China Glaze Rodeo Diva Fall 2008 Revisited

This collection was released in 2008 but to this day, even after the dozens of new collections that have been released since then, China Glaze's Rodeo Diva remains one of my favorite collections of all time. This is what a fall collection should look like.

When I posted my swatches two years ago I was so excited about these colors that I rushed and posted pretty crappy pictures. I just couldn't wait, I was so thrilled that I had to post them immediately! But the lighting was bad, my application was shaky and I had some broken nails. So, I figured it was about time I try to do these amazing polishes justice.

Here they are once again, the incredible China Glaze Rodeo Diva polishes.


Branding Iron. A deep blackened red shimmer. One of my favorite kinds of colors! See how it looks dark on the edges and light in the middle? I can't get enough of those colors.



Cowgirl Up. Amazing red-purple shimmer. Possibly in frost territory? The shimmer is really fine like a frost but this is just too pretty and smooth to be a true streaky-silvery frost. This shade looks really amazing in the sunlight, it has hidden iridescent shimmer!



Golden Spurs. A warm light suede brown base with gold shimmer. This one doesn't look that great on me but I still love the color. So much pretty gold shimmer!



Gussied Up Green. I remember this being my favorite one when I first got this collection, but now I can't pick a favorite. This is a blackened blue-leaning green shimmer. Very dark but when the sunlight hits it it really sparkles.



Lasso My Heart. A mauve purple foil. Not as dense or silver-toned like most foils, this one is pure color and very smooth.


Midnight Ride. Extremely dark purple shimmer. Dark and dramatic. Looks mostly black indoors but in the sunlight you get glints of glorious purple.



Prize-Winning Mare. Similar to Golden Spurs in concept- a light brown base with gold shimmer. This one is much more shiny and metallic, though, and not as warm. The overall effect of this one is actually more of a bronze foil metallic look than just a plain shimmer.



Red Stallion. This color never photographs right for me! It's so metallic and shiny that my camera freaks out. It's a bright metallic red, very glowy, almost radioactive.


Rodeo Fanatic. Medium blue shimmer. Seems to be a tiny bit on the teal side- doesn't look like straight pure blue to me. Maybe there's a touch of green in the formula?



Side Saddle. The base of Side Saddle is a dark brown-toned plum shade. Raisin perhaps? Brown and purple, a bit like Lancome Lizzie Jagger. The shimmer in this is very shiny light gold.


Wagon Trail. What a cool color. It's a black base with gold shimmer but it combines on the nail to look like a olive green. Looks amazing in the sunlight.



Yee-Haw! Orangey, coral-ish pink and gold shimmer. Quite warm. Has an almost duochrome look to is because the pink-coral-peach base and the gold shimmer are each so strong that you see more gold where the light hits it and more pink where the light is indirect.


This was during the area where China Glaze's formula was on the iffy side. Runny, drippy yet thick. Remember those days? The formula on these was actually not bad, but not the easiest to control. I did three coats in all these pictures. Drying time is on the long side for some colors but not for all of them.

Still love this collection... Still get excited about it every time I see the colors. Not very many polish collections have that sort of effect on me!

I don't think any of these colors are particularly hard to find even though they're a few years old. I wonder if any of them have been made permanent? I'll have to find out!

Jessica Paint The Town Collection 2010

I love nail polish with a gimmick. These Jessicas come in little paint cans! How cute is that? They also have some that come in teddy bear shaped bottles like the old Fing'rs polishes (I'll post those soon too).

Though, unlike most products that have a gimmick, the colors/product are actually quite nice.


Funkytown. I know that there are a lot of these types of glitters- the blue/pink/purple glitter in a clear base combination. This one, though, is the prettiest of them all. I don't know why but this one sparkles way more than the others I have like this. Maybe they use a special kind of glitter, I don't know, all I know is that this one is blindingly sparkly and I love it.


Girls Night Out. My least favorite of the bunch but still not bad. Much nicer in real life. It's a cranberry red shimmer. It has more depth of finish and color but I couldn't seem to capture it. This shade of berry red does weird things to my camera.



Pajama Party. Awesome color. Hard to photograph. Let me describe. It's a dark blue-based purple base with strong blue shimmer. It sits on the color like a flash or duochrome but it doesn't really shift with the angle. It's more like a blue overlay. It reminds me a lot of the old Jane polish Gem X if you remember that one.


Scene Stealer. A nice teal shimmer. Color is more accurate in the indoor picture. Sunlight picture shows the reflective metallic qualities of the finish.


Shake Your Booty. I love this name. It makes me want to wear it just because of the silly name. Besides, how many polishes do you know of with the word 'booty' in the name? Ignore the fact that I can't stand the word booty unless it is referring to something a pirate obtains. Anyway... pretty standard medium blue shimmer with green accents. Seems like I see this color a lot. Not a bad shade, just a little common.


Shopping Spree. THIS is my favorite of the collection. It looks like velvet on the nails. It's a shimmering red-based purple and it has so much depth. Reminds me of China Glaze Cowgirl Up. It's so pretty.

Formula on these is okay, a little bit runny and sheer on some shades. I did three coats of all and all of them needed the third. Application is a little tricky because the brush doesn't like to conform to my nails or flex as easily as I think it should. Drying time is long.

Love the paint can bottles. We need more cute shaped bottles. I want someone to make some old retro looking bottles with the fancy elongated handles and really intricate designs on the glass, maybe like an Anna Sui or KO bottle.

(These were sent to me for review.)

OPI Go Goth Mini Set for Halloween 2010

This year's Halloween mini set from OPI is pretty sweet. Except for one thing... it comes with a stretchy lace bracelet instead of cute pumpkin and ghost decals! I love decals. Oh well. It's not like I don't have a stockpile of Halloween-themed nail decals at home. Oh yeah, no Glow In The Dark this year either! But the colors are really nice at least. The set is called "Go Goth" so of course I like it.

Nevermore. Inky, sparkly, gorgeous blue/purple duochrome. Impossible to photograph. You may be thinking this looks familiar... that's because it's OPI Ink. (I will post comparison pictures below.) So, if you have OPI Ink, you know what this picture is supposed to look like! OPI Ink is in my top five favorite polishes of all time, I have backup bottles I love it so much, and I wear it every chance I get. Unfortunately, I've never been able to get a good picture of it, and I must have taken over 100 pictures of it.


Obscure. Soft matte black creme. This isn't a super dark black like, say, KO Knockout Flatte Black? This is a softer, more faded looking black. Almost more of a dark grey than a black. The rest of the polishes in this set correlate to existing OPI or Nicole shades, but I can't recall a plain matte black OPI... Perhaps the closest color to this is Sephora by OPI What's A Tire Jack? Matte?


Sanguine. A deep, rich, shimmery, vampy burgundy red. Incredibly hot. Very sexy. My pictures don't do it justice. It's extremely rich looking and it has a lot of depth. I'm pretty sure this is OPI Royal Rajah Ruby, so if you missed out on the original India collection release, you might want to pick this up! It is not a color to be missed! Which reminds me... the India collection was great. I don't think I've ever posted it. I will add that to my project list!


Unripened. This is definitely the most fascinating one to look at in the bottle. It's a black base with large teal/aqua/blue shimmer particles that have a strong pink duochrome. On the nail the duochrome is rarely visible- seems most apparent in low light and at sunset, but the effect is much more subtle on the nail than in the bottle. Regardless, the black with blue shimmer is still pretty.


These all looked so familiar to me when I was swatching them so I decided to pull out some old bottles to compare:

Left to right (ring to index):
Nicole Party At 3 AM
OPI Nevermore
OPI Ink

I think it's pretty safe to say that this might be OPI Ink. The formula's been updated but the color looks the same to me!

Left to right (pinkie to index):
Nicole By OPI Black Cat-Cha Later
OPI Midnight in Moscow
OPI Sanguine
OPI Royal Rajah Ruby.

What do you think... looks similar? I couldn't really tell the difference in real life. Someone suggested to me that it also looks like OPI Romeo and Joliet, but I couldn't find mine to compare.

Left to right (pinkie to index):
Nicole by OPI Party at 3 AM
Nicole by OPI Blues in the Night
OPI Unripened
Jessica Casablanca

I threw the Jessica in with the OPIs because it was the first thing that came to mind when I saw Unripened. I'm thinking Unripened is Nicole Blues in the Night re-promoted for Halloween. Which is cool, because it's discontinued and really pretty!

The formula on these was excellent. The shades seem to have received a pretty nice formula upgrade since their original releases. These are all very opaque- two coats for complete coverage and that is what is pictured here. Very smooth, even, not runny, not thin, nice and on the thick side of medium. The only problem with these is that the mini brushes don't hold much product so you really have to try to get a big bead on the brush to ensure smooth application. Drying time is very fast.

Overall, awesome collection. I think most of OPI's Halloween kits have been minis of re-promoted colors plus one unique color like Ghostess with the Mostess or Glow-Ink In the Dark, so I'm not surprised to see some familiar faces here. All of the colors are drop dead gorgeous, Ink and Royal Rajah Ruby were always favorites of mine. In fact, if you haven't picked up the originals of these colors and they are interesting to you, you really might like to give these a try. I'm really pleased at the improved formula and application- the originals are on the thin and slightly sheer side (even though they are 3-free), but these re-promotes are really opaque and perfect in the formula department. Makes me kinda wish I had regular sized bottles of the new formula.

I think this set would also make a really cute gift. I know that personally I'd be thrilled to bits to get a gift like this from someone... Maybe in Halloween party gift bags or something? I don't know, I'm not Martha Stewart-y enough to come up with cute interesting ways to give gifts and stuff. But yeah, would totally make an awesome gift for someone!

(These were sent to me for review.)

Chanel Rouge Noir with Revlon Slipper

I was having kind of a crappy day so I decided I wanted to wear a fancy color to cheer myself up... Somehow fancy in my mind always equals vampy, so I picked out Chanel Rouge Noir (aka Vamp, but the creme version.)

I had just finished applying my topcoat when my hand kinda spazzed out and hit the bottle of Seche and put a huge gouge in the polish on my index finger! ARGH! It was still wet enough that it evened out a little, but it was still really obvious. I didn't feel like re-doing one nail (because that's a pain!) and I wasn't quite as fond of the mani as I'd hoped I would be, so, of course, I covered everything with glitter!

Glitter makes everything better.

A couple different angles to show the sparkle. The glitter is Revlon Slipper, from the fall collection. I only grabbed the glitters from the collection because the creme bases were pretty basic looking. These glitters are amazing, though. So sparkly. And it's square glitter, too! I love square glitter! Slipper is a combination of silver and red square glitter and some silver hologram hexagon shaped glitter. This is one coat over two coats of Rouge Noir and topped with Nubar Diamont topcoat.

Haven't played around much with the other Revlon glitters, though. They're super pretty but I just never think to layer when I'm doing manis lately!

Color Club Untamed Luxury Fall 2010 Part 1: Every Shade of Indulgence

Every year I look forward more and more to Color Club's collections... They seem really willing to think outside the box and make awesome colors but also offer them at a reasonable price without sacrificing quality. Definitely one of my most favorite brands of all time.

It goes without saying that I've been eagerly awaiting their fall collection, and now it's finally here!

I'm going to do this in two parts for one specific reason: The second half of the collection had a few casualties in shipping and I hate posting partial sets! So hopefully I can get a replacement soon and post the glittery half of this collection :)

This set of 7 - Indulgence- seems to be the 'trendy' set while Diamonds seems to be the fashion/edgy set.

Jewel of a Girl. Really rich, dark mahogany. This is mostly red with some brown and some wine, maybe a little purple. It's one of those deep dark lit-from-within glowy shimmers that I love so much. You know, the ones that look bright and glowing in the center and dark around the edges? Love them. Can't get enough.


Nothing Butt Ruffle... er, I mean Nothing But Truffle... Similar to Jewel of a Girl in finish and depth but this shade is a glorious chocolate brown. It's so amazing... look at it... it looks so smoldering hot!

Positively Posh. This is a dirty brown taupe with a slight hint of purple. This color seems to be really hot right now... everyone and their uncle are releasing this color lately. Not that that's a bad thing cause I love these types of colors!

Pretty In Platinum. Interesting! It's a light pearl grey/silver. Sort of reminds me of another one with Platinum in the name that I used to use all the time- OPI Gone Platinum in 60 Seconds. Not that they're the same, they're just similar. This is a really good example of the difference between frost and pearl. The shimmer in this one is extremely fine and smooth and sits on top of the polish to provide a layer of smooth pearl reflectiveness- just like a real pearl. Whereas with a true frost you get streaks of silvery, shiny reflective brushstroke-filled shimmer.

Ready To Royal. Extremely dark eggplant purple. Is it just me, or are all the polish companies mimicking each other a whole lot this year? This is really similar to Essie Velvet Voyeur and also kinda like OPI William Tell Me About OPI (though that one is lighter than both of the others). Really dark, really glossy, nearly black. Inexpensive alternative if you can't get the Essie or OPI!

Soft as Cashmere. Grey/beige... Greige? I'm not quite used to using that word. Is it a real word or is it like 'blurple'? Either way it's a really nice cozy color. I don't know if it's just the power of suggestion or what, but it makes me think of a warm cozy sweater on a cold fall day. Or maybe a fluffy bunny!

Wild Orchid. This is a blued grey shimmer. It's on the medium to light side of grey with a pretty strong blue undertone and some really interesting iridescent/silver shimmer particles. It flashes different tones depending on the angle of your hand, but indoors it just looks silver. Very nice!

The formula is perfect as usual. Color Club usually has excellent application and these are no exception. I had zero application problems. Pigmentation is great and all are two coats and don't need a third. Drying time is fast and most of the colors stay glossy without topcoat, but you should use topcoat anyway. No flaws here. Brushes are good too.

I really love these shades. Not a single ugly color in the bunch! Wait till you see the glitter ones, though! I'm wearing Untamed Luxury right now and it's fan-freakin'-tastic. More to come soon, hopefully!

(These were sent to me for review.)

Essie Fall 2010 Collection

Fall is almost here... I'm getting excited! These colors are super appropriate for fall.


In Stitches. This is a medium rose mauve creme. Soft, muted, maybe even a little... dated. My mom had carpet and some decorations this color when I was growing up, so it brings back happy memories, but I can't say it's really modern looking! It's along the lines of Eyeko Tea Rose Polish or Diamond Cosmetics Smoky Rose to give you something to compare it to.

Limited Addiction. Super dramatic glossy sexy blue-based red creme. Wow. It is very rare for me to pick a red as my favorite color in a collection, but this is just too gorgeous. It's sort of a cherry red bordering on blood red. A little darker and deeper than the reds I tend to like, but it's so striking and bold that it was love at first sight. It's a creme, but it has that deep, glassy jelly look, though I can't call it a true jelly. My pictures don't do this justice, you have to see this one in person. Smoking hot.

Merino Cool. Purple-grey. This seems to be the new 'it' color and frankly, that's a-okay with me cause I love these types of colors. This isn't totally unique but it's still beautiful. It looks darker in my picture than it seems in real life and I'm not sure why because sunlight usually has the opposite effect on my pictures. It's a little like OPI Parlez-Vous OPI or Confetti Moonstruck.


Sew Psyched. Muted grey-green with very subtle silver shimmer. Almost a secret shimmer, lends a softened and almost dusty finish to the polish. This seems really similar to Rescue Beauty Lounge Diddy Mow, but I haven't taken out my bottle to compare. If you're looking for a cheaper alternative, though, this would do nicely.

Little Brown Dress. Deep, dark coffee brown creme. Glorious. Super dark and vampy. A little different than plain black- though this isn't quite as dark as pure black. It's not as dark as Lippmann Maneater but it's darker than Essie Chocolate Kisses. A little closer to Zoya Angelina but a bit lighter. I love this color for fall, dark chocolate goodness!


Velvet Voyeur. Very dark purple creme. This is almost what I'd consider to be eggplant, but it's a little redder than true eggplant. It's a dark purple wine or perhaps a brown-toned purple. Very dark at two coats but quite different looking at only one coat. If you can apply this carefully enough at one coat you'll get two totally different looks out of it. I was sloppy so I did two here and it's near-black but still purple. Mmm, vampy.

The formula on these was excellent. Lately Essie's formula seems to be getting thinner and thinner, almost too watery, but the texture of these is back to normal. Thin-medium. I find the thicker formula of these much easier to control, especially combined with the thin brushes (which are also back to normal, not super thin like last fall/winter). I had no problems applying these at all. The only one that wasn't perfect was Merino Cool which seemed runny and thinner than the others so I had to do three coats. All the rest are two coats, no basecoat, no topcoat. Very rich and pigmented.

I'm digging this collection. It is perfectly 'fall'. The only color I'm not in love with is In Stitches, but the rest are perfect. Not extremely exciting or super unique, but they're all colors I love wearing and they're all really pretty. I love the drama in this collection- lots of vampy and dramatic shades- blood red, eggplant, dark coffee... Then you have the ever-popular grey/purple shade and a muted green, seeing more and more of these lately but that's fine with me! No complaints here, formula and colors are both making me happy. In fact, I'm about to go put on Limited Addiction...

(These were sent to me for review.)