The best color of the spring collections

I seem to be all about the superlatives lately.

I’m sure I’m not the only one to feel overwhelmed by the crop of colors released for spring.  Not just their sheer quantity, but many of the collections are quite exciting.  (I am, in particular, a sucker for gray nail polish, even though I own more than any one woman reasonably should.  I’m thrilled most companies are finally on board with this trend.)

But this color is special.  It has, justifiably, been getting raves and sighs and squeals all across the modest nail universe.  I myself audibly gasped when I took it out of its shipping crate.

Possibly the best holo in the history of mankind

Not to be dramatic or anything.

Nicole by OPI’s Seasons Gray-tings is surely a fine, fine specimen of a holographic nail polish if ever there was one. I’m hard to please when it comes to holos. I don’t like when they’re too chunky—it’s just an odd finish that feels garish. The OPI Designer Series really does nothing for me (except DS Diamond, which isn’t a holo). SG-T is nice and silky.

SG-T is also notable for it’s darkness. Despite dark and deep colors ruling the rest of the nail polish world, most holos haven’t caught up yet. SG-T is a dark charcoal purple, less brown/plummy and more opaque than OPI My Private Jet. It’s more purple that Color Club’s recently released Revvvolution. China Glaze Let’s Do It In 3-D, a dark gray, is far lighter than the other three and has the chunky, more glittery finish characteristic of the Kaleidoscope collection.

But SG-T is unique for another reason: it moonlights as a duochrome. It flashes purple, just at the crest of the holographic rainbow. The only other polish I know with this quality is OPI DS Illuminate, a caramel brown holo with grass green flash.

It is hard to imagine a company topping this holo. The base color is just right, the finish is divine, I don’t feel like a drag queen wearing it. It reminds me of TV static. Rainbow TV static.

Seasons Gray-tings is discontinued and semi-hard to find. On ebay it often sells for $20, which is a lot for nail polish but I think it’s more than worth it. Beg, borrow, or steal to get this color. In a few years you won’t be able to find it at all.

Life gets in the way

I’ve been quite busy as of late, lots of deadlines coming up.  So I’ll keep this short and sweet.

Hanover Square is AWESOME.  A perfect denim blue (hmm… marine blue?) creme, applies like a dream— only needed one coat.  Completely unique, I don’t own anything else like it.

Love, love, love this one.

Better Know A District: Basil Street

Basil Street: a street in Kensington.  Kensington: a posh part of London.  There is something timelessly posh about nude-colored tips.  Basil Street (the nail polish) is what some would refer to as a Band-Aid But Better (BBB) color— like coloring in your nails with skintone crayons, or taping them up with flesh-colored bandages.  Note that these items are never actually the color of human skin: too ashen, too rosy.  That’s kind of what makes them look so bizarrely cool.

When I first saw Basil Street I thought it might be a dupe of Rescue Beauty Lounge Opaque Nude, but it’s a fair bit darker than that.  Think more like RBL Grunge/Essie Jazz/OPI Tickle My France-y without the mushroominess, or Color Club Soft Soft Taupe with less pink.  There’s no perfect dupe of this in my collection, but a fair number of colors out there with the same basic idea. The non-British should not despair that this color is not easily procured in their neighborhood— they should save that devastation for some of the colors to come.

Better Know A District: New Quebec Street

New Quebec Street is a shopping district in Westminster, next to the city of London and part of Central London. That’s about all I could glean from my cursory web search.  Sorry I do not have anything more exciting to report.

On to the nail polish!  I’ve been debating how best to describe this color— ivory? Fresh milk? Soft blushing white?  Whatever you call it, it’s freaking awesome.  It’s right on track with the pale nail trend we’ve been seeing, but isn’t a harsh white-out white, or too pink.  One concern with pale colors is opacity— it seems that most nail polish companies think that if a customer wants white nail polish they must want sheer nail polish, and that’s certainly not true.  This makes shopping for pale colors rather nightmarish.

NQS doesn’t depart completely from this trend— it took me four coats, but I got rid of the dreaded VNL (visible nail line).  So much polish on the nail can lead to lumpiness, so use care when applying.  The flip side of this is the end effect is a jelly finish (like gelatin) rather than opaque creme, so if you get the application right the effect is really quite nice.  New Quebec Street passes the ultimate test of color perfection: I can’t stop staring at my nails.

A Walking Tour of London

I really wish we had something like a Nails Inc. in the States– imagine, an entire store devoted to lovely, trendy, and unique nail lacquer.  Unfortunately, Nails Inc. won’t even ship outside the UK.  I have come by the following colors only through the good graces of a fellow nailphile across the pond.

Seeing as how this is my first Nails Inc. excursion, and the colors that arrived are all so gorgeous, I decided to celebrate with a blitzkeig of swatching– all 11 colors in 11 days.  If possible.

I also decided this would be a good excuse to better know London.  These nail polishes are named after various neighborhoods across the city, about which I know absolutely nothing.  So I’ll be reporting (in a Wikipedia sort of way) little tidbits about these eponymous districts as we go along.

Here is a preview of the colors you’ll soon be intimately acquainted with.  First swatches will be posted tomorrow.

Nubar Teal Glitter

Animated for your viewing pleasure.  I used a tripod this time– I think that helped a lot.

That’s Nubar Lime Green Glitter on my thumb, which I’m meh about– it looks like fake yellow gold against my skin, rather than glorious chartreuse, which is what I was hoping for.  The Teal is fabulous though.

Click image for full size.

Of pimp cars and animated gifs

Nubar is known for putting out some of the world’s craziest duochromes. And duochrome isn’t even a fair term– tetrachromes is more like it.  In the case of Purple Beach, I count at least four distinct colors on my nails as I flutter them around: peridot green, beige-gold, violet, and magenta.  This finish, incidentally, has been popular this season on everything from patent leather ballet flats and coats.  My friend also pointed out that this paint job could plausibly appear on a pimp car.  OK, so it looks tacky on clothing and motor vehicles, but my tolerance for irony-in-nail-varnish is much higher.

Duochromes are notoriously hard to capture on static film.  Below, some still photographs and what I think may be the world’s first animated gif of a manicure (a notable distinction, to be sure).  The quality of the gif is by necessity lower than the jpegs I post, but if a picture is worth a thousand words, then an infinite loop of 8 pictures is worth (8000 * ∞) words.

Check out how different the bottles look if you put them perpendicular to the light source (L) versus parallel to it (R). They don’t even look like the same nail polish, do they?

And now the pièce de resistance, my first attempt at an animated gif. More sophisticated versions to follow. (I’ll be using a tripod next time, that’s for sure.)

Brucci Tommy’s Lane

Dark steely teal blue frost. This formula is very thick– you only need 1 coat, but I did 2 out of habit. It has a tendency to be streaky, but topcoat reduced this problem. The color is more than worth it!

Drug Store Skittles

Today’s modest skittle effort. Sneak A Peak is a pearly dove gray, part of the new collection from Barielle (available from their website or, if you are lucky, your local CVS).  NYC is also available at drug stores, although only a lucky few have received the rare gem Molten Metal.  Despite its name, MM is not a smooth liquid chrome, but looks closer to cinnamon sprinkled with fairy dust (use your imagination).  It’s not gritty, unlike a lot of glitter finish polishes.  Both of these colors are pure win.

I’d had this manicure on for 4 or 5 days.  Some tip wear but otherwise not too shabby.  I used Barielle camo + CND Stickey + 3 coats NP + Seche Vite.