Honest Babes

Sephora by OPI's Spring 2010 Modern Flowers collection is full of delicate, garden-inspired shades.  I know that sounds a little ad-like, but this collection does strike me as spring-y; this collex has both the green leaves and the pink, purple and orange flowers from a garden.

Lots of descriptions, lots of pictures

I am still trying to figure out why it's difficult for people to post on my blog (not for lack of trying), so I have another contest that might be easier to enter.  If you're in the US and you wouldn't mind winning OPI's entire Hong Kong collection... here ya go!  The contest is only for today, I believe, so enter ASAP if you're even remotely interested.

This site was down a little more over the weekend than I thought it would be, but my faithful IT team has it under control.   So now I feel confident enough to start my first giveaway!  I have a brand new bottle of OPI's Pink Me I'm Good up for grabs, so if you're interested, here are the details:

This giveaway is open to babes here in the US, as well as babes around the world!  I have customs forms and am not afraid to use them!

The giveaway starts as soon as I post this entry and goes through Wednesday, March 9th.  It ends at 11:59pm Eastern Time.

I'll select someone at random after the contest ends.  When you leave me a comment, your email does not show up for everyone to see. That will be the email I use to contact the winner, so make sure you type it carefully!

To enter, comment on this post or send an email to me via the "Contact" tab at the top of the page. (That is the easiest way to email me- it's just a web form.)  I'd love it if you would leave a comment about what makes you happy, any accomplishments you feel proud of, or something that makes you smile.  Youtube links are welcome!

If you are having problems commenting, please send an e-mail regarding the problem (i.e. any error message you get) to hb_admin@honestbabes.com .  Your email will count as an entry! We are trying to figure out why people might be having trouble posting comments.  Unfortunately we've never experienced any problems when posting entries or comments, so we don't know what to fix.

Since there's a lot of interest in this particular OPI, I owe y'all a better manicure (with as decent as possible pictures.)  I realize that my dislike of the polish may have affected how it was presented, so hopefully I can do better next time.

To show my appreciation to all of you, I'd love to give away a new, unused bottle of Pink Me I'm Good. If you're interested in the polish, please stay tuned for more details to come this weekend.  (The site is going to be down for a little while over the weekend, but it'll be back ASAP!)  If you're not interested in glittery pink polishes (), I'll have something more interesting for you coming up soon.

ETA: enter here!

Ulta's Valentine's Day exclusive OPI, Pink Me I'm Good, did not thrill me.  In fact, I can't see myself using it ever again (unless it's for comparison purposes) and I just might have to give it away.  To see if it would be worth layering, I picked out a black, a red, a pink, plus a purple and blue from OPI's Spring/Summer 2010 Hong Kong collection.

To see subpar pics...

Last week, MAC released the Spring Colour Forecast collection, which centered on four different colors.  Spring Colour Forecast 1 concentrates on pink tones, Spring Colour Forecast 2 is coral, Spring Colour Forecast 3 is plum and Spring Colour Forecast 4 is amber.  I swatched all four of the nail polishes from this collection, and was unimpressed to depressed with all of them.  The pink nail polish is Galore Pink, described by MAC as "Creamy mid-tone blue pink (Cream.)"  The coral nail polish is Malibu Peach, described as "Bright creamy tangerine (Cream.)"  The plum color is Imperial Splendour, described as "Deep creamy violet (Cream.)"  The amber color isn't really amber-colored; Abalone Shell is described by MAC as "Light creamy warm beige (Cream.)"  As far as I could tell, all four colors were indeed crèmes.

Polish, eyeshadow and lipglass, oh my!

OPI tends to give Ulta three exclusive colors for Valentines Day and for the winter holidays.  I heard that the Valentines Day exclusives were out, so of course I had to stop by an Ulta.  I found an exclusive named Pink Me I'm Good (SR B94.)  It's a dark hot pink jelly with golden glitter.  Here are some pictures in fading sunlight:

Click me!

A long time ago, in a land not so far away, a young company named butter LONDON offered their polish for almost free.  Plenty of us availed ourselves of that deal.  But complaints were not few.  The cost of the polish, at full price, was not cheap.  The bottles themselves were relatively small.  The polish tended to dry out because it was hard to twist the cap onto the bottle all the way.

Clearly BL listened to the complaints.  While the polish is still a wee bit expensive at US$14, the bottle size has increased from 0.3 fl oz to 0.4 fl oz.  (A bottle of OPI is 0.5 fl oz. for US$8.50.)  The caps are much, much easier to remove, revealing a smaller plastic nub to hold while polishing.  Of course, the caps have always been removable, but it practically took a bodybuilder to wrestle the older caps off.

When I caught a "buy one, get one free" offer from Beauty.com, I caved and bought another BL polish.  I'm not sorry I did, either!  The free polish was Portobello Pink, and since it was in the 0.3 fl oz bottle, it must've been old stock.  But I didn't think the cap was as hard to remove from it, so I doubt it was that old.  The polish I decided to purchase for the deal is British Racing Green, one of the more recent BL colors.  It came in the 0.4 fl oz bottle, and the cap was easy to remove.  The cap even had a cute sticker on the side, letting me know to "lift to open."  Good idea, BL!

And now we get to the pictures part...

I thought I'd give you guys a break after all that Alice posting.  But I'm back with some more bottle pictures!  I nabbed these Urban Outfitters polishes for US$3.50 each right before Christmas.  They may be back up to $4-5 now- I'm not sure.

If you're curious to see the colors...

I personally think that Sephora has really stepped it up with their new 500 point Beauty Insider reward.  I'm likin' this one much more than the glittery Kat von D eye shadow quad they used to have as a gift!  While the colors aren't earth-shattering, I think they're good nail polish collection building blocks for most folks.  The gift consists of three Sephora by OPI colors, which retail for US$9 each, so the gift is valued at $27.   You get a work-appropriate polish, a girls night out polish, and a sexy, vampy date night polish.

Wanna see the colors?

Some sunlight pics and a dark indoor pic, too. I'm not sure the gold in Alice is coming through, or the multicolored glitter in Hatter, but I can assure you that they are present on the nail!  I did three coats for Absolutely Alice and Mad As A Hatter, but Thanks So Muchness! only needed two.

A decent amount of pictures awaits...

I need to do some sunlight swatches, but I promise I'm going to be done tomorrow with the OPI Alice in Wonderlands.   So one more post after this one, honest!

Indoor flash pics ahoy

I picked up three of the Alice in Wonderland polishes this afternoon.  I didn't opt for Off With Her Red! since it was so warm.  (If you didn't catch the swatch, it's here.)

Some bottle pictures...

The OPI Alice in Wonderland collection has shipped. That means you can start stalking your local polish haunts for it soon!

If you'd like to know a little more...

I picked up four of the new Xtreme Wears by Sally Hansen. I assume that these are limited edition for spring, but it's possible that they might be added the the permanent collection. I found them at Walgreens in the "new stuff" section in the beauty department.

I just can't shake this overwhelming urge for gray nail polish...