Honest Babes

I found a new display of Essies at Target today. It included some older colors, the Luxeffects collection and three new (to me) colors- Play Date (300), a lavender crème with more red than blue; Armed and Ready (708), which struck me as a dark khaki green with maybe a little brown added and bronze shimmer (others have been describing this color differently, so take my evaluation with a grain of salt); and Go Overboard (740), a dark teal crème.

Imagine all of those with a little more green in the base. I had a lot of trouble getting everything in this set to photograph accurately!If you like blues, you'll like clicking here.

This is the culmination of things I've found interesting over the last few days. Sorry, no pictures! The ones I wanted to add kinda stink, so I need to retake them. 

I've been waiting on Ulta to get the OPI Muppets collection, but it doesn't look like that's going to happen anytime soon. At this point, I may forgo the Muppets and save for the Holland collection instead. Thanks a Windmillion is killing me softly. And speaking of pale greens (I'm surprised this trend is still going, to be honest), I am DYING to get my hands on the Spring 2012 Dior green called Waterlily. Here it is on the nail.

And speaking of Ulta, apparently OPI is discontinuing 14 colors: Calendar Girl, Sit Under the Apple Tree, Give Me A Coral Sometime, Peach-a-boo!, Red Hot Ayers Rock, Chapel of Love, Bullish on OPI, Take the Stage, My Big Break, Paint My Moji-toes Red, Bronzed to Perfection, Clubbing til Sunrise, Bling Dynasty and Chopsticking to My Story. From what I understand, they may all be on sale, two for US$10, but I didn't receive that Ulta ad so I don't have the exact details. (Thankfully this was reported on Ulta's Facebook page.) To be honest, I'm kind of surprised that a majority of those colors are still around.

Is it me or do these Inglot flakies look like the Nails Inc Gossip Girl flakies?

Did Karl Lagerfeld actually have anything to do with the cosmetics and nail polish for a Sephora line? If only WWD was free to read online! Not that I'm a fan of his or anything...

Does anyone else randomly check magazine giveaway pages? I'm not really digging Glamour's stuff this month, but People StyleWatch has the Kardashian Kolors from Nicole and Lucky has Zoya. I really want the Guerlain set from StyleWatch. And speaking of the Kardashians, I support this.

No joke, I have about a hundred different comments about this report from Cleveland on CND's Shellac. Yes, you do have to do research into any beauty treatment you're thinking about getting... unless you're making a snap decision on the spot. You can only do so much in that case. And sure, looking at bottles is probably a good idea, but that isn't the first thing I think of when I'm getting a pro manicure. (The last time I got my tips done with regular polish, the manicurist used clear polish as a base coat, then base coat as top coat before sticking me under a lamp. Whaaaat?) I'm not surprised that some people had wear issues since it seems that not everyone applying Shellac knows what they're doing. But I think it's cool that this news team looked into something nail-related!

If none of that was even remotely interesting, maybe this video will be worth your time. I laugh every time I watch it.

While trying to make my list for the in store and online Sephora Friends and Family sale, I've trawled through more products than I care to count. In case it might be helpful, I'm providing some links and a little commentary here in case you don't feel like going through and looking for all the nail polish items on Sephora. It's very "wall of text," so if you want the highlights right now, here they are: Givenchy has a polish out, some of the nail stickers from Sephora's brand are super cute, and Nails Inc now has flakies for us!Read more »

Of course there's the new Glee collection at Sephora, and Hello Kitty is now in store too.  But there's some other polish news at Sephora, so if you're interested, read on!Dior, Hello Kitty, Tarina Tarantino, Sephora by OPI...

Every time I see this polish, I'm compelled to swatch it.  It's opaque in two coats and so, so easy to put on and work with.  The shimmer is made up of tiny, unevenly-sized shards of silver that aren't blingy but do shine.

You may have noticed a difference on the tip- that's one coat of Lancome's Piha Black.  I wondered if Sequins and Piha were similar, but they seem to only be similar in base color only.  Piha Black is slightly more charcoal than Black Sequins, base-wise.  Piha Black is also more pearly than Black Sequins, with pink, silver and aqua microshimmer that is very subtle.  Were I to choose one to have, I'd pick Black Sequins.  But I have Piha Black because I found it at a Lancome CCO for a decent price.