedroom, it looked hunter green. This will definitely be a polish I will return to when I want to experiment with layering.

So yeah, Lippman for sixteen bucks, Wet N' Wild for one or two, depending where you buy it.

Everbody wants to be Deborah Lippman.

"Inspired by" polishes seem to be out of control lately. We can't have been the only ones to notice this.

Last week, I picked up the much more reasonable alternative to Deborah Lippman's "Happy Birthday", a twenty-dollar polish that I just cannot bring myself to purchase. At just under four dollars, Milani "Gems" was a buy I could live with.

But after I picked that one up, I noticed Wet N' Wild had their own "just like but not quite" version of "Happy Birthday" in "Party of Five Glitters".

These are incredibly difficult to photograph in the bottle because they're so intensely shiny. It's also difficult to tell the difference between them until they're on the nail:

Top to bottom: "Gems" "Party of Five Glitters" "Gems" "Party of Five Glitters" over Sinful Colors "Black on Black"

As you can see, the biggest difference between the two polishes is distribution on the nail. This could be a result of the brush design. The Milani brush is much thinner than the Wet N' Wild brush, requiring more strokes for coverage. This deposits more glitter on the nail.

The only other differences I could tell was that "Gems" includes orange and gold glitter, which are absent from "Party of Five Glitters". The green glitter in "Party of Five Glitters" is smaller than the green glitter in "Gems", and that's about it. They're both incredibly similar, and I wore them for two days before they actually started to look dissimilar.

I don't have Lippman's "Happy Birthday", but at this point, I don't think I need it. I've got two "inspired by"s right here! As R.E.I.T. says, "Is sfarkaly!" ("It's sparkly").

What's Wednesday Wearing?

R.E.I.T. is wearing a very complex look today. She started out with China Glaze "Secret Peri-wink-le" on her left hand, and Nicole by OPI "Show You Care" on her right hand. She then selected a few nails on each hand for french tips. The left hand got white and silver glitter tips, and the right hand got gold. You can't say she doesn't know what colors go together, can you?

Since we skipped a day of showing you our stash, let's get on with it, and show you our blacks:

L-R: Wet N' Wild "Black Creme", China Glaze "Lubu Heels", Sinful Colors "What's Your Name?", Sinful Colors "Secret Admirer".

Now, why are these all classified as black, when one looks kind of red, one kind of bluish, and one kind of silver? Because the bases of each polish are black. "Lubu Heels" is explained in our last post. "What's Your Name" is black with tons of micro-glitter that looks different depending what the angle is. Head on, it looks teal, but if you tilt your hand (or the bottle) and there's an aura of purple. Still, if you just looked at it on someone's hands, just a brief glance, it looks black. But my absolute favorite of these is "Secret Admirer". It's so full of silver micro-glitter, it should be blindingly sparkly on the nail, but it's not. Instead, it looks like you painted your nails with pieces of heavy artillery. It's definitely not a mess around kind of color.

Mommy: "Hey, R.E.I.T., do you have something you want to say on the blog today?
R.E.I.T.: "No!"

Well, I guess that's just about it for us today!