The Vintage Gem: MAC- Pink Freeze

 I have a super old vintage gem today! This is MAC- Pink Freeze. I got it in a blog sale and I don't really know much about it except that it is really old. It's a pale pink frost.

 The formula was really runny, but surprisingly it was opaque in three coats. It was somewhat brushstrokey, but that's to be expected of a frost.

 It had a really smooth finish to it.

 Here's the bottom of the bottle. It apparently "expired" in March of 2000, so that's definitely an indicator of how old this is. I really like the square frosted glass bottles!

Some new additions:

 From 5Below: Funky Fingers- Pixy Dust, Prince Charming, Mermaid Lagoon, and Confetti

Nicole by OPI- Honey-Dew You Love Me?, OPI- Fireflies, and Polished Perfection- Fire Flower

Misa- Embroidered Emerald

I have a special vintage gem today. This is Misa- Embroidered Emerald. It is about 11 years old. I was lucky enough to snag it in a blog sale! I don't have many Misas, but I fell in love with this one as soon as I saw pictures of it floating around in the nail blogging world.

 The color is somewhat difficult to describe. It's green shimmer floating in a dark, almost brick red base that leans towards brown. The base also sometimes looks like a plum. The shimmer looks blue in some lights and green in others.

 In natural daylight, you can see how beautiful the shimmer is!

 In indoors with the flash, this polish looks much different. You can see the dark brown of the base and the shimmer isn't as apparant. The formula on this was a little thin, so I used three thick coats in order to achieve opacity.

Indoors without the flash, it just looks like a plain brown shimmer- but it's definitely more special than that. 

There are a couple dupes to this polish. There's the coveted Urban Decay- Bruise that I do not yet own but would love to. Also in ORLY's Cosmic Fx collection released a couple years ago, Galaxy Girl has the same idea with the color, but instead of a shimmer, it's more of a glass fleck finish. MAC also makes a pigment called Blue Brown which I have that reminds me of this. I will have to add a swatch of it eventually.

Purple Glitter Combo

 In this bright purple glitter combo, I layered one coat of Kleancolor- Born to the Purple over Wet n Wild Fantasy Makers- Night Crawler. Born to the Purple is loaded with light pink hex glitter of different sizes in a purple jelly base. I couldn't believe how much glitter came out with just one coat! Usually I have to do some fishing to get the glitter out of the bottle.

One small issue I had that's barely noticeable was that the purple base in Born to the Purple showed up a little bit streaky over Night Crawler. This could have been evened out with another coat, but I thought that one coat had enough glitter. Kleancolor polishes also take FOREVER to dry even with Seche Vite and they don't smell very pleasant. Since the coats were somewhat thick, this mani had some tipwear just after a day of wear.

 Here's Night Crawler with the flash. This is a vintage gem from an older Fantasy Makers collection that Wet n Wild releases around Halloween season. I was not able to find out which year this was from. It is a blue-toned purple creme. The formula was excellent and application was perfect in two thin coats.

Here it is without the flash. It looks much darker here, but this photo is pretty accurate as to how this polish looks in low light.

Sally Hansen- Blush Diamond

This polish is a vintage gem! It is an old school Sally Hansen Nail Prism called Blush Diamond. They released a few batches of Blush Diamond and this is the darker version. I miss when true holos used to be readily available, but judging by the Cosmoprof photos from other bloggers, it looks like they may return! I still have an affinity for collecting the older bottles though.

 Blush Diamond is a pretty rose pink. The formula was kind of thin and I am wearing three coats but it built up nicely. These pictures were taken after two days of wear so there's the slightest bit of tipwear.

 This picture is a bit blurry, but you can see the prism effect!

I managed to get one sunlight picture, and this one doesn't even show the full holographic effect of this polish. It was pretty intense- almost to the point where it was dangerous to drive without wrecking from looking at my nails!

I have some hauls from the past few days too!

 I took advantage of the 99cents Sinful Colors sale at Walgreen's. I want to preface this by saying that I don't agree with what Sinful Colors has done (pretty much stole other bloggers' images for their display, photoshopping out their watermarks without giving credit). I really hope that SC/Revlon owns up to what happened.  Not to mention it is bad advertising for them since the stolen photos don't even showcase their products/techniques that they advertise.I saw this as an opportunity to get a lot of polish for an inexpensive price, and I already had a list of SC's that I wanted. Top Row: Bikini, Cinderella, Slate, Unicorn, and Fig. Bottom Row: Neptune, San Francisco, Leap Flog, Mint Apple, and Let Me Go 

Some other purchases from blog sales/online consist of Sally Hansen- Hidden Treasure, Deborah Lippmann- Let's Go Crazy (Nordstrom Exclusive!), Metametics- Blood and Snow (WINTER IS COMING!), and Loreal- Gorgeous Gold.

The Vintage Gem: Orly- Satin Society

 This is a really old ORLY! It was one of the bottles before the rubberized caps and it's .75 oz which is a lot of polish!!! I believe current ORLY bottles have .6 oz. ORLY-Satin Society  is meant to have a satin finish and even has a frosted glass bottle. The first coat dried rather satin-like, but as I added coats, I knew that it would have taken a long time to dry so I added Seche Vite. It now has a nice glossy finish. It still took a little bit of time to dry even with the Seche Vite!

 Satin Society is pretty sheer white and needed three thick coats. It had a frosty quality to it, but the brushstrokes weren't as visible.

I also have gotten a ton of nail mail lately! I've gotten some really good prices on these from blog sales or sales in indie shops!

 Candy Lacquer- Opposites Attract, American Apparel- Makeup, Color Club- Sugarplum Yum, Black Cat Lacquer: Fifty Shades of Grey and Let Them Eat Cake, and Rainbow Honey- Koi Pond.

Sally Hansen: Gentle Blossom, Finger Paints: Fun-fetti, Hard Candy: Beetle, Jordana: Blue Flash, Loreal: Owl's Night, Revlon: Grapefruit Fizz

Jen, from The Polished Zombie also sold me OPI- We'll Always Have Paris Suede, which was the last one that I needed for my collection. She also threw in a stackable penguin pencil!! I love penguins!!!

Zoya Noel and Some Sweet Nail Mail

I finally decided to wear Zoya- Noel from the holiday 2011 Gems and Jewels collection. It's definitely one of my favorite blues that I own. Although out of season, it definitely reminds me of these vintage frosted blue Christmas ornaments that my mother used to have. It was very shimmery and almost like a foil- but not quite. I took the picture after wearing it for two days so there is some minimal tipwear.

Here's another picture without the flash in the sunlight.

I got some pretty sweet nail mail! I stumbled upon a blog sale with a ton of vintage polishes (which I love!!) Most of them were 50 cents to $1 each!

 Here are some old Wet n Wild Fantasy Makers that they release during the Halloween season: Mystery, Nightscape, Night Crawler, and Shinin'.

 I also scored some Maybelline Coloramas. I own a decent amount of these. I bought a ton of them at the dollar store in high school in packs of 3 for $1. I'm glad that I kept them all. This is Cocoa Motion, Ruby Rays and Candy Apple. The last one on the right is Mohda- Esmalte HD. I don't know anything about this brand. It was 50 cents and it looked unique so I just decided to get it. 

 I got two black label OPI's: Double Decker Red and SoHo Nice to Meet You. This Covergirl Sparkle topcoat is called Pink Twinkle and it has flakies in it!!

 Here are some gems. This Loreal's look OLD! I'm guessing late 80s at the earliest or early 90s. The bottle and cap design is so unique. These are both sheer "safe" colors. This is Pink Vibrant and Sea Shell.

Last but not least, Revlon Street Wear- Slick. It looks like a sheer polish with a purple flash to it. I finally got Max Factor- Fantasy Fire too!! I got this off of another girl in the local polish group I'm in on facebook. I don't really have any way to get international polishes, and I was so happy she was selling it. I can't wait to layer Fantasy Fire over black!

The Vintage Gem: OPI- Arrivederci!

OPI- Arrivederci is a gorgeous peach-pink with some subtle shimmer. This is two coats. This is an oldie. It is from the OPI Italian Collection from 2001 and it's a black label. This would be considered a vintage gem. The application was very smooth also. I'm not really a fan of pinks in general, but I really enjoyed this one. I just love the old OPI formula! 

Effie Trinket Inspired Mani

In honor of the Hunger Games, I decided to do a mani inspired from the mani that Effie Trinket wears during the reaping in the movie. I'm going to see it tomorrow and I can't wait! I used two coats of Sally Hansen- Red Ruby followed by a gradient of Julep-Oscar. This picture is with the flash.

Here it is blurred without the flash. I was really surprised how smoothly Oscar applied. Normally glitter this concentrated feels really gritty but it has a very smooth finish to it. 

Here's a more in-focus picture without the flash, but of course the lighting made it look yellowed.

Here is Sally Hansen- Red Ruby all by itself pre clean-up. My cuticles look HORRIBLE here!  This is an old one. I'm guessing it's almost ten years old! The bottle says "Chrome Nail Makeup". The polish isn't nearly as chrome as the bottle depicts it to be, but I thought it would be a perfect shade for this mani. Also the color doesn't remind me of it's name "Red Ruby". It looks more like a fuchsia. I have many polishes that have survived throughout the years and I'm planning on featuring them in my blog. I have purchased nail polish thinner and revived most of them. I am going to start a new tag and call it "the vintage gem". I'm going to try to incorporate these on a consistent basis.