Deborah Lippmann Spring 2011 Swatches and Review

This year's spring shades from Lippmann are soft and subdued.


Naked. This is a soft, milky neutral beige. You could call it nude, fleshy... Naked, really. It's almost my perfect 'Mannequin Hands' shade, but it's just a touch too tan. It can be worn sheer, but I think it looks best opaque like I'm wearing it here (three coats).

And the star in this spring duo....

Glitter In The Air. What can I even say about this color? I'm totally in love. Yes, I am in love with a sheer polish. It's true. I would have never expected this. Let me describe it. It's a milky, cloudy, gentle baby blue jelly. Very sheer. Sprinkled throughout the blue jelly base are shiny bits of large and small pink and blue glitter. It's not a dense glitter and you won't have full coverage with it, but that's the beauty of it. It reminds me of cotton candy and cupcake sprinkles and magic. It's just so romantic and dreamy looking. I'm wearing three coats and it's really sheer. It looks even better at four thin coats but I didn't get a picture of that. If you prefer a more opaque look (or just hate visible nail line), you can easily layer it over pastel blue or a white creme.

The formula on these was decent. They both start out sheer and can be layered for more coverage. With the texture of the formula on these polishes, it's best to wait a minute or so in between coats so that you don't get that goopiness that some sheer polishes can get when applying. Drying time was a little long, but not horrible.

Naked is nice, but Glitter In The Air is magical. It's a fantasy polish. Sheer polishes, especially sheer glitters, aren't something I usually like, but this one is different. It looks squishy and soft, like candy and marshmallows. And... unicorns!!

(These were sent to me for review.)

China Glaze Anchors Away Collection Spring 2011

This year is off to a really good start, polish-wise. The second new collection of 2011 is a great one- China Glaze Anchors Away. Looks like there's going to be a soft and muted yet not quite pastel color trend this spring...


Ahoy! You all know I'm not big on pink, but this pink is AMAZING. It's more of a deep magenta than a true pink, but it's a jelly and it has iridescent gold shimmer. The combination of the bright, colorful jelly and the glowing gold shimmer is just fantastic. The jelly base tints the gold flecks a little so you get lots of different tones sparking on your nails.


Below Deck. One of those ever-popular purple-grey shades. Is it Greige? I forget what term everyone's using for these now... Grurple? Anyway, I've heard from a few people that this was intended to be a replica of the old Channelesque, and it does look pretty similar! Channelesque seems lighter to me, though. This one reminds me more of Metro Chic.


First Mate. Lovely soft navy blue creme. It looks too bright in this picture- in real life it has a really soft, dusty sort of look. Really pretty. One of the only navy shades I like... Most of the time I feel like Navy can't decide if it's blue or black and it's always so dull... this one is perfect.



Hey, Sailor! This is an attention grabber for sure. Crazy bright loud obnoxious red creme. It looks dangerous! I love it. It has that retro sailor pin-up girl look to it, those kinds of reds are my favorites. This is almost a jelly, too, it has that soft squishy look to it when it's applied.



Knotty. This is an interesting shade- it's a glass fleck nude? It's a light tan/beige nude shade with silver-white flecks of shimmer. Maybe not the best color on me, but I really do like looking at it. I don't own many shades like this.



Life Preserver. A soft burnt orange. Really rich looking, so saturated and creamy. I really like orange polish and this one is not the common bright orange. It reminds me a lot of one of the shades from the Immaterial Girl collection from a few years back, but I can't remember the name! Vintage Crepe? Ah, I can't remember and now I'm rambling.





Lighthouse. Holy smokes, this yellow is awesome! And easy to apply! A bright yellow jelly base with shiny, sparkly pale yellow glass fleck shimmer. It has a lot of depth to it, I love the way the shimmer looks sitting in the lower layers of the polish and then how it sparkles at the top layer.




Pelican Gray. Light, pale grey, neutral, with a little soft shimmer to it. It's a hidden shimmer like the kind in Zoya Marley, you can't really see it but it gives a nice soft cloudy look to the color. Love these kinds of greys. Or maybe I just love all greys, I can't decide.



Sea Spray. So many beautiful colors in this collection... this might be one of my top favorites. It's a very pale blue but it's not pastel. It has a lot of grey in it and a very subtle shimmer. It looks rainy. Reminds me of something like Eyeko Rain Polish- rainy sky blue!



Starboard. Soft grassy green. What's not to love about this? It's my favorite type of green, too- yellow-leaning and not too blue. Very creamy soft finish, has that soft, cloudy marshmallow-ish look like the rest of the colors in this set have.


Sunset Sail. A peachy beige nude with some silvery microglitter. Looks a shade or two darker on the nails than it does in the bottle. It's on the warm side but I still think it looks pretty good on my cool skintone!


White Cap. Gorgeous. Sheer white jelly with gold duochrome shimmer. It's like a cross between a glass fleck and a flake finish- tiny little flat flakes that are very, very shiny. It's so bright and luminous, it looks so clean.

The formula on these was good. A little on the thick side, but with flawless application. Not runny or anything like that. The opacity on these is decent but I found that I needed three coats for complete coverage on most shades. All pictures are three coats, no basecoat or topcoat. They dry really shiny without topcoat. Drying time is average.

I really love these shades. Some of them look like other old China Glaze shades but I don't know if any are exact matches. I don't dislike a single shade in this entire collection- they're all beautiful! After all the dark vamps and shiny glitters of fall and winter, I'm really craving these types of soft, greyed-out muted creme shades. The smattering of glass flecks in the collection is just the icing on the cake for me. I'm quite pleased with these. I see myself wearing Sea Spray a lot this spring...

Two thumbs up for me. Refreshing change of pace from all the glitter-heavy manicures I've been sporting lately. Lots of wearable soft shades, very calming and peaceful.

(These were sent to me for review.)

More random Zoya swatches- Sheers, nudes, reds/berries

Uma

Rose (this has green duochrome shimmer!)

Riley

Racquel

Quinn

Portia

Parker

Mia

Kat

Jaime

Isabel

Heather

Diana (jelly finish!)

Dharma

Celeste

Angel

New Shades from Obsessive Compulsive Cosmetics!

Obsessive Compulsive Cosmetics ('OCC') has just released a few new shades of nail lacquer! The cool part is that they call correspond to a matching shade of Lip Tar (which is just about the coolest lip product ever, but that's a review for another post!) so you can match your lips and your nails exactly.

To see the rest of the shades:

Click here for Blackboard, Dangerous, Grandma, Traffic, Swamped (Swamp Thing), Wasabi.

Click here for Anime, Bone Daddy, NSFW (Lucretia), Rhythm Box, Spanglemaker, Uber.


Anime. Medium neon pink. I reviewed this one previously, so click the link above for the full review. I need to make a correction, though! Last time I mentioned that the name was being changed to Pageant- it isn't! Well... maybe it was? I think it used to be Pageant but now it's Anime? Well, doesn't matter... This retina-searing hot pink is Anime and you'll see Pageant below.

Conquest. Pale beige. This is a very milky, delicate looking shade. It seems to be maybe an antique white or a cream shade with a few drops of peach- at least I feel like it has a peachy look to it!

Fondue. Melted chocolate. This is gorgeous for fall. It really does remind me of melted dark chocolate! It's not the power of suggestion. This is a chocolatey shade for sure.


Hush. Girly peachy pink. This is a really cute and flattering color. It reminds me of MAC Seasonal Peach's baby sister. Very soft and feminine. It also has a bit of a retro look to it.


Pageant. Intense fuchsia. This is *almost* neon. Almost! It's really bright! Bright, yet, somehow soft looking at the same time. It's noticeable but not neon.

Petty Beige. Creamy light brown. This reminds me of a few things... Caramel... mustard... Band-Aids? I love these unusual golden shades. They're so fascinating! On certain skintones this would probably be a nice nude or neutral but on me it's more of a conversation piece.

The formula on these is good. The formula is on the thin side but is nicely pigmented. Not streaky! The only one that gave me a little trouble was Conquest, it seemed thick. Conquest is probably meant to be worn as a sheer, but you all know how I feel about wearing sheer polish, so I did three coats. If you choose to wear it sheer, one coat would be fine. They vary in the amount of coats needed for opacity. Anime is the sheerest and Pageant is the most opaque (you could get away with one coat). The drying time is good- I'd say it about average- not long, not lightning fast either. All around, it's a good quality polish.

Now we've seen both ends of the color spectrum- the funky shades like Blackboard which are my favorites, and the more toned-down 'natural' shades like the ones seen here.

Overall, I've really loved everything I've tried from Obsessive Compulsive Cosmetics. The quality is great, the color selection is great, and HELLO! Blackboard! Enough said.

The nail lacquers can be purchased here, and if you want to check out the matching Lip Tars (which I highly recommend because they ROCK), click here. Also, all of Obsessive Compulsive's products are vegan and cruelty-free.

More nail polish shades from Obsessive Compulsive Cosmetics!

If you recall, in my last post about Obsessive Compulsive Cosmetics, I raved and raved about how awesome the polishes are.

I hadn't tried all the colors when I wrote that post, but now I have gotten to try almost all of them (minus White Noise/Feathered, Inky and Cesare/Tarred.) and my opinion remains the same: These polishes rock. Let's get to the pics.


Pageant, formerly known as Anime. A medium neon pink. As with all neons, this picture can not possible capture the eye-melting glow of neon pigment. So imagine this color, but glowier, brighter, more awesome in real life. This is in the medium to dark neon pink range. While I adore the color, this polish was extremely sheer. I believe this picture was five coats and there's still a little visible nail line.


Bone Daddy. Sheer antique white shimmer. This one is fairly unique among the whites in my collection. It's not a stark, bright white by any means. It's a slightly yellowed, antique-looking off-white with a hint of shimmer. The name is quite appropriate, it reminds me of bone. This one is also pretty sheer, but I think it's meant to be worn that way. I'm not fond of sheers so I did four coats of this to make it opaque. There's still a little visible nail line. This would probably make a very natural looking french manicure tip or base.

NSFW, formerly known as Lucretia. Bright, rich, bold red creme. Another 'LOOK AT ME!!!!" dramatic red. This one seems slightly orange-based to me. Very bright, very noticeable. I liked the name Lucretia because it reminded me of Lucrecia from Final Fantasy VII. But, NSFW is also a great name, so I can't complain.


Rhythm Box. Saturated yet soft red-purple creme. This is a fascinating color. I don't own very many shades that can compare to this. It's not a neon purple like Essie Bermuda Shorts like I originally thought it would be. It turns out is a very unique shade of soft mauve-red-purple. This picture shows it a little more bright and pink than it looks to me in real life.


Spanglemaker. Metallic silver flake. I would almost call this a foil, except it doesn't seem to have the same sparkle that foils generally tend to have. If it makes any sense, I'd want to call this a matte silver metallic. It's silver and kinda-sorta reflective, but it has this matte metal quality to it that prevents it from being too shiny or sparkly. It's not a matte, but it's not chrome either. It's industrial silver. It looks like machine metal.


Uber. Drab taupe creme. I used the manufacturer's description - drab taupe- because I think it's perfect. It's a taupe, tan, light brown... Actually, it could also be described as Chocolate Milk colored. Either way, it's awesome. Unusual. Interesting. I know, drab taupe doesn't sound like an interesting shade, probably quite the opposite. But there just aren't a whole lot of polishes this shade and that's what makes it so interesting to me. Odd is good. And, of course, I love the name.

The formula on these was decent for the most part. All were smooth and even, though I did have a little trouble with Bonedaddy. These seem to be more sheer than the previous shades I tried which were opaque in two coats. In order of sheerness, I'd say Anime/Pageant is the sheerest (five coats), then Bonedaddy (four), Lucretia (three), Spanglemaker (three also) with the most opaque polishes being Uber and Rhythm Box at two coats. Drying time was very good, the more opaque ones dried the fastest.

Now, as I mentioned above, a few of these have changed names. The reason for that is so that they could be the same name as their matching Lip Tar shades. Yes, you can get matching lip and nail color from this brand! I have not yet tried the Lip Tars, though I hear rave reviews from other beauty bloggers. Personally, I'm dying to get my hands on some of the non-traditional shades like Safety Orange, Traffic, Katricia, Rx and Tarred...

Obsessive Compulsive Cosmetics Nail Lacquer is three-free, vegan and not tested on animals. All fifteen polish shades are available directly from OCCMakeup.com and retail for $8.00.