Showing posts with label Green. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Green. Show all posts

Vampy Varnish BB Couture Collection: Part II

Above & Below: Redwood Forest, shown in 2 coats. This is a vibrant, deep Kelly green shade with a jelly-type base and aqua glitter. Pardon the mess on my cuticles! This was my last swatch and I was getting tired!
Below: Vampy Varnish, the collection's namesake polish, is actually a very complicated color to explain. It seems to have a charcoal base, but there is definitely green in there as well, although it is difficult to capture with a photo. The glitter is actually Emerald green and quite obvious in real life. When I applied this shade, my first thought was 'this is China Glaze Emerald Sparkle's deep, brooding older brother'. Simply beautiful.
Below: Kelly's Green, shown in 2 coats. Now this is what I call a unique shade, and I adore it. I showed my husband this collection and he chose this one immediately as his favorite. Not that he'd ever wear nail polish, but he does like the color. I would describe this as a pastel olive, if there is such a thing. It has tiny silver, gold, green and black glitter...those are the colors I see anyway. Click here to read Kelly's more detailed color descriptions.
The last 3 shades in this collection are just as beautiful as the first 3 I showed earlier today. I'd have a difficult time choosing my personal favorite, because I honestly love all of them. These shades are all unique to my collection and the finishes, although all glitters, seem to have quite a bit of variance as well. I wish the sun were out, because I just know they'd impress me even more...especially Napa Valley Red and Vampy Varnish. All 6 of these polishes covered perfectly with 2 coats, although I was able to get away with just 1 coat of Union Square in the post below. Scroll down if you missed the first 3 shades in this collection developed by Kelly, of Vampy Varnish fame. These are available at Overall Beauty for $9.00 each.


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Vampy Varnish BB Couture Collection: Part I

Above: Napa Valley red, shown in 2 coats. This is a deep violet red or deep burgundy red-toned jelly base with coordinated glitter. No matter how many photos I took, they simply do not do this shade justice. Kim at Overall Beauty believes this is the best-selling one, and I can certainly understand that.
Above & Below: Union Square, shown in just 1 coat! Unbelieveable coverage on this metallic bronze shimmer with what appears to be tiny silvery pink glitter. Below, with a matte top coat.
Below: Mendocino Midnight has a special place in my heart, because I have always been partial to tealish green shades. I used 2 coats on this shade. It looks like a deep evergreen with hints of teal on the nail, and the small glitter reflects an emerald green sparkle in less direct lighting.
As many of you know, the lovely Kelly from Vampy Varnish recently had the opportunity to work with BB Couture in developing her own polish collection. You can read about her experience and see her swatches here. BB Couture polishes have always impressed me with their formula, their color selections, and their range of finishes. Combine that with Kelly's eye for color and style, and I knew these would not disappoint. I purchased mine from Kim at Overall Beauty last week. I happened to be on Twitter when Kim announced one of her fabulous sales...buy one get one free, limit 3 free. I jumped on that opportunity immediately, because it was only available for one day, and ordered the entire collection. This is the perfect trifecta of nail polish...the quality of BB Couture, the unique and beautiful polishes that Kelly designed, and the customer service of Overall Beauty! Congratulations to Kelly for doing such a wonderful job turning the colors in her imagination into such beautiful polishes!


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Last of the Color Club Japanese Glitters: Fresh Mint

Above & Below: Fresh Mint shown with 3 coats. The above photo is using an Ott light, and the photo below is with a flash.
Below: More of the prettiness that is Fresh Mint!
Below: I used Fresh Mint as a top coat over a mint shimmer, Nicole's Hint of Mint.
Below: I then added not 1, but 2 coats of Essie's Matte About You and the glitter is still gorgeous.
This concludes the swatches of the 8 Color Club Japanese Exclusive Glitters that I recently got from Victoria Nail Supply. If you're interested in the other 7 shades, you'll find a number of posts below about them. Fresh Mint is a medium toned mint green and in my eyes, it's beautiful. I have a weakness for green shades to begin with, so I knew I would love this one. It looked to be slightly turquoise in the bottle, but on the nail it's a mint green. These all seem to have the same multi-colored glitter in them, but depending on the contrast between the polish color and the glitter, it looks a bit differently color-wise, in each one. I used 3 coats on this one, and it definitely has enough color to look nice just like that. I've shown you a number of darker polishes with these glitters as a top coat, so for this one, I wanted to use it with a similarly colored base coat. I chose Nicole's new Hint of Mint, and then I also added a matte top coat. Mint green. Glitter. What's not to love?

If you're thinking about getting any of these, let me tell you my thoughts now that I have actually had a chance to use all of them. If you want them all, then get them all. See how easy that was! Seriously though, if I were to order them knowing what I know now, I'd probably skip some of the 4 pink/peach toned ones. They all work/look about the same when using them as a top coat because the base color is so sheer, that none of them really alter whatever color you use them over. As a stand-alone polish, Twinkle Peach is not a color I would wear alone. It has very little pigment even after 3 coats. I would have to say the same about Calendula for Joy. I Love You is lovely on it's own, as is Sparkling Cassis. Of those 4, if you're looking for something that works well on it's own and as a top coat, I would suggest either of those two. Here's where I'm not helping your wallet much...the other 4 are must-haves for me. You've got a sparkling white (Bishop Weed) that is unique on it's own and works as a top coat, and I personally don't have too many white shades that have this much personality in my collection. I also don't have an orange-yellow shade that's anything at all like Sparkling Orange. Blue Hawaii and Fresh Mint were the first two I wanted when I saw these, and I know that a lot of you, like myself, are attracted to blues and greens. The first offering of these polishes a few months back were all peachy-pink colors, so I can honestly say that I didn't need all 4 of the similar ones offered in this collection. The other 4 are totally different shade-wise from any of the other Color Club Japanese Glitters I already had. They're also different and unique from any shade I have in other brands as well, so I'm extremely happy with them.


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Holiday Look With A Halloween Polish!

Above & Below: Fright Night's Green Claw Polish layered with Sinful's All About You. It matches some of the ornaments I have in a basket!
Below: Outdoors and in darker indoor lighting, the gold becomes the more prominant color. An amazing transformation! I couldn't take my eyes off of this ever-changing combination.
Below: Back to the indoor shots (with a flash, unfortunately).
Below: Bottle pictures of what I used.
Fright Night's Green Claw Polish works not only for Halloween, but for Christmas too! It would also do nicely as a St. Patrick's Day polish. I used 2 coats of the green claw polish and 2 coats of one of the newer Sinful glitters, All About You, for this festive look. I took so many photos trying to captures the true look, especially what it looks like in lower lighting, but never really got an accurate one. In the house, the gold takes on a look like something I've never seen. The green becomes secondary and the gold appears as a mesh film with just a hint of the green peeking through. It reminded me of Color Club's Wild & Willing, the way the gold lays over the color. In brighter lighting, this look reminds me of a Christmas Tree with little colored lights. My husband really liked the way this combination looked, and when I told him both of the polishes only ran $1.99 each, he questioned why I bother buying much higher priced ones as well. Well, hmmm, it's hard to explain, but I know at least you all understand!


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8 New VNS Color Club Japanese Glitter Nail Wheel Swatches

Above: This color collage shows the base colors most accurately. Below are a variety of photos taken indoors and outdoors (no sun, unfortunately) in different levels of light. Hopefully, you'll get a fairly good idea of how they look in real life.
Below: For reference, the colors on the board are 1)Blue Hawaii, 2)Fresh Mint, 3)Dazzling Orange (this is not orange, but actually yellow), 4)Twinkle Peach (more pink than peach), 5)Sparkling Cassis, 6)Bishop's Weed, 7)Calendula for Joy, 8)Rose, I Love You.
Last week I showed you bottle pictures of the 8 new Color Club Japanese Exclusive Glitters that Yen from Victoria Nail Supply sent me, and I received a polish wheel with the swatches from her today. I'm guessing they should have these in stock by the end of the month. Naturally, Fresh Mint was the one I was most looking forward to, but now that I have the swatches in front of me, there's a 3-way tie for my affections between Fresh Mint, Blue Hawaii and Rose, I Love You! Let me explain why...Fresh Mint is green, so that's my reason for liking it, pure and simple. Blue Hawaii is blue, so can I use the same reason I used for Fresh Mint? Rose, I Love You is a shade or two below a fuchsia, but it looks holographic because of the fine glitter and the color combination between the base color and the glitter. Bishop's Weed is another favorite of mine because it reminds me of new fallen snow with the sunlight reflecting off of it. I like the range of colors in this set, as there's much more variety than in the original 4 that they carry (2 pinks, a peachy pink and my favorite, Too Violet). These are all packed with micro fine holographic glitter, giving them a flash of different colors, depending on the base shade. At different angles, they take on an almost foil finish, because the glitter is so dense. What do you think? Any favorites among these for you?


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Playing Catch Up! More BB Couture Men's Polishes

Above: BB Couture Grenade may not be everyone's cup of tea, but I love it! These all covered nicely in 2 coats and the photos were taken indoors with a flash. Grenade is an Olive green shimmer with very fine gold and multi-colored shimmer or glitter.
Above: Night Ops is more of a shimmer with glitter. It's a deep cobalt blue with a hint of teal, and the glitter is an aqua jeweled tone.
Below: Military Blues is one of those special polishes that seem to glow from within. It's a deep royal blue shimmer that reflects the light in such a way that the color appears to fade from a lighter to a darker shade.
Whew, I got my Rescue Beauty Lounge order in! I'm trying to play catch up on my blog today because I'm massively behind on swatching and comments. I keep a small stash of polishes on my desk that I never got around to posting about, usually leftover ones from collections I've started to share with you but never finished, so I'm trying to clean those up. Today I have the last of the men's polishes from BB Couture/Overall Beauty that I was posting last week, and I still have 2 China Glaze Glitters and 2 of Old Navy's Tip Toe polishes sitting here, which I'll try and swatch later today. I received swatches from Yen at Victoria Nail Supply of the new Color Club Japanese Exclusive Glitters they'll be stocking soon, so I'd like to get those posted up as well.


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BB Couture Impact Driver, Wire Stripper & Pipe Bender

Above: BB Couture's Impact Driver is a smoky blue/grey tone with silver/blue shimmer. I only used one coat on this one and that gave me total coverage. All photos are indoors with a flash because we're under a winter storm warning and there is no sun and 50 mph wind gusts!
Above: BB Couture's Wire Stripper is shown using 2 coats. This is an interesting shade, because it looks like a Charcoal grey shimmer with light-changing shimmer in several colors. In real life, there is also a touch of an olive green tone, especially in darker lighting.
Below: BB Couture's Pipe Bender looks to be a darker Emerald green shimmer in the bottle, but once on the nail, a veil of iridescent blue/green/violet/silver shimmer appears as a shifting focal point around the center of the nail.
Today I've got the last 3 shades from BB Couture's latest men's polish releases. If you scroll down to yesterday's post and Sunday's post, you can see the first 3 I swatched. Pipe Bender and Impact Driver were the two that initially caught my eye, given the fact that they're a green and a blue. They did not disappoint me in the slightest, but I'd find it difficult to pick a favorite from any of the 6. They're all different and unique shades, they all covered wonderfully in one (Impact Driver) or 2 coats, and honestly, I love all of them. I had a hard time describing the colors of them, because they don't seem to fit into just one specific shade/color category. Overall Beauty is still having their free shipping offer through the 11th, and 2 lucky winners will each receive one of these polishes on Friday as part of the prize offering for the 12/11/09 Friday Follower Freebie.


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A Green Franken From A Fellow Blogger


Above & Below: A Franken from fellow blogger Grace. It's shown outdoors in sunlight above, and outdoors with no flash in the shade, below.

Below: Close-up of the finish. It appears to have a dark green creme base, although it could be a shimmer base. At any rate, I love it!
This is a Franken that was sent to me from the lovely Grace, the proprietor of The Kitchen, The Closet & The Laboratory blog. Grace has had a couple of fantastic blog sales, and in my last purchase, she included one of her Frankens. I was also pleased when I had drawn her name as my Elfster recipient. I have no idea what she mixed to come up with this polish, but it's such a pretty shade of forest green, and I just love it. It has a multitude of shimmer and glitter colors in it, but unfortunately, I couldn't capture how beautiful it is in real life with my photos. She did an excellent job, whatever she did, because it applied perfectly with 2 coats and dried to an ultra-glossy finish very quickly. Now it just needs a name!


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Tip Toe Polishes from Old Navy

Above & Below: L-R-Midnight, Memory, After Party, Pop, Gold Rush, Cheers. The bottles are sealed in plastic in the photos, so their color is slightly muted from that.

Above & Below: Close ups of Gold Rush (above) and Memory (below).
I stopped at Old Navy today and picked up some of their Tip Toe brand polishes for $3.50 each. I'll be trying them out later this week, and not surprisingly, Gold Rush (olive gold) caught my eye immediately. They're located in a canister at the check-out lane and they're all sealed with plastic, which I like. They're still sealed in the pictures, so if you see any odd reflection, that's why. There were probably another 6 or so shades that I didn't get, including a black creme, a red shimmer, and a frosty pink. The size of the bottle, which is square...another plus for me, is 4.5 fl. oz., so they're just a bit smaller than a traditional bottle. Here's a quick description of my shades:

Cheers-a red creme with a hint of fuchsia

Gold Rush-an olive gold shimmer with tiny gold and olive glitter

Pop-a tangerine orange shimmer with micro gold glitter

After Party-a purple shimmer with tiny red and blue glitter

Memory-an eggplant purple creme with slight brown undertones

Midnight-a deep royal blue shimmer with tiny red and purple glitter


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