China Glaze Ginger!

Well, I'm still remembering the nails of November. This post should be about Ginger Bells from OPI, actually. I was determined to wear Ginger Bells on Thanksgiving because it was the perfect gingery, pumpkin-y color. Then, perhaps on that Friday, I would slip into some China Glaze Ginger, with its super sparkliness.

But. I couldn't wait. I went for the China Glaze Ginger the day BEFORE Thanksgiving and that was all she wrote! (That's right, T'giving was all about the glitter!! Sorry, Ginger Bells, maybe next year).




Even without the glitter, this polish would gleam with a super shiny, coppery metallic base. The surface has what I think of as a "baked pretzel effect," with the multi-colored glitter reminding me of the salt baked onto pretzels.

Now for a bit of bottle porn! So pretty, so glittery....the colors! I can't stop staring at the pretty colors of the glitter.

I mean, look at it!!



Yep. Thanksgiving was a time to give thanks, and I was very thankful for fall's bountiful harvest of wonderful polish, with its cornucopia of GLITTER to sate the appetite of enthusiastic nail polish fiends everywhere!!

Weekend Nails: MAC Dance All Night

This weekend I am wearing "Dance All Night" from MAC's Fall 2009 Nail Trend. I've been meaning to wear this, and I am loving it! It's a wonderful dark red creme. Oh, and the cuticle on the pinky = a small cut, not a polish boo boo! :-P


Friday was OPI "Merry Midnight" from the winter 2009 collection. Its dark purple glossiness fit my need for dark nails perfectly, while the orange flakies and fine sparkles peeking from within the dark purple satisfied my desire for glitter!! More on this awesome polish later, this is just a tease!

NOTD: Chanel Jade is Jading Me

(The two bottle pictures taken Sunday night in indoor overhead lighting)

Is that title grammatical? I'm jaded by the Chanel Jade polishes, in other words. Last week I was excited to receive both the Chanel Jade (light green) and Chanel Jade Rose (light pink nude). I had planned a few weeks ago to buy them and finally determined the time was right and clicked the button, as it were.

A couple of hours later, I wondered: why did I do that? Do I really want these? They are $25 a pop! Why are these colors being presented for fall?? Am I just following the crowd? Well, better to have buyer's remorse for polish than for a house!!

I do think these colors are very pretty, and if I had followed the fall shows at the time they were originally presented, I might have been dying for Chanel to produce these runway shades. I like to wait until mid-to-late summer before I start poring over the fall fashion shows first, and then the magazines. It's more fun that way. You know: live in the moment.

Anyway, one major theme on this blog is that I am a major nail polish novice, aka "nail noob," so the question is whether the $25 price tag would result in the most ultimate, easy-to-apply polish ever???!! I've already experienced how awesome Wet n Wild Craze polishes are at $1.99.

The answer is...


...Meh! I don't find these easy to apply, but I think perhaps with some practice I'll figure out how to make them work for me. The Jade color goes on kinda streaky. Even when I got on two coats with a smooth surface, I noticed the color was streaky beneath the surface. I am not aware it's supposed to be that way, so I would prefer the color to be even across the nail. You know?

Jade Rose was similar, but for some reason it worked better for me than the Jade. Sunday night I decided to take it for a spin. I was able to apply three coats to be mostly opaque. It looks okay---not professional, but not so bad I was shamed into removing this morning when I awoke (I am a novice. It happens!)


The bottle has a subtle iridescence that I was not able to see when outside....maybe if I do it sheerer next time. At the end of the work day Monday, all the polish was still on (pictures taken at that time, in my office with lots of natural light). That is more than I can say for the China Glaze Dreamsicle I wore on Friday (but that is another story for another day! Still recovering.) Midway through Tuesday, still all there!

Interestingly, I find I really like the Jade Rose a lot. It was kind of an afterthought when I ordered it. "What the heck," I thought, "it's pretty! I'll just get it. I've come this far..." Of course, the Jade is pretty, too; I guess for me the Jade Rose is kind of the sleeper of the two, once you are finished marveling at the light green color of Jade you realize how nice the Rose is.


I definitely think Jade Rose will work well, once I feel I can apply it better, for nude nails this fall but also in the spring. The big project is to get the Jade itself to go on and look half-decent. I don't mind spending $25 for something special, but I also want the experience of application to be exalted or something. When I received my Barielles, which are $8 (buy two get one free on Barielle site), I was super-amazed both at the colors that Michelle of All Lacquered Up had created with celebrity manicurist Elle, but also at how wonderfully it went on my nails. Because of this experience, I know it's possible: if I spend the big bucks, I certainly want that same exalted experience as with the lower priced polish!!

Action shot! Because I always wear Chanel to do my cleaning:


Yesterday (Monday) Rachel Zoe tweeted that she was obsessed with Chanel Jade, and the Purseblog posted about jade-colored handbags. I'm excited about having these hot-buzz polishes, and again, I do think they are pretty. Just not perfect.

My Rating: Jade Rose = Euridice 4 out of 5 points (not quite "yay!") Jade = Euridice "meh! to okay!" 2.5 (until I can get the applications issues resolved).

Any tips on application??? Please advise!!!

Nail Polish Addicts Anonymous Here I Come!

When a handbag addict decides what bag to carry based on what nail polish she is wearing, does it mean she has a new addiction to contend with? Today I have the gorgeous Essie "It's Genius" on my fingertips, and so I pulled the perfect handbag out from storage: my large Hug Me in wine pebbled glossy from Belen Echandia.



Look at that gorgeous leatha!! It's a grapey, pinkey, purpley shade of wine. I'm not sure what color the nail polish is...purple or magenta or pink....but it's a beautiful match for my beautiful bag!! And even though it was up in the eighties (Fahrenheit) today, it's the perfect summer to fall transition color, I've decided.

Nail Noob -- Essie Fall 2009 Collection Review and Swatches

I think for fall 2009, anything goes! And Essie is covering the bases. This collection is quite groovy and interesting. It contains the subtle, pretty colors you need and expect for fall, PLUS two NEONS!! I am talking retina-searing orange (see my orange story) and hot pink.

I previously picked up the new Essie fall 2009 nail polish collection during a couple of different trips to ULTA back in August. I now have all but one of these polishes. I am not in the market for hot pink nails, or I would have gotten that one as well. I started out getting the soft brown "Mink Muffs," medium gray "Chinchilly" (which you see me wearing in my orange "look of the day."), and midnight blue/navy "Midnight Cami." The following week I added the the brownish pink "Angora Cardi" (it's too pretty to resist) and the eye searing ORANGE "Bright Tights."

Let's have a look, shall we??

First up: "Midnight Cami," a midnight blue that looks to have a bit of shimmer in the bottle. After two coats on the nail, I saw no shimmer and really considered it a navy, if a lighter navy, blue. Very good, very basic! I'll definitely like having a midnight/navy blue. But I still want a blue that is just a bit lighter and does have noticeable shimmer.



"Chinchilly" is a medium gray which I've already worn for a couple of days, when I was rocking a gray and orange combo look, mentioned above. I love this basic color, it will be another fall staple!


A light brown, "Mink Muffs" is lighter and redder than OPI's "You Don't Know Jacques." It's in the same category as "Putt-E-On-Me" from Barielle and "Prince Charming" from Orly. These polishes are all different, just not dramatically different.


"Angora Cardi" is a dark mauvish color. I read that it is supposed to be "dusty rose" or something to that effect. Perhaps---just darker and prettier than I consider a dusty rose to be. It's neutral and subtle yet provides really pretty color, for those days when a gray or putty brown just won't do!

"Bright Tights" reflects the rather unusual neon bright trend for fall. This polish is an awesome neon orange. I felt it was rather sheer, even if bright, and I tried using a thin coat of Chinchilly underneath in order to get it opaque in fewer coats. I ended up with three coats, anyway. The formula is rather thin. I have a bright neon-ish orange sweater I got when transitioning from winter to spring this year, and I a looking forward to pairing it with "Bright Tights." Yay, neon!


I totally recommend the polishes in this collection. I am liking the Essie formula, which is thin enough for a nail newbie like myself, without being too drippy most of the time. I read in Scrangie that she thought the formula for this particular Essie collection was very thin and that it pooled in the cuticles. I would have assumed I was just botching things when it pooled in the cuticle, so I found that helpful to read. Perhaps it is thinner than normal for Essie....but for the most part, I had less problem than other brands that are a bit gloppy for my skills.

I do love this collection!

Prescriptives Fall 2009 "Well-Suited" Collection Eyeshadow Swatches!

This past August I began to wear makeup again on a daily basis, mainly inspired by a sudden addiction to YouTube beauty tutorials. While I had enough makeup already to sustain daily use, I couldn't help but start buying more!! I delved into drugstore brands, exploring L'Oreal HIP Duos and Physicians Formula baked eyeshadow trios. Then, I got the tweet and the 411 on the new Prescriptives fall makeup line....literally, it was a "tweet" on Twitter from beauty411, a blog that has quickly become one of my most useful beauty reads.

I have always used Prescriptives. I got "color printed" a million years ago (the process that determines to which of 4 skintone families one belongs; I'm a blue-red, by the way), and this brand saved me from makeup disaster. I have been wearing Prescriptives foundations ever since.

The Prescriptives method is fool-proof, since you get a foundation and powder that matches your skintone perfectly. You create classic and neutral looks by sticking to your color family for eyes, lips, and cheeks, but get more dramatic looks by venturing into the opposite color family. In addition, Prescriptives comes out with awesome seasonal offerings.

I have always used blue-red blushers, lipsticks, and eyeshadows, mixed in with a liberal dose of red (blue-red and red making up the cool colors), and an occasional yellow-orange for more drama.

So, then, when I got the tweet with information on the new collection, I sped over to my neighborhood Nordstrom's. This fall's release is called "Well-Suited" because it is inspired by menswear. Aptly, the compacts have a cute design mimicking pinstripes and pearls. I picked up the "cool" and "neutral" eyeshadow quints, but unfortunately, the store did not have a Prescriptives representative working there to show me the new eyeshadows and lipsticks, not to mention the intriguingly pink finishing powder. I'll have to catch the rep at a Prescriptives counter at a mall further away to find out more, not to mention be shown some looks with the quints I got.

Each quint features four eyeshadows with one shadow for lining and defining.

The Prescriptives site includes a how-to for the cool palette of the Well-Suited Collection. I'd like to check out the Posh Nude lipstick, myself. The cool shadow quint features Shell, Velour, Pinstripe, Cassis, and Blackberry.



Swatches made using my finger, trying to catch the light at different angles, top three colors are Shell, Velour, and Pinstripe (a nice gray!), bottom two are Cassis and Blackberry, the latter being the liner.




The neutral quint features a mix of shadows from both the cool and warm shadow families. I hadn't seen a neutral palette from Prescriptives before, so I was intrigued. The shadows are: Champagne, Clove, Sultry, Storm, and Jet. The how-to on the website tells you how to put the neutral look together. I am not sure, to tell the truth, what the point of a neutral palette is, since one's own color family would be the neutral palette for an individual. I obviously need to find a Prescriptives rep and get the scoop on the company's current thinking.

And some swatches, this time trying to mimick the shape of the shadows in the compact: l-r Champagne, Clove, Sultry, Storm, and Jet.



I just realized that I have a vein or something sticking out on my hand. Gross! That is not always there.

I didn't buy the warm quint, which contains Silk, Bean, Olive, Moss, and Espresso eye colors, since I have a lot of new eyeshadows already in what I consider dramatic colors for me.

The palettes are easy to open and include mirrors. Keeping with the collection's theme, the looks are very classic---nothing crazy-trendy. Of course, if one wants different sets of shadows than these, no problem! Just put together your own compact by buying shadows as singles and putting them in a Prescriptives quad compact. You can do all four shadows or combine a couple of shadows with a blusher.

These compacts are retailing for $40 (not a bad deal at $8 a shadow if, like me, you balk at that amount) at Prescriptives.com or your local Prescriptives counter.

Nail Noob -- MAC Haul, Y'all!!

Yes! It's MAC Nail Trend FW09 by Jin Soon!! And it's mine!!

TA DA!!!!

Above, lounging on my Belen Echandia orange handbag, as the photo shoot locale of choice, in an indoor room with overhead light on, but no natural light, and no flash. And below, with flash (my camera's "night portrait" setting) to show up the colors.


Left to right: "Rich, Dark, Delicious," "Dry Martini," "Cool Reserve," "Dance All Night," "For Fun," and "Beyond Jealous."

These 6 lacquers embody fall-winter 2009 fashion---in just 6 colors! Of course, MAC nail colors are straight from the runway....hard core!

Let's try them on!! Oh, and word of warning: don't try this at home! That is, don't sit at home drawing conclusions about these polishes based solely on my pictures. Go to your favorite beauty blogger, or better yet, go to several, and view their swatches. Or go to the mall and try them on for yourself!! They are the bomb!



First up, let's look at "Cool Reserve." I'm really feeling grayish tones, and lilac in particular, for fall 2009. This is "dirty, grey, lavender." Perfection!! You can see the grey in the pic above. In the pic below, with the flash, you can see the lavender. LOVE!!! This color is a very subtle, lovely grayish pale lavender.


But let's keep going. I've been hearing for months now about the importance of brick red for fall. I am still curious exactly what the color is, but I now have it in my own nail color wardrobe:

I have stated before that I am not after reds and pinks....these colors seem like the traditional, basic nail colors...I'm just not interested. This color, though, is a must have in a fall nail wardrobe. It's rich, dark, and red. Perfect.


If I had had to choose just one of these colors, I would have gone for the "Dry Martini." I thought this color would be an olive green, and I was really intrigued by pictures I 've seen of it. It is actually more of an "olive brown." Someone described it as the color of 'poo' in a comment I read somewhere. I wouldn't go that far!! I really like it and can't wait to rock it when I need a neutral, lighter brown, olivey toned color!


Next up is probably the most exciting color in the group. "Beyond Jealous" is a perfect description for this color....it's no longer a green kind of jealousy by somewhere past green in a whole different dimension. Well, it's a black-teal color. So, in addition to your forest greens and blackened forest greens, you have a great blackened teal to change it up a bit. This color RAWKS!



I really didn't think I was interested in dark chocolate browns. Then I became acquainted with "Rich, Dark, Delicious." I need this gorgeous chocolate brown in my nail wardrobe, stat!

The last one is a fun purple color---and MAC appropriately named it "For Fun"---that I wasn't really sure I was going to get. I've just gotten a bunch of nail polishes, and purple seems a pretty common color. I'm typing this with purple nails. OPI's "Do You Lilac It?", to be precise. The color of "For Fun" is really gorgeous, though. I weakened in its presence. What the heck!

Below it is showing, in the indoor room lit from above, in a grapey kind of way.

Check them out now, the MAC Nail Trend FW 09 colors were released August 27 and are available at MAC counters (unless they are sold out! They have been selling well!) and online at www.maccosmetics.com. I am liking the way these are applying and am looking forward to wearing them for real.