A Bouquet for Euridice: Drugstore Haul!

I love the name of the Barielle nail polish "A Bouquet for Ava" so I'm using it as the inspiration for my drugstore haul from this weekend. Doesn't it look like a nice bouquet arranged on the platter like that?

The Rimmels are from CVS from a few weeks ago. I have never purchased anything from Rimmel, but the display looked enticing, and I love dark colors. The rest of the nail polish is from Rite Aid. I don't normally shop at Rite Aid, but I was quite enchanted by all the nail polish they had on offer!

First off, I saw two special displays of Borghese. I couldn't help but snatch up the spring colors....even the bubblegum pink. I also picked up a couple of intriguing darker Borgheses. I don't normally buy Sally Hansen, but I was so captivated by the neon metallics!! So, I grabbed a blue and a green. By the time I was through, I also picked out some Maybelline polish. I basically ended up with a lot of similar colors....the blues especially were beckoning.

Here is a parting shot taken outdoors to go with the shot indoors of my bouquet of  lovely colors. More posts to come!

Barielle "A Bouquet for Ava"

Suddenly, out of the blue....Blue! Literally! I love a wide variety of colors, and I never had had a favorite color except possibly purple. Too many gorgeous colors to choose from to have a favorite! If anything, I love color combinations, with my favorites being purple and green or purple and yellow.

So, I guess maybe a month or two ago I started lemming for some serious gorgeous medium blue color for the nails. Sure, cobalt, such as in Essie Mesmerize and my cobalt handbag, was an awesome addition to my wardrobe last summer. I think Essie Aruba really captures this ideal blueness, although it's a bit dark..

For 2010, turquoise is supposed to be THE color, and I'm all for that. But there is so much more to life than turquoise and cobalt. Enter Barielle's "A Bouquet for Ava." It's a dark turquoise. Perhaps a lagoon blue? Well, I've read about lagoon blue and am still not exactly sure what that is, so let's stop blabbing and get to the matter at hand. The polish!! GOR-geous!

Let's start indoors as we do a lot of the time:

Come into the light! The afternoon sunlight, that is:

Outdoors still but in the shade:

This dark turquoise is a creme with very nice application. It reminds me of a slate blue, such as Barielle's "Slate of Affairs" from the fall 2009 Barielle collection, only with a dose of green to make a spring/summer color. Not enough green to be a teal, hence my tagging it a dark turquoise.

Barielle calls it "deep cool Caribbean blue." Who am I to challenge the creators of the color?? Caribbean blue it is! Whatever one calls it, I love this beautiful color. Well-done, Barielle! Well-done! 

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!

Orly Sweet

I was a bit puzzled how Orly "Bloom" could be a spring collection, although I ended up really liking it a lot. Orly "Sweet" is, on the other hand, the quintessential spring collection with six pretty pastel colors. I purchased the set and played with four of the colors---I wasn't feeling the pinks, which are never my favorite, I'll get to those later.

First of all, above left to right: Pixie Stix, Cotton Candy, Lollipop, Snowcone, Gumdrop, and Lemonade.


Second of all, yes, those are miniature lip glosses with each one. So cute! And they all have a yummy smell to them. As has been reported on the nail blogs, the lip glosses that are yellow or green and so forth are rather sheer so you don't end up with yellow or green lips. So fun!! I loved the charms that came with fall's "Once Upon a Time" collection, and I am really adoring these spring lip glosses.

Some more bottle shots:

Gumdrop is kind of mint green/aqua-ish, while Lollipop is a pale pinkish lavender.

Snowcone is a cornflower blue, while Lemonade is pale lemon yellow.

And a quick skittles to check them out.

And in the bottles, again.

I really like these sweet colors. Oh, hey, that's why the collection is called Sweet, it's really appropos!! The two pinks have been sitting on my table, and they are growing on me, so I'll be delving into this collection in more depth including the pinks. In the meantime, I am really loving the pretty spring pastels, maybe as much as I'm digging the hot summer brights!! Both kinds of colors are cheering me up and lifting my winter doldrums and getting me excited for spring!!

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!

 

Milani Neons - Four Selections

 

On the same visit to the CVS drugstore that I scored my Milani holo haul, I also picked up a few of the Milani neons. I believe that Milani has 8 of these neons, while the CVS seemed to have 6, and I selected 4: left to right, "Fresh Teal," "Rad Purple," "Dude Blue," and "Techno Red."

  

The teal seemed to be a real teal (it seems so many things labeled teal aren't really my expectation of teal!), but it was bluer than the bottle and tended towards a turquoise tone of teal. The purple has magenta tones to it, while the Dude Blue was a bit darker than pictured here. The red was a hot coral red---very pretty! The purple and red dried to a somewhat matte finish, what I would called a "waxy matte" like candle wax, while the teal and blue had some gloss.

  

  

  

Remember, the blue is darker than this in real life!

  

  

I only did a quick look at these polishes, and below is the only picture I have in sunlight, coming in through my dining room window (the pillow is there for my cats to enjoy!). I need to play with these further, outside and in the light but this quick introduction should give an indication of what they look like on the nails. They are fun, bright, and a bit hard to capture with my camera!