Color Club Pucci-Licious

Okay, I have a confession to make. I am a little dispirited. Maybe that's one of the reasons why I haven't posted as much in the last two weeks. You see, I am in love with the Color Club collection "POPtastic." A lot of the colors are NEONS. Wonderful, poptastic neons. But you see, the neons don't love me back. Or rather, they don't love my freaking camera! Wail!

I took loads of pictures of these awesome colors, but I don't want to post them because they are not true to life. Well, the orange "Wham! Pow!" and the yellow "Almost Famous" worked okay in pictures. But the pinks....the pinks! So sad. Sniff!

I think perhaps my favorite in this collection is "Pucci-Licious." I was delighted to see this lovely medium purple. When I tried it on, I noticed it was showing up rather BLUE in my camera indoors. My fingertips were PURPLE. Sigh. Well, I have to admit that this color has a lot of blue in it. Could this be a periwinkle blue? Not quite....blurple?

The application was really nice, so much better than the yellow. The surface was rather matte, with a dull shine, like candle wax, or a "wax matte," as I think of it.

I went out into the sun, and I saw that it did show up rather blue! But wait! My camera decided to portray the color as purple! Ta da! Lol. Okay, well the pictures are fairly decent.

That last picture is in the shade.

So. What's the verdict? I imagine everyone is clicking on the pictures and waiting to hear my final pronouncement on this color. Okay. It's....BLURPLE! Yes, I have decided it has enough blue in it to be called a blurple. It looks purple in the bottle but bluish purple on the nails. And I have to say: I LOVE it! I just adore this charming color. My first blurple. Sigh. Love! I heart Pucci-Licious.

Color Club Almost Famous

Continuing with Color Club's POPtastic Collection, I give you "Almost Famous," a bright, neon yellow creme. Now I began this series for the POPtastic collection with Wham! Pow!---a crossing guard vest orange....like, if you worked at an airport directing airplanes around and forgot your orange cone thingies, you could just use your hands as long as your nails were painted with this orange. Seriously. The yellow "Almost Famous" continues the the whole neon highlighter marker theme.

Now, I started a lovely afternoon of swatching nail polish with this particular color and I immediately regretted starting with a yellow. I have learned that yellows are notoriously difficult to apply because of the pigments...or something to that effect. This yellow went on rather streaky, but I thought it looked okay by the third coat. I found the rest of the colors went on really well, fortunately!

So, let's take a look. I start with a couple of shots indoors and then go out into the sunshine.

Now for direct sunlight, where the color is a tad washed out but still shows up bright in these pictures.

Outdoors, but in the shade, yep, it's definitely yellow!!

I have a neon yellow patent envelope-style clutch that I need to dig out and coordinate with these screamin' yellow nails!! Fun!! Sunshine and happiness. The only reason NOT to feel happy while wearing this polish is the streaky application, but if you want a punch of yellow, please do persevere and you'll be rewarded.

Color Club Wham! Pow!

I am loving pretty pale spring colors, but let's not forget the brights and neons!! Perfect for summer, intense brights and retina-scorching neons in all sorts of amazing colors, please!! Color Club's POPtastic, one of three collections they released for spring 2010, delivers these bright flourescent colors and then some.

I LOVE this collection! The colors literally POP right off your fingernails....but unfortunately, they tend to pop off my camera lens, which cannot accurate capture the intensity and color of neons.

I'll start with the accurately named "Wham! Pow!" because this highlighter orange does show up fairly accurately in my pictures. tt's basically an intense, super-bright bold orange neon. SUCH FUN!

In the sunlight:

You know it's neon when it glows this bright in the dark for a picture!! This is outdoors but in the shade.

Like many neons, this polish is rather sheer and shows visible nail line after 2 or 3 coats. I decided to experiment with a fairly opaque white polish on my index finger to compare. I was very pleased with the results....no nail line! But looking at my pictures, I realize that the color is altered to a lighter color. Phooey! I don't mind the different color, but capturing the true color but using an undercoat to cover the nail line would be the ideal. Suggestions and tips welcome, please!

Index finger with the white and ring finger with just Wham! Pow! (I tried black on the middle finger, and that did NOT work at ALL! So I am refraining from showing it).

I had some spillage of the white polish into the side of my nail, there, so it looks a bit messy, begging everyone's pardon!

The first pic of the white undercoated index finger is in shade, and the second one is in the sun. You can definitely see the difference. If you want a perfect WHAM! POW! neon orange, however, Wham! Pow! from Color Club certainly fills the bill.

Color Club I Believe in Amour

I've written before about how I am not into pinks. Pinks and reds, both, I guess. They are the traditional colors for nail polish, and I guess I am much more interested in the less conventional, "fashion" nail colors. When I was playing with Color Club's "I Believe in Amour" I actually had to remind myself of this apathy toward pink! Yeah, I forgot for a moment that I am not supposed to like this polish, lol!

Well, I do like this polish a lot! It is a really pretty medium shade of cool pink, maybe with a trace of lilac tones. Although, I think I see lilac and lavender in everything! But anyway, I don't know what else to say except that it is a very pretty cool-toned pink.

So, let's continue with this series on the Color Club Pardon My French collection, one of three spring collections, by looking at some pics of this pretty pink taken indoors and outdoors in the sun.

By the way, please ignore the dryness of my fingers and cuticles! I hate that things show up in my pictures that I don't totally notice in real life, ugh!

Okey-dokey, now it's time to examine "I Believe in Amour" with the glitter that I think it's supposed to be paired with, "Hot Couture." Interestingly, the colors don't seem to go together at all! The glitter is a wram-toned pink; I would describe it as strawberry-peach daiquiri. Well, I tried it anyway.

Voila! LOVE! I really love this glitter on top of the pink!! I left my pinky fingernail plain to show the comparison.

I think the glitter works beautifully with the pink. If I were a teenager who loved pink, I'd be all over this combination! I don't know if I am likely to wear this...or not. Maybe...well, yeah, I just might!

Color Club Oh Naturale

 

This post continues my swatches and review of the Color Club Pardon My French collection, which is one of three 2010 spring collections from Color Club. "Oh Naturale" is an interesting milky orangey-peach. It's hard for me to put my finger on what exactly the color is. It's definitely peachy. But it has a bit of orange to it. It's not nude. I thought perhaps it was cantaloupe sherbet, a very pale cantaloupe-based hue. Now I am just going to go with milky orange-peach, leaving peach as the main color. 

Oh Naturale is more sheer than the super opaque Take Me To Your Chateau but builds to opaqueness. I used two coats. I'm seeing a bit of nail line in my pictures, so perhaps a third coat will be indicated for those who can't tolerate even the slightest "VNL." 

First we have a indoors shot, followed by sunlight shots I took hanging out my window during the aftermath of the double blizzards in February.

 

 

  

  

Now, let's do the layering thing! We have the rich apricot glitter "Turn the Other Chic." In this case, the color of the glitter is much brighter than the natural peach creme, as opposed to the pairing of the pale blue Take Me To Your Chateau and the icy glitter "Si Vous Please!" with its blue sparkles. 

  

 

The bottle on the left is "Si Vous Please!" while "Turn the Other Chic" is on the right.

 

Above and below, I have one layer of Turn the Other Chic glitter on my index finger, Oh Naturale with Turn the Other Chic on my middle and pinky fingernails, and just Oh Naturale on my ring finger.

  

  

While bright, the glitter is quite sheer, so having a base color to put it on top of makes a lot of sense. In this case, the natural creme makes a good base for the glitter, instead of being the main attraction being enhanced by the glitter. On top of the natural, "Turn the Other Chic" looks rich and gorgeous in just one coat!

 

Color Club Take Me To Your Chateau

 

"Take Me To Your Chateau" is a lovely pale blue, perfect this for spring's palettes. The packaging on the Color Club Pardon My French collection set proclaimed that these colors were "sheerly chic," but I reached for this pale blue first, and it has to be one of the most opaque polishes I've ever seen! 

  

The formula is good, but I had just been messing around with some polishes that have a thinner, runnier formula, so I need to use Take Me To Your Chateau with a lighter hand. I will make sure to adjust my application so I go thinner, especially since I did two coats of it.

It's really pretty indoors:

  

Here's how it stands up to direct sunlight:

  

  

 

I like this color a lot. I will interject, though, that I am discovering that my approach to nail color might be similar to my approach to lip color. I can't stand nude lips or pale pink lips---so fake and not at all natural. I tend to stick to shades close to my natural lip tone or deeper and darker. I think I am not too thrilled by super pale shades on my nails. It seems they show all the flaws in my application and just don't look right to me. That said, I am not 100% comfortable with Take Me To Your Chateau but will definitely work on a light touch since this formula is thicker than some brands and hopefully will enjoy wearing it this spring.

Now let's layer it up with its buddy in the collection, "Si Vous Please!" Look at that icy white glitter. You can see some purple glitter in there, but see how the light blue is flashing like crazy in the light??

 

I mean! Look at this glitter! So cool and proud and reserved, yet bringing its own special bling.

 

  

Above, looks like a match made in heaven!! And below, that theory was born out when I put it on the nails!!

 

 

I think the layering with the glitter is fabulous! Imagine how much nicer it will look, also, with a less gloppy looking application of the Chateau blue. The effect is really ethereal and icy, like a winter effect. Nice to wear in February and cooling and refreshing to wear in July!

Here are a couple of shots which show the glitter pieces.

 

Like pale blue opals!! I am realizing that I didn't take any shots that show the glitter on my nail on its own, and I'll have to remedy that. One can expect it to be pretty sheer, though. 

So, is everyone wearing a cool pale blue on the nails this spring? As a change of pace to all the gorgeous turquoise colors??