Stila Gives Nail Polish Another Try

Stila has gotten back into the nail polish game after being out of it for several years.  When the Daring & Delicate nail polish sets were announced a lot of people thought that this was the first time they were offering polish but this isn't the case.  

Daring

Delicate

I'm not sure why Stila stopped making polish. Maybe it wasn't profitable at the time but my sister and I had liked what we had bought enough to have hung on to them all these years.

Way back when, I picked up Rhea, a light pink sheer polish with just enough blue shimmer in it to make it a lavender colour.  It's light, fresh looking and airy and it took three coats to get it to the opacity you see in the photo.  Achieving bottle colour would require patience and probably 5 coats but lucky for me I like a sheer look sometimes.

Nymph is a very sheer orange with a light infusion of fine glitter.  The fact that my nails are stained yellow is actually not doing this pretty polish any favours but it would make a great topcoat for another nail polish or just over nails that are not as stained as mine.  One of the things that I had likes about Stila polish is the bottle shape.  The handle wasn't that great but at least the bottles were really slim and stored nicely.

I'd like to give Stila polishes another try, but I'd rather be able to pick individual polishes instead of picking up a set with colours that I might not be totally interested in having.  Maybe if these sets sell well enough, I have that option!

Designer, de Better by OPI

Designer, de Better from OPI's Muppets collection is described as a "light metallic bronze" in their publicity but if this a bronze polish both my eyes and my camera need to be checked.  Looking more like a silver than a bronze colour, its foil finish will need three coats and not just two as I applied to get a more smooth finish.  I don't dispute that there's bronze in the polish, check out a close up and you can clearly see that there are bronze flecks in the formula:

But you can also see that the polish itself is pretty thin.  I do really like this polish as it looks like a neutral with a bit of flash to it but I'm not feeling the name. I suppose that it's a reference to Miss Piggy but I don't particularly have a big love of that character.  I like Fozzie, Gonzo and the two geezers who were always so mean to them...Statler & Waldorf!

The Original Grumpy Old Men

 Up Next...Meep-Meep-Meep

Wocka Wocka! By OPI

Hi Ho Ho Ho!  Xmas is Coming Up!  Yay!!!

I've been checking all over the Internet trying to figure out when the release date for OPI's Muppets  Collection was happening.  As far as I could find, the collection is supposed to be in November, so you can imagine that I was surprised to find the 2011 holiday collection in a beauty store in the North West part of Toronto and on September 30, no less!  Here's what I picked up...

Wocka Wocka!

Meep-Meep-Meep

Designer De Better

Warm & Fozzie

I stayed away from the glitter polishes, glitter is just not my big favourite thing but if you love it, you're sure to find something to your liking.

The first polish up is Wocka Wocka! It's a cherry/berry colour that photographed more like a red rather than the deeper colour it actually is and it's actually a little difficult to make out the shimmer as well.  As least I didn't experience the thin formula that I encountered with the Touring America collection and it applied well.  2 Coats gave the coverage needed so I hope that the recent dip in quality is just a bump in the road.

I don't know if the store I got this from wasn't aware of a release date, ignored the release date or if the date was changed.  It couldn't hurt to call your local retailer and see if they are in stock yet.

Coming Soon...Designer De Better!

Nicole By OPI's Kardashian Kolors Spells Class With a "K"...

...Crap can also start with "K" if one follows that logic.  This post marks the first and last time you will ever see the word "Kardashian" mentioned on this blog as Nicole by OPI's Holiday Collection 2011 is a Kraptastic Kross brand, just in time for "Kristmas" with America's most overrated (and in my opinion...useless) family.  The "Kolors" look acceptable enough, but there's no way I'm giving my money to these people, not even if it was for charity.  The most positive thing I can say about this line is that there doesn't appear to have any "Krackles" in it.   I guess I'm showing my age by saying that in my day, when you said "she spells class with a k", you were delivering a tremendous insult and not a "kompliment".  Frankly, all of this poor spelling reminds me of my favourite stupid joke.."Bad Spellers of the World...Untie!"

It's the Muppet Show With Our Very Special Guest...OPI?

OPI keeps on coming up with the cross-brand continuance. Their Holiday 2011 collection will be called, The Muppets!  Yes, really!  The Muppets!  Obviously in conjunction with the release of the upcoming film called, well, The Muppets!

The collection will feature 12 polishes, 6 of them glitters, and will sport three different displays instead of the typical single display.  The polish names are:

Animal-istic 

 Meep-Meep-Meep 

 Wocka Wocka!

 Pepe’s Purple Paassion 

 Designer…de Better! 

 Warm & Fozzie 

Glitters

 Rainbow Connection

 Excuse Moi! 

 Gone Gonzo!

 Fresh Frog of Bel Air

 Divine Swine

 Gettin’ Miss Piggy With It!

Miss Piggy, everyone's favourite over-confident sow with anger management issues gets her very own display and there's a set of minis for stocking stuffing or the just plain indecisive:

It's hard for me to gauge the colours from these photos, as they aren't the highest of quality but at least there doesn't seem to be a crackle/shatter in the bunch.  For me, that's a plus.  As far as brand recognition goes, this one's a slam dunk.  Jim Henson's Muppets and Sesame Street have been part of North American Pop Culture since 1969 and it just keeps going.  There's a lot of generations whose money OPI can attract since Sesame Street has been on the air for 42 years and is still running and who on earth didn't love The Muppet Show? I'm going to leave you one of the clips from the Muppet Show that for some reason, I never forgot about, even though I hadn't seen it until I looked for it on Youtube.  Here's awesome EGOT winner Rita Moreno singing Fever with backup from Animal!

Midas by Joe Fresh & Layering with Old Revlon

 If there is anyone from the US or around the world that have stumbled on my humble blog, Joe Fresh is a Canadian clothing line that retails in select stores in the Loblaws chain of supermarkets here in Canada.  Joe Fresh clothing is reasonably priced and actually looks pretty good, considering the prices.  They recently branched out into cosmetics and bath products.  Although I sort of dragged my feet to go and try their stuff out, I finally picked up a holiday nail polish set, mainly after I saw Midas in one of the packages:

I've got quite a few gold polishes but I find that it is darker than most gold polishes and has a more antique gold look to it that I haven't often seen.  I think it's gorgeous and I wasn't let down by the quality either.  Although the bottles are smaller than most (6 ml) I wouldn't complain about it since I rarely finish a bottle of nail polish.  The brush was surprisingly wide when you consider the size of the bottle but the big white cap is a little difficult to hold.  It dried very quickly and looked good in two coats and there is no sign of chips 2 days into its wearing.  The other colours in the set are a deep purple shimmer and a white shimmer which I expect to be using soon.

I wanted to take break from dark polish again but I also didn't have much time to change my polish if it got chipped.  I also wanted to try something that would make nicks and chips less noticeable.  My sister suggested that I try one of  two of her polishes from her collection and I ended up layering them to make something I never wore before:

Crystalline Pure Nude & Goldeneye

These Revlon Polishes are somewhat old.  Goldeneye was actually part of a movie tie - in for the 1995 James Bond film Goldeneye so that polish is 15 years old and is a sheer light yellow with gold glitter. (Update: My sister says that Goldeneye was part of a James Bond Tie In but it was for Die Another Day .  That film came out in 2002, so it's an eight year old polish.)  Crystalline Pure Nude is probably even older than that but my sister doesn't remember when she bought it, but I wouldn't remember that either! It's a very sheer, pale nude shade and despite the look of the bottle, it's not a matte finish.  Here's how it turned out:

It's like a light honey colour with a little bit of glitter to it.  As you can see, both of these polishes are very, very sheer.  That's two coats of the sheer nude with one coat of sheer glitter.  If I wanted opacity, I'd probably have to apply five coats of polish combined.  It's not the flashiest polishes I've even wore, but the nicks and chips I got during the week I wore it were not easily noticed.  I'd try this combination again if I knew I wouldn't have time to tend to my nails.

Tease - y Does It by OPI & Versace V2030 - W

More holiday polish! I picked up OPI's Tease - y Does It from the Burlesque/Holiday Collection for 2010 as I need to limit myself but also because clunky glitter polish isn't really my favourite kind of polish.  Once in a while I see one I really like, but most of the time, I give them a pass because I hate removing it.  But look how nice this is!  It`s a dark purple with red micro glitter that looks very dressy to me and I like it a lot.

Honestly, when I first heard about the upcoming film, Burlesque, I couldn't help but make the obvious comparison between it and Paul Verhoeven`s 1995 so bad it`s awesome film Showgirls!

It`s a Ver-sayce!

Showgirls 2.0

Frankly, I wish that OPI was doing product tie-ins back in 1995 because Nomi Malone in showgirls is all about her nails:

Maybe You Could Do My Nails...

Hi Nomi, I Love Your Nails

Nomi even does her nails right before she goes out to beat up and cut the man who raped her best friend:

It`s From the Hell Hath No Fury Collection!

One of my favourite lines from the movie comes when Nomi shows up at the casino offices in the new dress she bought:

Zack Carey: Nice dress.

Nomi Malone: Thanks. It's a Ver-sayce
Zack Carey: It's "Versace".
Nomi Malone: What?
Zack Carey: It's Versace. It's pronounced "Versace".
Nomi Malone: Oh.

And that brings me to one of the two items that I own that are Versace:  A leather glasses case and a bottle of nail polish that is at least 15 years old.

Bottle Top with Versace`s Medusa Head Logo

The polish doesn`t have a name, just a number and it`s a kind of warm caramel/warm brown with a hint of shimmer to it.  It took hours to dry even with a quick dry top coat!  I did my nails in the afternoon but woke up to a PJ imprint the next morning on my pinkie.

Even though I had application problems, I wouldn`t trash this polish.  I like the colour and I have no idea where I would find another bottle.

I don`t know if I`ll be going to see Burlesque in theaters.  I don`t care for Xtina and I`m just bored with the Antins perspective on what`s entertaining but it has Cher and she is hard for me to resist!

Showgirls + Burlesque = Cher