Color Club Alter Ego: Reveal Your Mystery Collection Spring 2011 Swatches and Review

This is only one half of Color Club's spring 2011 collection, "Alter Ego." The Reveal Your Mystery set is a collection of light, un-intimidating sheers/neutrals/soft shades. It's practically a polar opposite to the dark, deep, mysterious and colorful shades in Keep It Under Cover.


Get A Clue. A soft pastel pink creme. This is actually a really nice pink because it has a hint of grey and lavender in it. It's very rare to find a pastel pink like this that actually compliments my skintone instead of making my fingers look dirty or bright red.


Give Me A Hint. Your standard grey/taupe/purple hybrid creme. This one leans a little more on the grey side than the purple side than some similar shades.


Incognito. A sheer, fleshy pale brown based nude. This seems neutral toned to me, and against my cool-toned skin it doesn't seem to pull particularly warm or cool. It's like a lighter version of Lippmann Naked.


Revealed. This is an interesting color... It's a warm peach creme base with some red and violet subtle shimmer. I really love how the shimmer lights up the color. It's subtle, but it looks almost like a duochrome when the light hits the shimmer.


Secret Rendezvous. A light lilac creme. This picture makes it seem pure blue, and it is quite blue in real life, but it definitely has some purple to it. I like the name of this because it reminds me if playing DDR. Random.



Sheer Disguise. A nice light grey. I love grey polish. This is a very pretty grey, though there's nothing particularly unique or different about it. It's on the light side and has a bit of blue to it.


The formula on these was great. I had no problems with the formula or the brushes or anything at all. Everything was smooth, fairly even, and perfect in three coats (I did three coats on all). A few can be worn sheer if you do only one coat. Good dry time, good wear time, easy removal, no staining or anything like that. Quite honestly, nothing to report!

The box set of this collection comes with a bottle of Milky White French Manicure Basecoat. I didn't take a picture of it, because, uh, it's clear. But not just plain clear! It's clear with a blue tint and it counteracts yellow tones in the nail. This is a genius product and I think everyone should have a bottle. I've been using it for years and I always make sure I have it on hand, just in case. I were to wear a sheer or for some reason go without nail polish, I would make sure to apply this as my basecoat. Not only will it hide the yellowness of stained nails, it will brighten and whiten the look of the nails and even fix certain types of old nail polish. Really. If you use it as topcoat over certain shades of polish, for instance, a glitter with a clear base that has yellowed with time, it will take out the yellow. Awesome stuff, seriously.

While these are all nice colors and I do like all of them, there isn't anything terribly exciting about them. Well, I guess I suppose that's the point of neutrals and sheers. Good formula and flattering colors, but the exciting part of the collection is yet to come...

(These were sent to me for review.)

Illamasqua Toxic Nature Collection Spring 2011 Swatches and Review

I think Illamasqua and other nail polish companies have very different ideas about creative inspiration. You know what I'm talking about, right? The other brands talk about their inspiration, "Oh, I went to the beach." or... "I took a road trip." or even worse, "I saw a celebrity." But Illamasqua doesn't just get inspired, they make their inspiration. They take an idea and build an entire world around it. They even give it a backstory! And that's what always makes me so excited to see what they're going to do next.

Toxic Nature is no exception. In fact, I think it's their most creative collection yet. I'm so behind in posting these, so I know you've all seen the amazing makeup artistry and fantasy world images surrounding this collection. When I first saw them, my eyes went like this: O_O

The nail lacquer portion of this collection consists of these five shades:

Bacterium. Doesn't this color make you a little uncomfortable? The name, the murky, stagnant, dirty look of it? This is a mousy taupe/light brown/warm grey base with some frosty duochrome greenish shimmer. It has a little bit of a yellow undertone to it. It's like a decomposing version of Zoya Pasha.

Gamma. Awesome, eye-burning neon orange. Since it's neon, it dries matte. You can wear it matte if you'd like, or add topcoat to make it glossy. Either way it will look loud!




Purity. A clean, sweet and natural shade that contrasts with the bizarre, mutated, toxic and dangerous colors in the collection. This is a soft creamy pale peach. For comparison, it's more warm and pale than MAC Seasonal Peach and not as pink as Essie Van d'Go.


Stagnate. Good name to go with this color. It's a murky purple-grey-brown creme. What was that word they use for this now? It's like "greige" but with purple... Grurple? I forget. As much as I do love these types of colors, I must say, it's so common now, there are so many of them, that it does look a little stagnant to me.



Radium. A bright yet dirty radioactive pea green. What makes this special is the blue-green subtle shimmer that lights up when the light hits it. You can't see as much of the blue shimmer indoors, but it looks great in sunlight.


The formula on these was different. It wasn't the same consistent, creamy, dense one-coat-opaque formula I'm used to from Illamasqua. Each color seemed to have a completely different texture. Stagnate was thin almost a little sheer, Gamma was thick and jelly-like, Radium was almost like normal Illamasqua formula, Purity was sticky feeling and Bacterium was a little runny. Despite the mixed bag of formulas, both wear time and dry time were excellent. Every shade except the neon Gamma dried very shiny even without topcoat. I was able to get nearly a week of wear out of Radium without chipping or tipwear.

I love the theme and artistry of this collection. I love how they intertwine beauty and poison, danger and glamour... Nature fighting back... Seriously, doesn't it make you a little uneasy but excited at the same time?

I do wish the colors were more uncommon, though. They're good colors, but shades like pea green, neon orange and grey/purple/brown have been really common lately, so you really have to put something extra intro them to make them stand out among the crowd. That being said, I am very fond of the unusual combination of colors in this collection, and I can rarely pass up a neon orange. The scary radioactive brightness of Gamma and Radium, the murky dirtiness of Bacterium and Stagnate and the clean and pretty Purity to return you to normal when it all becomes too much...

(These were sent to me for review.)

Nicole by OPI Liquid Metals for Spring 2011

Here's Nicole by OPI's latest: A set of four super-sparkly foils. Technically these came out late last year, but they're part of 2011's spring colors. These feature the new Nicole Perfect Stroke brush, which is similar to OPI's ProWide brush, just rounder and flatter.



It Starts With Me. This is a silver-based peach toned foil. It's not quite pure gold, not quite taupe.


Miss Independent. A pink toned foil. Again, it has a silver base with a pale pink-purple overtone. This one is pretty unique, I can't think of another foil quite like this.



Rich In Spirit. An aqua-blue foil. In certain lights it seems like it has a greenish tinge to it, in other lights it looks pure sky blue.



The Next CEO. A good neutral gold foil with a little bit of a beige tone.

The formula on these is good. Very smooth, not thick, not runny. Good coverage, I only needed two coats on all of these. Drying time is very fast. The new Perfect Stroke brush was much nicer in these than it was in the One Less Lonely Girl collection; none of the brushes in this set were crooked or defective in any way. Smooth, easy application and a nice glossy finish even without topcoat.

These foils are extremely shiny and sparkly. While the colors themselves aren't terribly bold or exciting, the finish is amazing. They're like a cross between a true foil like Zoya Trixie, a chrome like China Glaze Millennium and a glass fleck sparkle. They are both reflective and sparkly/shimmery/borderline glittery and that's what makes these stand out. They aren't as dense of a foil as, say, Orly's Foil FX collection, but they're twice as sparkly.

(These were sent to me for review.)