NYC 2007 Halloween Collection

Of the several colours released by NYC for their Frightful Fingers 2007 Halloween Collection, I only kept two: Orange and Red (they might want to work on their naming for next year…). These, as well as some of the other shades, have exact duplicates in the Sally Hansen collection. Since NYC is the cheaper of the two brands, and is reasonably equivalent in terms of quality, I went with the NYCs!

Orange is a red-orange, and overall it is deeper, redder and brighter than NYC’s 112A Times Square Tangerine. It’s a creme and honestly a pain in the pumpkin to apply. I had to do three coats to get it to a passable level of evenness. At least it’s opaque and the colour is pretty. It kind of has a crayon-y texture that I’m not sure I like. Reminds me of a more orange version of OPI Tasmanian Devil Made Me Do It: both are close to neon and have the same strange, glossy but waxy-looking texture. Rating: 2.5/5.

I was quite pleasantly surprised by Red. It applied very smoothly and was perfectly even and opaque with two coats. The red is quite true (neither too blue nor too orange), clear and bright. This one’s a winner for me, and you can’t beat the price with a scythe! Rating: 4.5/5.

Sally Hansen 2007 Halloween Collection

I picked up the three vampy shimmers from this collection (the rest are dupes of the NYC Halloween collection). Overall, the polish quality is just okay and the bottle design is not user-friendly (slender, easy-to-tip bottle with a tall and skinny cap). However, the colours are unique for a drugstore line and are worth having!

First up is Haunted, a deep, blackened charcoal shimmer. It has subtle aqua blue shimmer, but that doesn’t really show up on the nails. The application is a little tricky, but two coats evens out well and is nicely opaque. The finish is beautifully glossy. Rating: 4/5.

Next is Ominous, which reminds me a little bit of Revlon’s Dark Pleasures polish in Talk Dirty. Ominous is a deep, blackened coffee brown shimmer with a hint of olive. Beautiful but not the best colour for me. Rating: 3.5/5.

Lastly, here is Doomed, easily the jewel of the three for me. It’s a stunning, blackened purple shimmer. I love this. Rating: 4.5/5.

I found that Ominous and Doomed both applied better than Haunted did: their formulas were a little less drippy. The finish of all three is just gorgeous, with enough fine shimmer to make them super glossy. All in all, this is a fine collection from SH! Just remember to use these with a good base/top coat combination…SH New Lengths doesn’t wear the best in my experience.

NOTD: Zoya – Anastasia

Whoops, I wore and loved L’Oréal’s Pro Manicure nail polish in Lady Luck last week and forgot to take a photo of it. It’s a beaut, trust me!

Today, I am wearing Anastasia by Zoya. The Zoyas I’ve tried all seem to have this slightly sticky texture which isn’t exactly bad…just different. It definitely takes a bit of getting used to. I do love the rich, highly-pigmented formula, though.

Anastasia is a bit of a chameleon. It’s a deep brown with rich gold metallic shimmer under warm indoor lighting, with hints of burgundy. In bright sunlight, however, it turns very burgundy with hints of brown and purple, and the same lush shimmer. Perfect for a sunny October day. Rating: 4/5.

Halloween Collection from NYC/Sally Hansen

Sally Hansen and NYC, both owned by Del Labs, have released their Halloween collections in Canada. Unsurprisingly (and quite pointlessly) there are duplicate colours in both collections, so for the duped ones I wanted, I went with the less expensive and still reasonable quality NYC versions. However, there were also a few vampy SH ones that I wanted which were not duped in NYC.

Here are the NYC bottles I got, in their Frightful Fingers line, which is essentially packaged in the Long-Wearing Nail Enamel style. They have frightfully (sorry) unimaginative names.

 

Green

Orange

Red

Silver

These three are the vampy SH colours, in the New Lengths line:

 

Doomed

Haunted

Ominous

There was also a creme white (SH), a pink shimmer (NYC), and some other boring colours, but these were the ones that stood out to me. Shame there aren’t more greens, but it’s a nice, well-priced Halloween set! Bwahahaha!

OPI – Holiday in Hollywood Collection

My OPI Holiday in Hollywood polishes finally arrived! I ordered five of them (tried not to go too far overboard!). Here are some bottle pics for now, until I get a chance to swatch them.

Have You Seen My Limo?

I’ve “Red” the Script

Pretty at the Premiere

Who Are You Wearing?

Wine Me & Dine Me

Toodles, and Happy Thanksgiving to the Canadians!

OPI – An Affair in Red Square & Russian Navy

Being a red polish nut, I decided I’d made a mistake in not ordering An Affair in Red Square the first go-round, so I picked this up along with Russian Navy. Both are from OPI’s recently released Russian collection.

In the bottle, AAiRS is a stunning, super-shimmery true-ish red of a medium tone. In all honesty, I am not a huge fan of the foil-y look on nails, so this polish strikes me as being a bit on the garish side; I’m reminded of Revlon’s Get Reddy, which I disliked for the same reason. It’s a lovely polish, but unfortunately it’s not really for me. Rating: 3/5.

Now, Russian Navy is equally stunning in the bottle! It’s a deep, inky blue with blue and purple shimmer, which gives it an indigo cast. It’s pretty damn gorgeous, and different enough from this summer’s OPI Ink from the Night Brights collection. I’ll have to do a comparison swatch of the two of them. Rating: 4/5.

Misa – Red Dawn & Rose Glitz

Red Dawn is kind of a misnomer: this polish is pink. It’s a bright, reddish pink with a faint coral tone, but it’s definitely pink. It has a beautiful shimmer that is reminiscent of those shiny, pink Chinese bakery ribbons. Very pretty, but more of a pedi shade for me…I’m not much for bright pinks on my tips. As a Misa, this polish applied beautifully, but I did find that it was best with three coats. It is not quite opaque with two coats, and the third just gives it that extra bit of depth and oomph! Rating: 3/5.

On the other hand, I’m totally in love with Rose Glitz! It’s a rich rose red with loads of beautiful bits of rose and silver shimmer. It’s gorgeous and exactly my kind of colour! Application was also perfect, and two coats did the job very nicely. Rating: 5/5.

NOTD from two weeks ago: China Glaze – Lubu Heels

The “Lubu” part refers to Christian Louboutin shoes, which have red soles. Lubu Heels came in a set with China Glaze Ruby Pumps, and it was intended to be used as the top part of a Louboutin manicure (black nail, red on the underside of the nail).

Lubu Heels is supposedly very close to Rescue Beauty Lounge’s much coveted and rather expensive shade called Revamp. LH is a essentially a black polish with loads of fine red glitter in it. I find that in bright light, the black is a bit warm, like it’s a very deep brown-burgundy. The glitter is quite smooth and very evenly distributed. It does take three coats to achieve full opacity, but that’s typically a must for vampy shades. It’s a unique polish in my collection, but I’m not sure how much I’ll actually want to wear it. I’m not really going gaga over this, for some reason. Rating: 3.5/5.

Last week’s NOTD: Creative – Crimson Uprising

Maybe it should be “NOTW”. Anyway.

I got Crimson Uprising a few weeks ago and finally got around to wearing it last week. And now I am finally posting a review and photo of it. I am so not on the ball.

Crimson Uprising is a bee-yoo-tee-full red shimmer. Just when I think I have every red shimmer under the sun, something like this gets released! It’s a cool-toned red, with heavy pinked-red shimmer. In bright light (like in the indoor photo) it is very shimmery, almost brash! In dimmer light, it can look quite dark and serious, with subtle shimmer. Creative’s colours often impress me due to their lush, rich pigmentation; Crimson Uprising is no exception. And, for a cool-toned shade, I think it works really well on me. Rating: 4.5/5.

NOTD: Revlon – Vixen

Vixen is an oldie, and what a goodie! This is a deep plum-brown-red, but it’s not completely blackened. I’m using the newer (single gold band) Revlon formulation, and I find that this requires three coats to even out properly. It’s not the end of the world; most vampy cremes I’ve used are the same. Vixen is lovely, luscious, and very classic. It’s not quite so dark as Chanel Vamp and Essie Wicked (two other vampy faves of mine), but it’s a great and inexpensive way to get a very similar look. Rating: 4/5.