Day 7: NARS Zulu

Ugh, crazy busy day. Here are some photos of today's NOTD. I'll update tomorrow with a review.

Indoors - fluorescent

Shade with crazy shadows

Sun

Sun

Day 6: Orly Space Cadet

Space Cadet made it into my Top 20 despite the problems with its formula. This polish most definitely gets by on its looks alone. So sparkly it's almost blinding in the sun, and a beautiful color and multichrome foil finish – so beautiful that they make up for the fact that it’s a complete pain in the ass to apply.

Very sheer, cuticle drag, patchy even after three coats (I used four coats plus Seche Vite in the photos)… not to mention that clean-up is more difficult because of the foil finish – it sticks to everything. And I had drying-time issues. Even with quick-dry top coat, I got a huge dent on one finger after 15 minutes and had to reapply.

HOWEVER, once it’s on the nail all is forgiven. Really, how can you stay mad at this?

Indoors - fluorescent

Shade

Sun

Sun

Sun

Sun

The duochrome shows up better if you enlarge the photos, but they still don't do this polish justice. I really need a video to show all the colors that Space Cadet flashes. It starts as a rosy mauve foil, then flashes copper, amber, green, and in some lights purple. The metallic particles are suspended in a sheer dark blue-green base.

Space Cadet was part of the Fall 2010 Cosmic FX collection. This quickly became the must-have color from this collection, so I was really surprised last weekend to see that my Ulta still had four bottles on the shelf. I also still see random bottles pop up in CVS on occasion. The Cosmic FX polishes retail for $10, which is a little pricey for Orly. Totally worth it, though, considering their generous size (0.6 oz compared with the 0.5 oz you get with most other brands) and the awesome rubberized cap.

Day 5: Butter London Victoriana

Two of my favorite colors today: blue-green and silver.

Victoriana is a dusty teal with silver microglitter. Just about every other review I’ve seen for this polish calls it blue, but it definitely leans more green on me. Victoriana just screams winter – the silver flecks remind me of ice crystals around the edge of a window. I want to curl up in my favorite chair with a book and some chai when I wear it.

The microglitter is very understated; it’s really more of a sheen than it is sparkly. And there's enough gray in the teal that it doesn’t scream “Look at my hands!” Elegant, but with an edge. Interesting, but not too in your face. I would totally wear this to work (and have, many times).

Indoors - fluorescent

Shade

Sun

Sun

Formula is perfect – very opaque. I used three thin coats but you could definitely get away with two if they're on the thicker side. I guess if I have one complaint about this polish it's that the brush is just a little bit too long for my liking. I had to do more cuticle clean-up than usual because the brush was a little hard to control.

Butter London is a new-ish brand that in my opinion doesn’t get enough love. I think a lot of people wrote them off in the beginning because of design problems with their bottles (which have been fixed) and pretty but not especially unique colors. They seemed to turn a corner with their Fall 2010 collection, which in addition to Victoriana contained All Hail McQueen and Marrow, two other Butter London classics.

Day 4: Rescue Beauty Lounge Anne

Named for Anne Boleyn, Anne is one of four polishes from Rescue Beauty Lounge’s Real Housewives of the Tudor Dynasty Collection, inspired by the wives of Henry VIII. I’m still not sure why only four of the six wives are represented; Anne of Cleves and Catherine Parr are missing. I’ve made it my mission to franken polishes for them.

I love all of the polishes from this collection, but Anne is my favorite – she’s so complex.

Anne is a dark olive green with gold shimmer and purple and green microglitter. It looks a little drab in the shade, but once the sun hits it all the colors come out (click on the photos to see the sparkle). Very subtle, but that’s what I like about it.

Indoors - fluorescent

Shade

Sun

Sun

I took a ton of photos for this one. The sun was setting when I got home, so I had to set everything else aside while I took photos. Priorities, you know.

Sunset

Sunset

As usual, I'm wearing three coats in the photos, topped with Seche Vite. The formula and brush are perfect. It practically applies itself.

Rescue Beauty Lounge polishes are available for $18 at rescuebeauty.com, but the Tudors polishes sold out pretty quickly after they were released in Fall 2010. They will be re-released later this year. Anne is one of four sold-out polishes being brought back in October, while the others in the Tudors collection—Catherine, Catherine H, and Jane—will be available in December.

Day 3: Deborah Lippmann Across the Universe

This is hands down my favorite polish from 2010. Is this not the most beautiful polish ever? It’s like a festival of awesomeness on my fingers. Yes, I am a nearly 37-year-old mother of three who loves glitter nail polish. Go ahead and judge.

I bought Across the Universe last summer as a reward for finishing a particularly nasty article for work. Best. Reward. EVER. I wore it for six days straight, which is unheard of for me.

Across the Universe is a navy blue jelly base with large blue and green hex sequins and smaller blue glitter. The jelly base gives it incredible depth and makes it look like there are lighter and darker shades of glitter. The colors vary a lot in my photos, but the indoor and shade photos are the most color-accurate.

Indoors - fluorescent

Shade

Sun

Sun

I used three coats, plus my usual top coat combo for hungry glitters: a thick coat of Gelous topped with Seche Vite. Application is a little trickier than usual but not bad at all. The large glitter sequins have a tendency to drag, so you need to allow a little more drying time between coats. Also, make sure to wrap the tips well. Like all jellies, this one shows tip wear pretty quickly.

Lippmanns fall somewhere between mid-range and high-end on the price spectrum. They retail for $16 – higher than most salon brands, but not as much as Chanel or Dior. Like many of the polishes in this line, Across the Universe was released as a Nordstrom exclusive but was later added to the Lippmann core collection and is now widely available.

The thought of taking this off tonight makes me sad. I may have to break my no-repeat rule for this one.

I just realized – I only have one bottle of this. How is it possible that I haven’t gotten a backup yet? I must take care of that immediately.

Matte

EDIT: I had to try this before I took it off. There’s been talk on the Nail Board that “mattifying” glitter polishes can make them look like a completely different polish. I used one coat of ManGlaze Matte-Astrophe. Veerrrry interesting. I like it but don’t love it. I prefer my universe shiny.

(P.S.: Remember what I said about tip wear? I wasn’t kidding, huh?)

Day 2: Hard Candy Mr. Wrong

Mr. Wrong makes me happy because (1) it’s crazy sparkly and (2) it’s different every time I look at it. It’s one of those polishes that makes me wiggle my fingers around in front of my face so I can watch it change – it’s hypnotic. You can almost hear my productivity at work come to a screeching halt when I wear this one.

The name also makes me laugh. There’s a Mr. Right in this collection too, but Mr. Wrong is so much more exciting. As in life, usually.

Mr. Wrong is a dusty blue/purple foil with gold and silver flecks. In some lighting it looks almost gray, but in the sun the purple really pops. 

Indoors - fluorescent

Indirect sun

Sun

Sun

The formula is a little thin, but it was opaque by three coats. And since I normally do three coats anyway, that’s not really a big deal to me. My only complaint is about the size of the bottle. It’s 0.35 oz, which is somewhere between a mini and a full-sized bottle. All of the Hard Candy polishes come with a little plastic ring, which my daughters will fight over, and which the winner will wear for about five minutes before it gets kicked into the black hole beneath her bed.

I have to buy my Hard Candies on eBay because I refuse to set foot in Wal Mart. Even for nail polish, which really says something.

Day 1: Chanel Rouge Tres Noir (Very Vamp)

It’s kind of appropriate to start this project with the first polish I fell totally, head-over-heels in love with. I bought this in the fall of 1995 – my third year of college. I skipped my physics class one afternoon and drove up to Charlotte to buy it. This was a big step for me; up until then I’d been all about the pinks and reds and (horrors) French acrylics.

I had a chunky silver ring that I wore back then, and I remember staring at my hands all the time when I wore this polish. They looked so elegant. Chanel made me love my nails.

So I’m not so sure I’ll be able to do an objective review on this one.

I love it. Everything about it.

Indoors -fluorescent

Shade

Sun

Sun

Very Vamp was one of two alternative formulations of the original Vamp. This one is a browner version, with that Chanel secret shimmer. In the photos, I’m wearing three coats with Seche Vite topcoat. In most lighting, it looks like the shade photo. But once the sun hits it, it lights up like it’s on fire.

I know a lot of people complain about Chanel’s formula, but I’ve never had a problem with it. At $25 a bottle, it is expensive for nail polish, but … it’s Chanel. They sell eyeshadow for $57; this isn’t a brand you turn to for reasonably priced.  

Essie Wacky Wicked is supposed to be a dupe for Very Vamp. It’s also discontinued, but a little bit easier to find, and for much less money. But Wacky Wicked didn’t fill the hole in my heart when I ran out of Very Vamp.

Embarrassing nail muggle story. For the longest time, I had no idea that there were so many different versions of Vamp. I thought I had THE Vamp, the one and only original. By the time I’d used the entire bottle, the original Vamp was the only one that was still being sold in the U.S. I bought a bottle and was so disappointed – it looked nothing like it was supposed to! What was this nonsense? Where was my Vamp? Had Chanel pulled an OPI and changed the formula but not the name?

I pulled the old, empty bottle out (yes, I saved it. Doesn’t everyone save empty nail polish bottles?), and for the first time read the name on the back of the bottle. Rouge Tres Noir. Very Vamp. Damn.

I eventually found another bottle on eBay, but I was Very Vamp-less for a long, long time. It was a dark period in my life. I prefer not to think about it.