MAC Prêt-à-Papier Nail Lacquers

The MAC Prêt-à-Papier collection features two lacquers, one is a light brown with a teensy amount of shimmer, the other a fairly standard bronzish metallic shimmer. I found this less boring than the other collections lately. For some reason I am really taken with the brown paper bag color of the light brown, called, of course "Brown Bag". Somehow it strikes me as very stylish. So I got it and I like it. It feels very au courant as MAC says. Though frankly even thinking the words au courant makes me feel like such an asshole.

I didn't bother with the bronze lacquer, called Originality, as it isn't. At all. In fact they seem to forget MAC Mercenary, released just last year, is very like it!! Did someone get amnesia? I mean they aren't exact dupes but come on.

MAC Brown Bag. Actually not too wildly different from Essie Uptown Taupe, if you have that. Brown Bag is warmer than Uptown Taupe though, and UT has a silver shimmer not a goldish one. So they are like cold/warm sisters.:

Coupla Ulta Yummers

Snapped these two up on a fast "grab as walk to the cashier". For two bucks who wouldn't? I think the green is a bit too dark, but I like it, and the blue metallic is a dupe for my beloved NDB Midnight I can't find anywhere. They are a whopping $2!! Buy some!!!

Ulta Envy:


Ulta Alter Ego:

MAC Blue India

I haven't had much good to say about MAC polish since the Style Black Collection. A few collections have come and gone without me mentioning them, because they were frankly boring crap.

But I picked up MAC Blue India from the Give Me Liberty of London Collection and I really like it. It's a great blue/Grey creme, One coat perfect, and I don't have anything like it! A winner! The other polish in this collection is Vestral White, a boring rerelease. If you can't find WHITE CREME cheaper than this, turn in your polish brush, please.

MAC Blue India:

OPI Alice in Wonderland Collection

Meh. Not much else to say. After the winter's incredible reds, these are lackluster and boring. Winter's glitters were more interesting too. I love glitter, especially microglitter, and these are nice ones but they just don't wallop me over the head. Dunno why. Maybe I am over glitter tossed in clear polish unless it totally covers the nail? Who knows.

The OPI Alice in Wonderland Collection is small, and I bought the mini set.

OPI Thanks so Muchness! is red. It's a nice blue red shade. It's no world shaker

OPI Absolutely Alice is a neat dark blue that seems somehow to have black in it. It has gold micro glitter mixed in with the blue, for interest and dazzle.


OPI Off With Her Red! is oranger in person than the picture. It reminds me of burnt carrot casserole or something.


OPI Mad As a Hatter is a mainly dark purple microglitter with opalescent/pastel rainbow microglitter. If it had better coverage I'd probably be in love. This is four coats.

China Glaze Spring 2010 Up And Away Collection

I've had these a while, but with Holidays and an issue on the 30th I had not yet posted them.

What a bullseye. China Glaze Spring 2010 Up And Away Collection exactly hits that happy fresh spring mark, and this time while there are many colors I find few if any superfluous. Fun, frisky, candy-coated confections!! Exciting! There are only a few colors I would call pastel, most are vibrant. And I LOVE them. They are all cremes and I had to start thinning them after a bit to apply better, but a few drops of thinner and a topcoat makes these lovely shades I will be reaching for often. So well done, China Glaze. Kudos!!

China Glaze Flyin' High is a smoky medium blue. I can't wait to wear this with a matching tshirt. Dunno where THAT fashion mistake idea came from. But I want to. :P


China Glaze Four Leaf Clover seems more teal to me. But so great!


China Glaze Re-Fresh Mint! Mint is not my color but this is fresh and sweet.


China Glaze Lemon Fizz, light yellow. Nice shade, not orange, not gaudy.


China Glaze Happy Go Lucky is a bright sunny yellow. I don't like yellows, but this is well done.


China Glaze High Hopes. I think this orangy red looks exactly like a persimmon.


China Glaze Peachy Keen. Peach! I am sure somewhere I have a dupe of this. But it is a lovely peach. Not too pastel, not too orange.


China Glaze Heli-Yum. Yum indeed. Love it.


China Glaze Sugar High. So sexy girly candy. I want to suck on my fingertips like a flirt. COME AND EAT ME.


China Glaze Something Sweet is a pretty standard pink, but I like the hint of blue.


China Glaze Light as Air. Again we probably all have a dupe, but this is soooo nice.


China Glaze Grape Pop - GREAT shade. I don't recall having anything exactly like this, certainly not in a creme. Edited to add this shade is very close to China Glaze Grape Juice but no glass fleck.



Pick some of these up. These will be great fresh pops of color for spring, and will easily transfer into summer.

S'More China Glaze Glitters!

Yay! I can has moar glitar?? I has a glitar!! I can no has long fingarnalez, tho. U forgiv?

China Glaze Dynasty is kind of a dark rose. But it has a bit of red in it, sometimes I almost think this is brick red. It has small rainbow glitter.


China Glaze Techno, large rainbow hexagons and small rainbow glitter in a clear base. Dab this one on, don't stroke it, so you get good coverage on the hexagons.


China Glaze Sour Apple - what else? Apple green jelly with small opalescent glitter in it. Nice! This is two coats I believe.


China Glaze Mahoganie is on the browner side of brick red. It has small rainbow glitter.


China Glaze Shooting Stars, I think this is indispensible. It's got tons of microglitter in nice opalescent shades, and big opalescent hexagons. It layers so beautifully over other polishes!! This is only two coats, it has great coverage!


Ther is moar glitar in teh futur!!

Island Girl Nail Polish

I dunno who makes this polish, Island Girl, but it has a VERY familiar sort of daisy shape on the top of the cap (no not Color Club). But it is sold at these stores in the mall called "ABC", which are the kind of convenience store that preys on hungry/needy shoppers and tourists and sells them massively overpriced items. I always ignore it until one day the corner of my eye caught a big nail polish display! These are only $2.99 and they have a large array of colors, but they are mostly very bright and/or glittery. So if you like that search them out.

I bought four but one ran away. I have no idea where it is, I mean it.

Island Girl Island Color is tiny pink and silver glitter, very opaque with a few coats.


Island Girl Island Volcanic is not volcanic, but it is a very nice blue semi-metallic. It has this neat grainy quality I really like. Reminds me very much of NDB Midnight. Easy to apply, and one coat perfect.


Island Girl Mahalo Dream - Very sheer orangy-pink jelly with rainbow glitter.

FingerPaints Holiday Collection

I like FingerPaints. They have a good formula, easy to apply, looks great. Their holiday collection is six shimmers. I did not get the medium red with very fine subtle gold shimmer (Snowman's Scarf), it just looked like a ton of other stuff to me. Also I did not get Sparkling Snow, which is your standard silver shimmer. IMO if you have one you have them all.

The other four are pretty nice, though! the shimmer in most of these is large grain, almost like clear sheets. It's neat. It manages to be subtle and yet impactful. If glitter is a rhinestone covered dress, and shimmer is a sequinned dress, this is a satin dress. If you get me. It shines yet it is not on your face. If you can wear these color shades to work, you won't be worried they'll be too bling and get you a raised eyebrow. I think they're sophisticated.

FingerPaints Candy Cane Shimmer is a medium red with smaller shimmer than the other polishes. The thing about this is it really does kind of have a satin sheen, rather than any shimmer. And the genius of this polish is that it looks EXACTLY like the red ribbon you buy at the store to wrap presents with. Not the new prismatic or mylar ones, the old style. Go check it out and see! I think it's so cool.


FingerPaints Decked With Dazzle is my least favorite. It's a reddish purple, kinda a red grape look. It has very nice chunky shimmer, but it's very sheer. It's pretty but I am not wowed. But you may be and the quality is nice, just the sheerness was unwelcome.


Gorgeous deep purple with the same chunky shimmer, FingerPaints Icy Iris is absolutely taking a place in my "keep" pile.


The clear queen of the bunch is FingerPaints Evergreen Dreams. Wow, a green not named after Envy. Imagine that! It's a gorgeous emerald green shimmer. One incredibly cool thing about it is when you apply a matte topcoat, it looks EXACTLY like Zoya Veruschka, which I will be demonstrating in the next couple of days when I review the Zoya Matte collection which came out a while ago, which I somehow neglected to be sent review copies of. :disgruntled and horrified face: Grin. Anyway this is a winner.


Here's FingerPaints Evergreen Dream first topped with Hard Candy Break Up, then FingerPaints Evergreen Dream topped with Hard Candy Break Up and Essie Matte About You topcoat! What I won't do for fun, eh?

Hard Candy New Polishes at Walmart

These are a fine formula. They seem to be a lot of dupes of other polishes, so if the polish you want to dupe is over $5, you can buy these. Some of the polishes are quite pretty!

Hard Candy Envy is a black jelly with dark bluish green shimmer. Screams Zoya Suvi with way less shimmer. This is less $$ but also less pretty.


Hard Candy Hot Pants. When I saw this I said "Oh, hey! Nubar!" But it's cheaper and just as nice as their jelly glitters, so hey why not?


Hard Candy Mr. Wrong. Now this is a fairly close dupe of the incredible Sally Arabian Night I posted not too long ago, and while the base color isn't quite the same (I think Sally's is prettier) there is far more golden shimmer here, this is a STUNNER I would suggest everyone buy!!


There's another I have but I haven't swatched it yet. Stay tuned.

MollyHell's Grab Bag! - Nina Ultra Pro Purple X-ing

Do I need to type anything but this is available now??

Nina Ultra Pro Purple X-ing:

Orly Metallic Matte Collection

Been on vacation but I am back!!

As you can probably tell from the pictures, these are a lot like OPI's Suede Collection. A nice satiny finish with a ton of metal shimmer underneath. Tons of texture and depth. They give us a couple nice new shades for matte, gold and bronze, and we have the black already but it's very nice in the satin/suede finish!

These apply just like regular polishes, and do not dry too fast. But try hard to remove any overlap, or brushstrokes that clump, because it will show up in the final polish. Just mess with it til it is smooth.

Orly Glam Rock:


Orly Iron Butterfly:


Orly Solid Gold:

MollyHell's Grab Bag! - Dusky, Hot Sexy Purples

Thar they blow! Could be reddish, could be bluish. Whatever, I love them!

Sally Hansen Flirt:


Rimmel Night Before:


Rimmel Hard Edged:


Color Club Snow Queen:


Chanel Vendetta:


BB Couture Maleficent Magenta:


Creative Heiress:

MollyHell's Turkey Day Grab Bag

I hope everyone who celebrated had a happy and safe Turkey Day. I'm not any major religion, and I couldn't give two farts in a crowded theater about Pilgrims, but I celebrate the day as a day of being with family, and making an incredibly delicious meal. So basically a day of sitting around stuffing my face.

Anyway because it's Turkey Day, the polish is BB Couture Cranberry Crush!

Black Phoenix Claw Polish

I was the very lucky recipient of some of the illustrious Black Phoenix Alchemy Lab's nail polish, which they call Claw Polish (love it)! BPAL doesn't just make hundreds of incredible artisan perfume oils in "magickal, pagan and mythological blends, Renaissance, Medieval and Victorian formulas, and horror / Gothic-themed scents", they do jewelry, Tshirts and assorted neat stuff which fortunately includes a growing offering of nail polishes (under the Black Phoenix Trading Post arm of the site). Mostly now it is blacks and browns, deep reds and a few pinks, and one glow in the dark. I hope to see them branch out! They certainly have enough inspiration.

First thing that is notable is the formula was quite surprising. It was terrific. A polish line in which the CREMES are more manageable than the jellies??? Wow. Dries fast, hard and just like glass. It's incredibly shiny stuff. I would use topcoat for protection but it is in no way needed for a glossy finish. It's kickass. The brush may be a bit stubby for you long brush lovers, but otherwise is standard. Anyway all due accolades to the talented people at Black Phoenix Alchemy Lab. Thank you!!

I tried a different style photograph for these polishes, inspired by the "Claw Polish" name. Yes, Napoleon, I have large talons. If you hate it feel free to call me an asswipe.

You're going to have to take my word for it that Destroying Angel is not black. it's a dark chocolate, but it's browner than the picture. I am sure I will try again at some point.


Smokestack is actually a very dark blurple jelly with a ton of very fine subtle shimmer. It packs far more punch than you think it will. Very nice.


Croquet they call a flamingo pink, I think it's a bit softer and a great deal prettier than flamingo. Bet the Sissies will love this one!


Malediction is simply black, with that stunning super-gloss that China Glaze Patent Leather has. This is a jelly, not a creme.


Sed Non Satiata is a smooth, sleek berry.


Robotic Scarab is a gleaming bronze shimmer. I drool on this.


Bordello is a beautiful lightly metallic raspberry shimmer. Suckable!