SinfulColors Sweet Dreams

Sweet Dreams is the last shade I bought from the SinfulColors Girls in Pearls Sheer Shimmer collection, and I do believe it's my favorite. Sweet Dreams is the bright aqua cousin of Morning Star, with the same soft glass flecked type finish.

Note - Please excuse the jaundiced looking fingers. It took me four different lighting setups to finally get color accurate pics of this baby, and it took a warmer toned light to make that happen, which turned my fingers far more yellow than they actually are. The polish is pretty color accurate though, go figure.

I think that the formula on Sweet Dreams was slightly better than either Morning Star or Cinderella, though I did thin it slightly before using it. It only took me two coats for full opacity on this one as opposed to three on the others though, so that made me quite happy.

I love this finish so much that I'm seriously considering going back for the other shades (there's a pink, an orange and a yellow) even though I don't really wear those that often. I just love how soft these look, while still being so bright and beautiful for spring.

So there you go, my favorite of the new SinfulColors shades. =) Happy Sunday, Happy April (Can you believe it's already April?!), and thanks for reading!

SinfulColors Morning Star

Morning Star is part of a new SinfulColors display called Girls in Pearls Sheer Shimmer Collection. Note:  They aren't sheer. *shrug* The Girls in Pearls Sheer Shimmer Collection is a mix of re-promoted shades and new shades. The new ones all seem to be the same type of milky, glass flecked finish as Cinderella. Morning Star is a lovely soft periwinkle - not quite purple, but definitely more purple leaning than Cinderella. All of these photos were taken in natural light, some in direct sunlight and some in the shade.

Much like Cinderella, the formula on Morning Star was a little thick. I thinned it after I finished my first coat, and that definitely helped matters. I ended up using three coats because I had some streaking issues after my second coat. That's not a huge complaint though; I feel like the end result was definitely worth it.

One of my favorite things about Morning Star is that it's light, but the finish makes it look soft rather than stark like so many pastels. The shimmer isn't super evident, but I believe that the little glass flecks are what give it this soft finish. I absolutely love this.

I feel like Sinful has really been hitting it out of the park lately with their newer releases. We're seeing interesting shades in more interesting finishes, and that's pretty impressive from a drugstore brand that retails for $1.99.

I was also really impressed with the wear on Morning Star. Often I change my polish so often that I can't really comment on wear, but I ended up wearing Morning Star for about four days, and it still looked perfect when I removed it - no chipping, no tip wear to speak of. Very, very nice! =)

Happy Hump Day, folks. Thanks for reading!

SinfulColors Neptune

Neptune is the second polish that I bought from Sinful's Cast Away collection. Just like Zeus, Neptune is another winner from Sinful. (Please excuse how odd my fingers look in these pics. The sun was super bright out yesterday, and it totally washed out my pale skin. The polish is color accurate though!)

Neptune is like the darker, more saturated cousin of several of the blues we've seen in recent collections - it's reminiscent of OPI I Have a Herring Problem and Zoya Skylar, but it is decidedly more blue than either of those. The finish is the same though, that lovely almost micro flake shimmer.

The formula on Neptune is really great - not too thin, not too thick, easy to control. Full coverage in two easy coats. My bottle of Zeus had a wonky brush, but Neptune's brush was just fine. 

I honestly couldn't be happier with this polish. I feel like Sinful has really been upping their game lately, and it's so nice to see a $1.99 drugstore brand putting out interesting shades and finishes.

Happy Wednesday, y'all! Thanks for reading! =)

SinfulColors Zeus

I finally happened upon Sinful's spring collection, Cast Away, at my local Walgreen's a couple of days ago. I only picked up two, Zeus and Neptune, as I deemed the rest of the display to be too close to other colors that I already have in my stash. Zeus is totally dreamy though, check it out.

Dusty purple with pink shimmer. I absolutely freaking love this polish.

Two easy coats, great formula, great opacity. The brush was a tad wonky, but nothing I couldn't deal with.

I've read that Cast Away is a limited edition collection, but I really hope this one finds its way into the permanent display. I feel like Sinful has really been stepping up their game lately, which is so nice to see in a cheaper brand.

Total love. ♥

Thanks for reading!

SinfulColors Cinderella

I've been seeing some buzz in the blogosphere about the latest offering from SinfulColors, Cinderella. Since I am attracted to blues above all colors, I went out in search of this last night. It took me three stops, but victory is mine!

What we have here is a light blue polish with the most stunning pink and gold shimmer. It's rather subtle and delicate, but it's definitely visible and not one of those shimmers that completely dies on the nail.

The formula is really not bad. I was expecting a nightmare given how light the shade is, but I had full coverage in three coats. It's a little thick, so I tried to let it dry a bit between coats so avoid any pulling and that seemed to work fine.

The finish is interesting. It's not a jelly, but it has a really interesting milky quality to it that keeps the polish from looking stark like so many pastels tend to do. I had considered layering it over another light blue, but I really wanted to maintain that milkiness, and I'm so glad that I did.

The dry time was average, even with three coats. I always get worried about 3-coaters that have thicker formulas, but I didn't run into any problems with it at all.

It's so awesome when a drugstore polish brand actually comes out with a great color in an interesting finish. This one is pure love. ♥

SinfulColors Holiday Collection 2011 - Wish - Swatches and Review

Okay. I am woefully and ridiculously late with this review. There are a lot of reasons why that happened. I won't bore you with the details, but I will offer you my deepest apologies for that being the case. Now that I've gotten that out of the way, here's the actual review.

SinfulColors Holiday 2011 Collection, Wish, consists of five polish shades and two shades of nail art. I used two coats of all colors for these swatches for consistency, with no base or top coat. 

First up, Ruby Ruby, a classic shimmery cool toned red. The color really is just beautiful, but the formula on this one was thick. Really thick. A few drops of thinner fixed it right up, but it was actually kind of shocking to me how thick it was. o.O I've had experiences with Sinful's cremes being on the thick side, but their shimmers are usually okay. One it was thinned though, the application was really great. Honestly, I'm not even holding the thickness against this polish - I've had lots of shades I adore that were really thick when I opened the bottle - just letting you guys know the scoop on my bottle. =)

Next up, Out of this World. I expected this to be silver, but it's really a lovely silvery-white shimmer. I was very pleasantly surprised by this baby. I expected a sheer frosty mess based on what it looks like in the bottle, but it's perfectly opaque in two coats. Great formula, just great. I love this one. Just beautiful.

Next, we have Daddy's Girl, a purple jelly with pink shimmer throughout. This could have used a third coat for opacity, but it's not horrible at two coats at all. Another great formula on this one, it practically applied itself.

Last Chance, my favorite of the collection. Last Chance is an absolutely perfect forest green creme. Its consistently almost borders on jelly, but not quite. It was honestly perfect at one coat, but I did two for consistency. What you see here is NO cleanup whatsoever. None. Stellar formula, beautiful shade.

And lastly, Midnight Blue, an absolutely lovely medium blue shimmer. I like that this one isn't super, super dark. Again, really great formula on this one. Normally the blue would have been my favorite, but Last Chance kind of came out of nowhere with its beautiful formula and took my breath away.

Now, this is the part of the review that's hard for me - the two nail art shades, Flower Girl (the gold one) and Fashionista (the silver one). I am so not a nail art person, apart from the occasional Konad design, so I sort of have no idea if these are good or bad. I did a few stripes and some dots with them, and I found them pretty easy to work with. I'm sorry I don't have more of an opinion on these, but I've never used any others before!

In the end, I would say this is a really solid offering from SinfulColors. A couple of the shades really surprised me with how great the formulas were and how much I love the colors - a pleasant surprise is always nice!

SinfulColors offers more than 150 shades of polish. All hues are available for $1.99 at major US drug and mass-market stores, by calling 1-800-448-0763, or online at www.walgreens.com.

Thanks for reading!

** These products were provided by the manufacturer or PR company for review **

Dupe or No Dupe? Guest starring part of Cilucia's stash!

It started as an argument as to whether or not I can wear orange (Yes, you can! No, I can't!), a subject which will be addressed next, and ended with my friend Cilucia suggesting that we do a swatch swap, where we swap a given number of polishes with each other temporarily so that we could do comparisons, or just try out colors that we've always wanted to... or, she thinks, prove me wrong about whether or not I can wear orange. XD

One of the things I wanted to do was some comparisons, so that's what I'm going to share with you now. Enjoy!

First up, American Apparel African Violet. I really thought this one would be closer to CND Eclectic Purple than it is. It's actually pretty close to Celebutante though. I think I can leave this lemming be for now. =)

Next up, OPI What's With the Cattitude? I really, really though that Nicole by OPI Baby Blue was a dupe for this one. Turns out, I was wrong! I probably should have done three coats of WWTC, but still... these are not dupes. At all.

Then I compared WWTC to Color Club Factory Girl. Closer, but still no cigar. And Factory Girl has a terrible formula to boot. This is three coats, and it's STILL a streaky mess. I'm banishing Factory Girl from my stash, I think. Yuck. And I need to get my paws on What's With the Cattitude!

My next comparison is OPI Sparrow Me the Drama. I'm not normally a fan of pink, but I have had a bee in my bonnet about this shade ever since Cilucia posted her swatches. I went to Ulta specifically to buy it, and ended up walking out with this Ulta shade instead. In the bottle, they are very, VERY similar. They're even close on the nail, but again, not quite a dupe. I think I'm happy with the Ulta one, though. I think.

And lastly, OPI Planks a Lot. Sinful Colors put out a display called Adventure Island, which was a blatant rip off of the OPI Pirates of the Caribbean collection. This is the purple that corresponds with Planks a Lot, a lovely shade called Verbena. Again... not dupes. Verbena has a really great formula, especially for a polish that was only $1.99. But I may yet add Planks a Lot to my stash!

I have to say, this was a brilliant idea. I had so much fun playing around with this and picking out the colors to compare! Thanks for thinking of it, Jen! ♥

Blue Ombré Mani

om·bré (äm′brā′, äm brā′)
adjective

shaded or graduated in tone: said of a color

I've wanted to do an ombré mani for ages, but I never could seem to get the right five colors lined up to make it work. With the addition of Sinful Paradise to my stash, I had the perfect mid-range blue to do my first one! These are the colors I used:

And here's what I ended up with:

I love this to bits. I need to get the shades I need to make this happen in purple and green too. ♥

I know it probably only needed one pic, but I was having too much fun admiring it!

Plus it's my blog, so I guess I can do whatever I want! XD

Thanks for stopping by, y'all!

Sinful Colors Paradise

Last night in Walgreen's, I spied what I thought was a new Sinful Colors shade by the name of Paradise. Sinful is notorious for re-naming and re-promoting old colors, so I can't swear that this one is brand new, but it was in the new Beverly Hills display at my Walgreen's. I didn't think that I had a dupe for this one in my stash, so I went ahead and bought it. At $1.99, these can be very hard to resist!

What a great polish. It's a bright true blue, that doesn't really lean into turquoise or teal territory at all. I find that Sinful has really improved their formula lately too - I used to have issues with them being either too thin or too thick, but this one was really perfect, easy to work with, and I had to do very little cleanup.

The closest thing I have in my stash to Paradise is Zoya Yummy. I checked my stash for dupes AFTER I had done a full mani (duh), so I'm afraid this comparison is on a nail wheel. But I figured a nail wheel comparison was better than none, so here it is!

Sinful Colors Paradise vs. Zoya Yummy

As you can see, Paradise is lighter and brighter, and I'm actually quite happy to have both of these in my stash. Your mileage my vary, of course. =)

Hope your Sunday is going well, and that you're having a great 4th of July weekend. As always, thanks for stopping by!

Trying to De-Dupe My Stash - A Bunch of Comparisons

I've been working on my stash a bit lately, getting rid of the things I'll never wear again, and my project tonight was to actually swatch some of the polishes I have that look so close to each other in the bottle. I found doing this really, really helpful, and I hope it helps you guys out too! =)

China Glaze Tree Hugger vs. China Glaze Entourage

My verdict:  They are close... very close. Tree Hugger has more straight out shimmer, while Entourage is more of a glass fleck. Entourage also has a little less yellow, so it's more flattering on me. It gets to stay.

CND Eclectic Purple vs. Zoya Kieko

My verdict:  I really struggled with this one trying to convince myself they're different enough to keep both. They're not. The CND stays.

OPI Jade is the New Black vs. Ulta The Jungle Look

My verdict:  These might as well be the same polish in different bottles. I'm leaning towards keeping the OPI, but I really do like Ulta's brushes more. I dunno. One is definitely going though.

OPI Malaga Wine vs. Zoya Stacy

My verdict:  I thought these were much closer than they actually are. They both get to stay.

China Glaze Turned Up Turquoise vs. Sinful Rise & Shine

My verdict:  I've seen a lot of people call these dupes, but in real life, they're actually not dead on dupes. The China Glaze is brighter with more shimmer. Having said that, though, they are too similar to keep both. Turned up Turquoise stays.

Orly Sapphire Silk vs. American Apparel Peacock

My verdict:  These are closer than I thought. Peacock is a little more vibrant, plus it's a one coat wonder, which makes it better for layering. It's hard to part with the Orly because I really love Orlys so much, but I really think Peacock is staying and Sapphire Silk is going.

OPI Yoga-ta Get this Blue vs. FingerPaints Artist's Sapphire

My verdict:  Much more different than I thought. They both get to stay. I'm sure they're thrilled. ^.^

China Glaze Rodeo Fanatic vs. Essie Dive Bar

My verdict:  I saved this one for last specifically to show how deceptive the bottle color can be. In the bottles, these look completely identical. They even both have the purple flash in the bottle that doesn't translate to the nail. But as you can see in the comparison, they are really not that close. Rodeo Fanatic stays for sure. I'm on the fence about Dive Bar. I think it's a smidgen too dark.