China Glaze - IDK

Pale purple holographic  

Back in early 2008 China Glaze launched the OMG collection of 12 holographic polishes, 6 warm and 6 cool toned.  I just have two from the cool toned collection.

IDK is a lilac/purple linear holographic.  Not very exciting when viewed in indirect light, comes alive in sunlight.

Swatches are 3 coats, no top coat.  As you can see from the swatches these dry with a muted finish.

The holo in this is very fine and linear, unlike the Kaleidoscope collection which was scattered, larger format holos.

Unfortunately these collections are discontinued and not easy to find but I'm sure there are duplicates available in other ranges.

Vintage Valentines - Sally Hansen New Lengths - Espresso Frost

Warm red/brown shimmer  

Myself and fellow UK nail blogger, Lina-Elvira from Pretty Perfect Beauty have cooked up a plan for February to show off some of our older polishes, hence Vintage Valentines.

We agreed anything older than 5 years was vintage in nail polish terms, but I don't think I'm planning to share anything newer than 10 years.

So over this gloomiest of months we'll be sharing the HTF, the VHTF and the damn near impossible to find....

I'm kicking off with one of my favourite vintage brands, Sally Hansen New Lengths.  Back in the 90's (I think) they used this name for a range of colour polishes with self coloured tops.

Let me say that again, the polish lids were made of the same colour plastic as the polish inside the bottle.  How wonderful and crazy is that?  They had to make different coloured lids for all the polish colours!  And on a drugstore polish no less.

At some point they must've realised the error of their ways as a few of this bottle shape New Lengths have plain black lids.

I have a small collection of just 7 of these polishes, 6 with self-coloured lids, one without.  I'm pretty sure I picked these up on my first holiday to the US back in 1996 - one has a CVS price label on for $2.85!

The bottles are 13.3ml/0.45 fl oz with a tall lid and the brush is long, flexible and narrow.

So on with the pics & swatches..

Espresso Frost is a warm reddish brown with lots of gold shimmer that really comes alive in the sunlight.

Application with this was great, the narrow brush didn't cause me any problems and the formula was good, if thin in texture.

Swatches shown are 2 coats with no top coat.

I didn't have to add any thinner to these polishes, whatever magical combination of chemicals is in these 20 year old babies keeps them liquid and ready to go!   You can see the ingredients label above, suffice to say they're not 5-free, the only nasty I couldn't spot was Toulene.

And if you want to see more of the collection Kaz from Pretty-Random has a great reference guide though she doesn't quite have all of them (yet).

And don't forget to check out Lina-Elvira's first Vintage Valentine

Airport Haul

These are the ones I couldn't fit in my Germany Haul post.

This is a MissGuided polish that they were giving away with Cosmopolitan. I'm slightly too old for Cosmo now but who can resist free polish!



I think this was the best of the 3 available - cue frantic searching through all the copies in WH Smith! IIRC the other 2 were a pale pink creme and a bright red?


Closeup to show the sparkles

And look what they had in the MAC shop @ T5!!



I wandered over to ask about polish stock, fully expecting them to laugh in my face, but the SA to my surprise said they had Bad Fairy in stock! So, reader, how could I resist? I bought some. Oddly the other 2 in the collection were out of stock. This is actually my very first MAC polish!

Urban Decay - ID

I'd been waiting for the right colour to try my bottle of Urban Decay ID over and Beverley Hills from The Hills Collection by Nails Inc looked like a good choice

  
 

Here it is in sunlight to show the awesome sparkles (click for bigger pics).

ID is a pinkish coral with huge amounts of fine gold, green and pink sparkle. It's sheer though so you'd need lots of coats for opacity on its own, or much better to layer it.

HTF Week

It's HTF (Hard to Find) week on my favourite nail board so in the final gasps of the week here are some of my HTFs.

Revlon Streetwear is a much loved and much missed discontinued line from Revlon. From what I've read it was Revlon's attempt to combat the competitive threat from new brands Hard Candy and Urban Decay. As such Revlon went all out to create an amazing collection of unusual, edgy and funky shades.

I have a small collection of Streetwear polishes, 12-15 bottles I think although as my polish collection is currently split across two houses I'm not exactly sure!

I definitely have Streetwears from the US and UK collections. I'm not sure if the collections had different colours but the UK ones are made in the EEC and the US ones in the US.

The following are all from the UK/EEC collection

First up is Burnt - definitely my favourite out of the ones I got this week off ebay


Burnt is a gorgeous slightly greyed olive green with gold shimmer. A very unusual colour that really works. This is 2 coats in shade


And in sunlight you can really see the shimmer



Next up is Copper, a lovely bright copper which is almost a foil. I was surprised how good this looked on as I didn't think the colour would suit my skintone at all. Again 2 coats in shade


And in Sun

Next is Gold Mine

A slightly cool gold, again 2 coats



This is Dijon, an unsual mustard colour with a gold shimmer. This is 2 coats in the shade where it looks softer and more muted


In sunlight it's much more of a recognisable mustard colour.
Again I didn't expect to like this on at all but I it looks ok on, the gold shimmer seems to lift it.


This is Raw. It looks awesome in the bottle and I really wanted this to be better than it is. This is 5 coats, yes 5! And I still have VNL (visible nail line)

It's primarily blue with a touch of grey and a strong pink flash


In the sun it looks more shimmery and you can see the pink flash.


I've saved the best for last


This is Dark, a dark purple with silvery blue glitter. Isn't it just gorgeous? I don't think the glitter is as pronounced as other blue/purples with glitter like Essie's Starry Starry Night (which I don't own) but it is totally gorgeous. This is slightly off colour wise, it looks more blue here, it's actually more purple IRL.

The formula/application on these was ok, they were all fairly runny but not too difficult to control. The biggest problem for me was the very long brush which didn't suit my small nails at all.

But overall I love these, great colours, good application and big bottles!