Nubar Blue Hydrangea

I'm loving Nubar. I wish that they'd do more promotions because I'd be more apt to pick up some polishes. When they're already not easily accessible and you can only buy online, I think it helps to do something for customers that makes them want to pay and wait for shipping in addition to never being able to tangibly have the polish before purchasing. I know Zoya gets a little crazy with their promotions, but at least if Nubar had a free shipping promo for ANY order for a week or so, or 20% off ANY order, or something along those lines, I'd see myself more willing to buy polish.

But looking at some of their previous promos - 20% off retail orders of $50+ with free shipping on $40+ on VDay 2011, 30% on retail orders of $30 or more in November 2010, 20% on retail orders of $30+ St. Patty's 2010 - there has only been one promo this year so far, and all that I've seen require you to spend at LEAST $30 before you can get any sort of % off and at least $40 for free shipping. So you have to purchase at least 5 polishes for a % off and 6 for free shipping. I'd say 4 polishes for a % off, but their polishes are $7.49, they're not actually $7.50, which means 4 polishes only bring the total to $29.96. I find that kind of sneaky IMO.

So aside from the promo stuff, I knew when I saw swatches of Blue Hydrangea from their Spring Garden Collection, I had to have it. I don't really know why, it seems somewhat generic, but I really just fell in love with it.











2 coats Blue Hydrangea
1 coat Poshe

This polish is really gorgeous. It's a bright, pearly sky blue. When I say pearly, don't be apprehensive. It's hard to make a sky blue polish seem grandma-ish, and it's more pearly than frosty if that makes sense. The pearl in this polish is what makes it really pop. Instead of it being a simple, boring creme, going more extreme to make it a true shimmer, or changing the color by making it iridescent or duochrome-y, the pearlescent finish really makes this polish stand out. I LOVE it against my skintone, I find it to be very flattering.

The blue in this polish is very similar to OPI What's With The Cattitude. If you were looking for a non-creme version to WWTC, this is it. Not identical, WWTC is about 2 shades darker and slightly more green, but very comparable. And the formula on Blue Hydrangea is MUCH nicer.

The formula was very easy to work with. Completely opaque in 2 coats, it has a nice thickness to it, similar to the thickness of Orly polishes, but a little thinner. I did get some cuticle drag on several nails, but I definitely think that was my error and not the polish. It was easily corrected, though. The brush was nice and dense, with a good flare when pressed on the nail. I really liked this brush. It's generic, but that's a good thing. The other thing about the formula/brush is that despite the polish being pearly, there were NO brush strokes. Even before the top coat, there were no brush strokes.

OPI What's With The Cattitude vs. Nubar Blue Hydrangea Comparison





Direct Sunlight


2 coats of each

I woulda done this on my nails, but I'm actually wearing BH as my mani today, so I didn't want to take polish off and then reapply. Too lazy for that!!
Description between the polishes is above, but ultimately, in the sunlight, they look darn near identical (but they're not) save the pearly finish of BH. In different lightings, WWTC looks anywhere from 1-3 shades darker and just the slightest bit more green. As I said above, if you love the color of WWTC but don't want a creme, you have to have this.

Orly Ancient Jade Vs. OPI Mermaid's Tears Comparison

Something you should know about me. I'm cheap frugal. With that, I hate buying polishes that are dupes or WAY close. I see no need. I definitely have a polish obsession, but in this aspect, cost outweighs owning polish. And I don't like to buy a polish that I essentially already have. Definitely nothing against those who do!! Thank goodness for those of you that buy dupes. If you didn't, I'd never get to see comparisons of similar polishes. Thanks to those of you who do buy dupes, I was able to pick Essence Choose Me! up instead of OPI Catch Me In Your Net or Zoya Charla. I was able to pick up Revlon Electric instead of Chanel Mimosa. You get the idea.

So, unbeknowst to me, I bought some dupes. Obviously as the title suggests, those dupes are Orly Ancient Jade and OPI Mermaid's Tears. I picked up Ancient Jade (from the Precious collection) first back in February. I even used it in one of my posts. I later bought Mermaid's Tears in early May. I had seen swatches of MT online, and obviously I had worn AJ. I had not a FREAKIN' clue how similar they were. I hadn't even given it a second thought, honestly. In hindsight, I definitely thought AJ was much more green, and even when I heard rumor that they were dupes for each other, I just couldn't believe it. So I just had to swatch them together, and here's what I got.









In Direct Sunlight




2 coats Ancient Jade
2 coats Mermaid's Tears

Here's a photo of 1 coat of each for comparison:



So they're obviously really, really close. Complete dupes? I'd say no. Close enough? Absolutely. If you're like me like I said above, I would say you don't need both. They are so so similar. If I had to chose, I'd pick Ancient Jade.

Aside from the fact that I don't enjoy the ProWide OPI brushes, Orly won me over with the formula. Completely opaque in one coat, not streaky, easy to use, just awesome. I used 2 coats of each in the photos for a more true comparison. OPIs was fine, too, but it did require 2 coats and if they were on the thinner side, you might've needed 3. I'd still say 2 coats is fine, though. Mermaid's Tears had the same applications as the other two polishes (Stranger Tides and Skull & Glossbones) I have from the Pirates of the Caribbean collection. Thin and watery, but opaque in 2 coats.

Color wise, anything I mention is SUCH a slight difference, so keep that in mind. By slight I mean if they were to go one shade different, they'd be identical. So MT is the slightest bit murkier while AJ is the slightest bit brighter. I'd also say AJ is about 1 shade more turquoise than MT. I think AJ has a more clean look than MT, and I think it's a little more striking. By striking I mean alluring. It has a demure brightness that MT doesn't have because it's more murky.

These photos do not have a top coat. I painted them as if I was going to use a quick dry top coat. I didn't wait for the first coat to dry fully before adding the second. I felt my nails about 15 minutes after painting them, and they're both dry to finger marks.

And can you tell how my middle finger nail and kind of my index finger nail are starting to curve inwards at the sides? Clearly my nails are a little too long for me and I need to file 'em down a bit. Lol. Eh, I'll get around to it eventually.

Swatches and Review - E.L.F. Spring Finds/Summer Essentials 5 pack

This is a 5 pack of ELF Nail Polish that is available on the ELF website as well as Target.com and in Target stores (If you go to the Target.com link, you will be able to see if it's in stock in a store near you). It retails for $5.00, making each polish only $1 each!!

The 5 polishes it includes are:
Blue Mist
Lilac
Mango Madness
Fuchsia
Purple Pleaser

Collectively, they all have a similar formula with the exception of Fuchsia, and similar brushes.

Formula
These were all fairly sheer shades, but certainly buildable. All are 3 coats except Fuchsia, which is only 2 and was definitely the stand out formula. Despite the sheer factor, they are so forgiving it's amazing. It is impossible to make these polishes uneven. As soon as you apply the next coat, it's weirdly self-leveling. It spreads out perfect, it truly is so cool.

Brushes
Definitely the down fall of the polish. The brushes were pretty horrible all around, but Fuchsia and Purple Pleaser really had problems. The brushes as a whole I find similar to the defectiveness of MAC brushes. It's a wider, but entirely round brush with not very dense bristles, but the bristles are a bit thicker. You cannot fully push the brush to your nail or it will be a complete mess. You have to use a light, delicate touch.
Fuchsia and Purple Pleaser both had really wonky bristles. I had to trim Fuchsia, but Purple Pleaser was going to be way too much trouble to attempt to trim. Here are some photos:

This is Fuchsia. That's actually two longer bristles, they're just now sticking together. When I initially pulled it out, they were two separate ones. I thought maybe they were loose, so I tried to pull them. Didn't work. They were just longer than the others.


This is Purple Pleaser. The top of the side of the brush is not a clump of polish. That's a squiggly bristle. You can also see a long bristle peeking out amongst the others. And you can see the awkward shape of the brush at some angles.

Onto the swatches and reviews on each polish.

Blue Mist









I also threw some comparisons up because I was even sort of curious. Blue Mist is a very fresh and clean creme with a little bit of murkiness that you can notice in the comparisons, but not so much on it's own.
MCA is much brighter, and ironically, bluer than BM. BM is murkier in comparison, and is slightly more green/sage, though I would still call it blue as it's main color.
FA isn't even close, but it looks like BM has some of the green undertones that FA has.
I added Ancient Jade because I also wanted to see it next to FA. It's definitely a dark cousin of Blue Mist and I think BM and AJ look very complimentary.

Lilac





Unfortunately, I don't have any other lilacs that someone might want to see compared to this (I'm thinking OPI lavenders/lilacs like DYLI or Lucky Lavender or Panda-monium Pink or RW).

On it's own, this is a gorgeous spring lilac creme that has a sort of dusty quality. This seems like a pretty true lilac, but with less pink and more purple. It is certainly muted and not bright, but still beautiful. I definitely like this color.

Mango Madness





WOW!! This is a pretty bright color. It is not true to bottle, it is definitely brighter and more orange on the nail. It has almost a jelly quality to it. If you want it to look more jelly and you're okay with VNL, 2 coats would definitely give that effect.
I'm calling this a bright (almost neon, but not there) orange coral with pink undertones. This is an awesome summer color. I was fearful for a moment that it might look too orangey or Halloween-ish, but it definitely does not.

Fuchsia





Definitely my favorite of the group!! You have no idea how badly I wish I could compare this to OPI Houston We Have A Purple from the new Texas collection. But from swatches I've seen, this has got to be an incredibly similar polish and dupe-ish. This is a creme, but like Mango Madness, it has a jelly quality to it that I think helps it look so similar to HWHAP. Fortunately for me, I really wanted HWHAP and I even planned on picking it up today at Ulta, but now I'm not going to. Would be great to be able to compare, but I'm so frugal that knowing I have a color so similar that only cost $1 is good enough for me!!

This is a a blue/purple based (rasp)berry crossed with a little fuchsia that is so gorgeous. I know I keep talking about how amazing each color is, but they really are. I'm sure they're all dupe-able, but the fact that this is probably the cheapest of these colors you'll find, I think the importance is on the fact that they themselves MAKE great dupes.

Purple Pleaser





First, let me apologize for the messiness. I don't ever clean up (unless I'm water marbling), and the brush on this was just that bad.

I don't really know how to describe this color. I guess just a red based purple. The photos are pretty darn true to color. Again, this is a creme but does have a jelly-ish feel to it.

Oddly enough, I had initially thought this was dupe-ish for HWHAP. (Is it too obvious that I really want that polish?) Some photos look like Fuchsia, others look like Purple Pleaser. Because of this, I decided to compare Fuchsia and PP:



(Purple Pleaser on index and ring, Fuchsia on middle and pinky)

They clearly look entirely different. It's so interesting to see how different polishes look on their own and compared to another polish. The pink of Fuchsia becomes very apparent, and that makes PP look more like HWHAP.

Overall

Unless you know you have perfect dupes of these colors already, I highly suggest picking this up. The bad brush quality can be overlooked by how even the formula is and how gorgeous the colors are. Collectively, this is a great pack of classic yet currently popular spring and summer colors. If you can get your hands on it, buy it!

Wet 'n' Wild Starry Night

I was in a Christmas Tree Shop a few weeks ago and I saw they had these random packs of super old drugstore nail polish. They were in these clear zipper makeup bags shut with zip ties and each contained 10 polishes for $3.99 I believe (coulda been $4.99). The polishes were all random in the packs, so I dug through probably about 100 of them before I found one that had a good deal of colors I liked. I thought about undoing the zip ties and making my own, but I just couldn't do it.

I picked up one that contained these polishes:



The one that really stood out to me was that Wet 'n' Wild blue jelly with silver and blue microglitter. Sound familiar to anyone? *cough*Essie Starry Starry Night*cough*.
Upon getting home, I was able to read the name (I couldn't see the name in the pack). It's called Starry Night. How ironic.

Here's a nice close up of the bottle:



Now, I don't have SSN to compare it to, but from the photos I've seen of it, it's pretty close. It looks like SSN has more glitter, and I think the blue might be a little different. Some of my photos look just like certain SSN photos, but others are a little different. I'd say while it can't be an exact dupe, if you have a CTS near you and you don't have SSN and want it, you need to buy this immediately.

I want to mention that I have yet to have a polish photograph as insanely well as this polish. I literally wanted to use every single photo I took of it!! But I limited it to 6.

So what do you think of my knock-off SSN? This is 3 coats and 1 coat SV.













This photo shows a nice close-up of the jelly-ness and the blue and silver glitter.