Models Own Beetlejuice Collection Purple Blue Dupe - Orly Galaxy Girl

Hi Everyone!

Purple Blue is another nail polish that I got from Beetlejuice collection. When I already received it I had the feeling that I saw this color and finish somewhere else. So I searched my stash and…aha….Orly Galaxy Girl from Cosmic FX collection.

Galaxy Girl is the only nail polish I was disappointed in from that collection. I expected it to be a duochrome, but it turned out to be more of a tiny glitter polish. So, today you will see the result of my curiosity to compare these two. Let’s start from the overview;

Purple Blue has a dark purple base with a hint of burgundy with blue, purple and pink shimmer particles. It doesn’t have a flawless pearl finish like other Beetlejuice nail polishes.

In the bottle Galaxy Girl and Puple Blue look strikingly similar. But in reality, Purple Blue is everything I wanted Galaxy Girt to be. It is a duochrome, but not a simple glitter polish. It actually changes color under the certain light, whereas Galaxy Girl remains quite boring.

Models Own Beetlejuice Collection – Aqua Violet and Golden Green swatches

Hey Girls,

I haven’t posted in a while and, frankly speaking, feel pretty bad about it. I have a lot of new nail polishes and would love to share with you, but work and school have been quite hectic in the past month Hope it will get easier in upcoming weeks.

I’m planning on going to Russia at the end of December and hope to find some new cool nail polishes that are not available in US. Any thought which brands I should take a look at?

Models Own Beetlejuice polishes were finally delivered last week. What a magnificent collection!
Unfortunately, Pinky Brown was out of stock, but I still hope to order it later when it becomes available.

Today’s post is about to beautiful duochromes from Beetlejuice collection – Aqua Violet and Golden Brown.

Aqua Violet is a shiny teal – purple duochrome with pearl finish. All the polishes from this collection are watery and you will need 3 coats to get the finish you will see below. It stayed 3 days without chipping – that is longer than most of the pearl-finish polishes I own.

Golden Green also has a pearly finish. It’s a olive green duochrome that transforms into aged gold under the certain light. Gorgeous!

Overall, this collection is definitely one of my favorites this year! Although in some way it reminds me of Cosmic FX collection by Orly, it is different in terms of finish and durability of the polishes.

Deborah Lippmann Across the Universe vs. Revlon Blue Mosaic

I don’t know why I was under impression that Blue Mosaic is a dupe for DL Across the Universe.

In fact, it is not even close. Not taking into account that Across the Universe has a blue jelly base and Blue Mosaic has a clear base. The finish and the glitter particles differ significantly in shape and in color.

Nails Inc. Autumn Collection Swatches

I grabbed this wonderful set of 4 nail polishes along with the magnetic nail polish at Sephora.

I absolutely love all the shades; they are very earthy and amazing for fall and winter. I wouldn’t say that the shades are very unique, except Paddington, but they are definitely worth having in the collection.

The set includes:

- Fenchurch Street
- Paddington
- Charing Cross
- St. Pancras

Fenchurch Street is a burnt orange crème that reminds me of a pumpkin. I think it will be a very close dupe my beloved Ginger Bells from OPI (I will try to compare them later this week). This is my favorite from the Autumn Collection.

Charing Cross is a bold red. Very bright and daring color. I would compare it with Revlon Fire or Illamasqua Alarm.

Paddington is the second favorite in this collection. It’s a very dark grey shade with the hints of green and blue at the same time. It reminded me of mineral mud. This shade continues this season’s trend  of earthy, dirty grey polishes.

St. Pancras – weird name for the nail polish…don’t know exactly why…but sounds weird. It’s a deep burgundy –wine color; very pretty and pigmented. 

Overall, I think that this set is interesting. Although the colors are not necessarily unique, the combination of them is very trendy and definitely appropriate for fall.

P.S. I happened to have 2 similar sets, so I will give out one of those. 

Stay Tuned!!

OPI Touring America Mini Set swatches

I wasn’t’ planning on buying OPI Touring America nail polishes. I don’t know why, just had more wanted ones on my list.
 I got this mini-set as a present from one of my friends as a present and it includes pretty much all of the nail polishes I wanted from this collection except  Road House Blues.

The set consists of 4 small sized nail polishes:

1.    -     French Quarter for your Thoughts

2.    -    Honk if You Love OPI

3.   -     A-Taupe the Space Needle

4.  -      Are We There Yet?

     Are we there yet? Is a melon crème with a little bit of shimmer. It has some orange undertones as well. 2 coats are enough, but for the full opacity I would recommend 3 coats.

    A-taupe the Space Needle is an espresso brown, one of my favorites from this collection.  It’s definitely a very fall color, with an earthy kind of feel. I would say that A-taupe the Space Needle probably will not find a lot of affection in the hearts of nail polish lovers, because it is on the uglier side. But this fall ugly color really has been a huge trend, like CG trendsetter and WestSide Warrior. I absolutely adore it for the uniqueness.

    French Quarter for Your Thoughts is a light grey crème, color of the dry concrete. It reminds me a lot of the Skull and Glossbones from the Pirates of the Caribbean Collection that I already have. So, it’s nothing very special to me.

    Honk if You Love OPI is a very dark purple crème, almost black, but still not black. It’s a very interesting shade. I personally really liked in on my toes J. Its jelly based, so 3 coats are needed for the full opacity.

Inspiring Manicures from Fall/Winter 2011 Runway

Hey Guys,

I was looking at the photos from NY Fashion Week and they had some really interesting manicures this year. Some of them inspired me to experiment and I hope will give you some idea for future beautiful manicures...

Apparently, this Fall/Winter nudes and neutral colors dominated the runway along with the Metal finish nail polishes. Although sophisticated nail art have been created for some of the collections, most of the designers have chosen different colored tips manicure and half-moon manicure.

1. Jason Wu Baroque style manicure by CND

Courtesy of Creative Nail Design

2. Gorgeous Rainforest inspired manicure for Jen Kao

Courtesy of Creative Nail Design

3. Green fading glitter manicure for   The Blonds Collection

Photo by Jennifer Graylock (Graylock.com)
Courtesy of Creative Nail Design

4. 3.1 Phillip Lim

Courtesy of Creative Nail Design

5. Calligraphy manicure for Prabal Gurung with Sally Hansen nail polishes

Courtesy of Prabal Gurung 

In my opinion, most astonishing and complicated manicures for 2011 Runway were created by CND this Fall. BUTTER London also had some interesting designs.

Additional photos of CND manicures for the various designers can be found here.

Although I wasn’t able to find Illamasqua manicures for the Runway, I think manicure from their latest collection Theater of the  Nameless definitely deserves a place in among Runway manicures with it’s creativity.

Courtesy of Illamasqua

What is  Your Favorite manicure of the Runway?

 

BUTTER London Wallis swatches and review

BUTTER London Wallis is a Nordstrom exclusive. I hesitated a lot before buying it, because from some swatches on the web and magazine covers it appeared to be very close to Chanel Peridote. It turned out to be completely different. For the note, Wallis is a part of Butter London Fall/Winter 2011 collection, that is quite uninteresting to my taste except this nail polish and No More Waity, Katie (swatches are here)

Wallis is a dark olive with a lot of gold. It reminds me of ancient bronze statutes with green/black patina. It is something that I really would want to see in OPI Simply Smashing. The color is very hard to describe – the base is dark olive with some black undertones. Nail polish also has a lot of gold in it….it is not glitter, the finish is closer to shimmer, but golden particles are quite visible.

The beauty of Wallis is very hard to photograph as well, I tried my best, but it still doesn’t depict the real finish. (Sorry, the pinky is quite messed up in the last photoJ)

Natural daylight

China Glaze Metro Collection Fall 2011. Part 4 – Glitter: Skyscraper

Hi Girls,

Skyscraper is the last one from the China Glaze Collection that I bought. It’s a deep blue with silver, blue and purple glitter. The base is jelly, so 3 coats are needed for the effect you see on the photos.  

Overall, Metro Collection did not disappoint me. On contrary, all nail polishes I was excited about were really interesting in reality. So far, my Favorites of the whole collection are: Skyscraper, Trendsetter and Westside Warrior. 

China Glaze Metro Collection Fall 2011. Part 3 – Dark crèmes: Westside warrior and Concrete Catwalk

Hey guys,

Trendsetter and Midtown Magic swatches are here and here if interested.

Westside Warrior is one of my favorites. It’s a dark moss green crème nail polish, quite a unique shade. For the best opaque coverage I applied 3 coats. It is nice that there are not so many close dupes to it that I could find.

Concrete catwalk is a grey crème with a shade of the wet concrete. It is not a very original color, I have seen something similar before…and not once. This one has more blue undertones to it though.

As I already mentioned in my previous post about this collection, the formula is very thin. As for dark crèmes it’s especially important I would recommend applying 3 coats for full coverage. Otherwise the color is uneven. It was especially evident in Westside Warrior nail polish.

China Glaze Metro Collection Fall 2011. Part 2 –Midtown Magic swatches and comparison with Color Club With Abandon

When I saw Midtown Magic I completely fell in love with it…but Opps, after bringing it home I realized that I had something similar already. It turned out that With Abandon (you can see full post about it here) by Color Club is almost 100% similar to Midtown Magic nail polish.

But swatches first…. MM is a brown-black shade with golden and copper shimmer particles. I have a thing for dark nail polishes with a little shimmer…and this one is just that perfect piece of shiny dark chocolate. Metro Collection polishes have a little thinner formula, so most of them, including Midtown Magic require 3 coats for full opacity.

After discovering that I already have similar nail polish I decided to compare how similar are they? It turns out that it’s very hard to see the difference between Midtown Magic and With Abandon in artificial light or direct sunlight. The only difference I could notice is that CC With Abandon has only golden shimmer particles and China Glaze one has also some copper particles that make nail polish a little bit more colorful. Again …it is almost unnoticeable if you will not stare at your nails for 5 minutes.