Creme
Lippmann Holiday Sets Starring "Party Like A Rockstar"
So you’re looking for that perfect gift or stocking stuffer for your BFF or fellow fanatic. Maybe you’re doing an online secret santa through MUA or another forum. Well if your giftee is a nail girl like me, you really can’t go wrong with a present from Lippmann. Deborah Lippmann always comes up with the cutest sets and this year is no different.
When I saw the Party Like A Rockstar ($24) set online, I just had to get my paws on it. Mini LE Lippmann’s in a fun, sparkly bag, I’m sold! Plus it comes with Addicted To Speed top coat which I’ve been dying to try after reading raves on the MUA nail board.
Good Girl Gone Bad should definitely become a permanent shade in the Lippmann lineup. It’s a gorgeous berry sparkler. A heavily pigmented jelly type formula, this baby is packed with gold and red micro-glitter that dries smooth and shiny. I actually wore this for five days with NO top coat and it looked fresh the entire time with minimal tip wear. I honestly can’t praise this one enough. Please Deborah Please! Make This Perm!!
Devil In A Blue Dress is a dark blue-black creme. It’s ultra vampy but unless you’re in direct light, you’d never know it’s a blue. As you’ll notice in the pic, I had some pulling at the cuticle on my ring finger. I did this mani relatively fast and didn’t have time for a retry so it’s probably due to my own impatience. The other nails came out perfect. Does this color thrill me? No but, I have more blues than I could ever need. If your collection needs rounding out, this would be a great fit.
For me, Good Girl Gone Bad, Addicted To Speed and the cute bag (it’s now living in my purse filled with makeup) are reason enough to pick this set up. Addicted to Speed is a great quick drying top coat that, unlike others in its class, isn’t thick. So there’s no application tricks necessary and it wears like a dream. It really is a winning top coat even though the full size price tag is a bit hefty ($20). For now, I’ll just hoard the mini for times I really need to be dry in a flash and have my mani last.
So instead of an everyday pair of slippers, why not give something a little more pampering and luxurious like the Footloose ($29.50) loofah pedi slippers. They have natural loofah insoles that gently exfoliate your feet to ward off dead skin and stimulate soft, healthy skin. Or a pair of Bootylicious ($48) warming spa booties. You just warm the removable lavender sachet in a microwave oven for one minute and place in the booty for a hot aromatherapy treatment. They’re definitely going on my wish list.
If the Party Like a Rockstar colors aren’t quite what you were looking for, Lippmann has a bunch of different gift sets to fit any nail style.
The Pump Up The Jam Trio ($40) comes with Sarah Smile and Hard Rock hydrating nail hardener so you can go pretty and pink for day and dark and vampy at night.
The Superstar Trio ($40) and Holiday Trio ($40) both come with Rehydrating base coat and On A Clear Day top coat. Superstar and Holiday, from the limited edition Holiday color collection, are great choices for that blinged out party look.
Then there’s the Material Girl Essentials Set ($49) which includes Rich Girl hand and cuticle cream, 3 Stripper To Go pads and bottles of Cuticle Oil, Sarah Smile, My Old Flame and Hard Rock all in the plush Material Girl bag. It’s a great way to introduce your friends and family to Lippmann products with great classic nail shades.
For the more subtle nail look lover, pick up the An American In Paris ($21) french manicure set with bottles of Prelude To A Kiss, Amazing Grace and a Top/Base coat combo.
Right now LippmannCollection.com is offering FREE SHIPPING on ALL orders, for a limited time, and any order over $99 receives a set of Heaven In My Hand hand warmers (a $39.50 value). You can buy Lippmann products in person at Bath and Body Works flagship stores and Nordstrom.
Rescue Beauty Lounge for Fall/Winter 2008
Since previewing the Rescue Beauty Lounge Fall/Winter collection to you a little over a month ago it has already sold out once on the RBL site. Talk about a hit! Ji Baek’s vision of “luxe grunge” has come to life with these four creme polishes.
I was beyond excited to have the opportunity to test these beauties out and they all wowed me in different ways. I’ve been having this total nostalgia for the early 90s and my days of living in flannel, Birks and grunge gear after reconnecting with some of my college pals on Facebook (that site is totally addicting), and these colors fit right into that. They have this gritty, dusty, funky vibe that I’m so feeling. The creme finish makes them chic, not at all garish.
Plie is a re-promoted muted beige pink. It’s a great daytime neutral that is so out of my wheelhouse yet I’m oddly drawn to it. It was actually the first color I put on from this set and that’s so not me. I think because it doesn’t feel all super girly and frou-frou. Just elegant and classic. And for being such a light color, I was impressed with its opacity.
Bruised is a red based browned plum though I don’t really get the name. I bruise so easily and heal terribly that I could only wish my bruises had such a pretty color. I mean, when you have marks that last six months (and I’m not exaggerating) you’d much rather them be somewhat attractive. Anywho, Bruised applied like a dream and hardly needed two coats.
Teal is the hands down winner here though I’m sure you all knew I’d say that. It’s a blend of my two favorite colors, blue & green. How could this not be a knockout? It’s the color of the lake just before a storm. All murky and creepy yet stunningly gorgeous. I wore this last weekend and loved every second of it. Need I say more?
No More War – OK I know what you’re all thinking. Split pea soup. I’m not denying that. It’s totally fugly and crazy looking but you gotta give the girl props for going way outside the box on this one. I mean, who has this color in their nail arsenal? And that’s exactly the point. This is the polish version of Tyra’s “ugly pretty” on ANTM.
The Rescue Beauty Lounge Fall/Winter collection retails for $18/ea and is available now on RescueBeauty.com. Though as an added bonus, from now through 10/31/08, get FREE SHIPPING when you order the Treatment System. Considering how much we all bitch about shipping costs, that’s a sweet deal. I’ve heard good things about the Treatment System so now would be the time to jump on it.
Lippmann Collection for the Holidays
Deborah Lippmann was definitely in the party mood when she created her Holiday polish collection. For this holiday season, she’s got all your special occasion needs covered. Elegant and vampy, check! Blinged out, yep! Red and sparkly, got it! Light and frosty, done!
Following the Lippmann tradition of naming her nail polish creations after songs, she certainly made some interesting choices this go round. Though I’m not quite sure which version of “Maneater” she’s referencing: Nelly Furtado or Hall & Oates (did I totally date myself?).
Superstar consists of a milk chocolate brown creme packed with copper glitter. Very unique. It’s opaque with two coats but unfortunately, when you apply it, the glitter rests on top making the surface really rough. Two coats of Seche Vite made it smooth, which looks Ah-mazingly fun but, that’s a lot of bother unless you are a glitter fanatic.
Icing On The Cake is a frosty, light pink; a perfect compliment for the icy winter. It’s not something I’d wear but it’s a great evening option for women who normally wear neutrals and pinks. Now because this is a frost, application is tricky. You have to be real careful with your brush strokes.
Maneater is a deep dark chocolate creme. It’s definitely what you would call an “almost black.” My issue was that it required three coats. It was just too streaky to get it even in two. It could just be my application but due to that, it’s a pass for me.
Holiday is my hands down winner of the four. Though I’m not usually into reds, I do get drawn to them around holiday time. It’s all red and green for me and the glitzier, the better. So this color is right up my alley. The base has a jelly quality, similar to I Want Candy from last fall, only more pigmented. Add to that a boatload of magenta micro-glitter and you have a hit on your hands deserving of the Madonna song it’s named after.
Speaking of “Holiday”… I can’t hear that song without thinking about Truth Or Dare. I’m kind of a harmony geek when it comes to music. I can’t sing to save my life but I love hearing people harmonize. It’s the one talent I wish I possessed. And I loved watching the backstage moments when Madonna and her backup singers would practice the harmonies from “Holiday” before going on. There’s a brief moment of it in the clip below.
The Lippmann Holiday collection is on sale now. It’s currently out of stock on the Lippmann Website but you can also find the brand online at Beauty.com and in stores at Bath & Body Works flagship locations, Barneys New York, Neiman Marcus and Nordstroms.
China Glaze Bahama Blues for Winter 2008
Kids, China Glaze keeps hitting it out of the park. I can’t even handle it. I’m already on serious color overload after Rodeo Diva and Operation Colour. Now a collection of all blues?? You know how I love my blues.
OK I know what you’re thinking. How many are repromotes, dupes, etc? China Glaze already has a bunch of amazing blues, how can they put out more? Well, I don’t know HOW they did it but I can attest to not having a SINGLE dupe for any of these shades. I own practically every blue China Glaze has produced.
For Winter 2008, China Glaze is whisking us away from the cold, drab bleakness and transporting us to the warm, vibrant tropics. Blue skies, sandy beaches, crystal clear waters. Can you feel it? Girls, I am so in need of a vacation. You don’t even know. As I was testing the colors, I couldn’t help but wish I was back in the Caribbean. On a cruise, a beach in Belize, a swim-up bar in Mexico, wherever. Get me out of the Cleveburg!
Bahamian Escape dries darker and more vibrant than the robin’s egg bottle color would suggest. It’s a very opaque creme that hardly needs two coats. As you can see below it’s not the Color Club Blue Light dupe I expected it to be.
Caribbean Blue‘s speckled silver micro-glitter is what drew me in. The color has a slightly dusty quality which keeps it from becoming garish. It’s my favorite color in the collection.
Blue Island Iced Tea will charm all of you Stroke of Midnight fans. It has the same micro-glitter packed jelly formula that made me fall in love with China Glaze in the first place. This unique deep sky blue has a foil-like finish depending on the lighting but it’s a bit sheer so you need an extra coat. Love it! LOVE IT!
Blue Paradise falls somewhere between cornflower and denim on the blue scale. Its metallic shimmer does equal brush strokes but if you’re careful they aren’t too problematic.
Bermuda Breakaway is a fantastic indigo creme. What some may call burple. It flowed fantastically on the nail. In fact it was thinner in consistency than Blue Paradise yet just as pigmented.
Calypso Blue is the only color that didn’t make me jump for joy. It’s a blue-black and we’ve seen a lot of those. Though I give it credit in its application, pigmentation and glossy finish. And while I didn’t have a dead on dupe, it’s so dark that only true fanatics could tell.
The Bahama Blues collection is on sale now at Head2ToeBeauty.com and 8ty8beauty.com. You can also find China Glaze at Sally Beauty and ULTA but call for seasonal collection availability.
Misa Poisoned Passion for Fall 2008
Jewel tones and vampy nail shades are carrying over from last Fall and Misa Cosmetics is putting their twist on the trend. The recently launched Poisoned Passion collection is a lineup of six rich shades. With five shimmers and one creme, these colors pack a lot of punch. They are all very lush.
The last time I reviewed a Misa collection, Love Connections, it was right after their switch to become Big 3 Free. You may remember that I was non-plused with the formula then but, I’m seeing an improvement in this new lineup. While I still had issues with application of a couple shades (Dying Love & Fatal Affair) the rest flowed quite nicely. One thing that has remained consistent is the high level of pigmentation. Each polish only required two coats.
Toxic Seduction – Let’s start out with my favorite color of the bunch. Of course it’s the green, duh! You might call the base color a blackened teal or blue-green but the hints of gold shimmer warm it up a bit. Though I wouldn’t say its a forest green. More like a franken of Gussied Up Green & Rodeo Fanatic. Regardless of how you describe it, I have just one word – WINNER! I looked for it’s closest living relative in my stash and found Poison Ivy from Nailed by Sleek UK (shown below).
A Sin Worth Committing’s base color is royal blue, like OPI Dating A Royal. No purple undertones in the slightest. It’s most definitely a superb navy shimmer however, I found that OPI Yoga-ta Get This Blue is close enough that you wouldn’t need both. A Sin Worth Committing is just a touch bolder.
Dying Love is a tricky one. Both in application and color description. I guess it’s appropriate for the punkiest color to be the problem child. Not quite jet black yet too dark to be gunmetal gray, Dying Love falls somewhere between Lippmann Hit Me With Your Best Shot and Sally Hansen Salon Black Orchid (a LE color).
Fatal Affair is similar to Misa Blueberry Glaze in that BG is a purple tinged blue and Fatal Affair is a blue tinged purple. Though the blue shimmer affected my ability to show the true color. It’s more purple in real life. Compared to one of my favorite purples, Misa Dreamy Purple, it is deeper with a red-violet base.
Forbidden Lust is a deep red based purple shimmer. Like a dark amethyst. In looking for a dupe, I found that it’s a deeper version of NYX Wild (#2 on the linked image).
The only creme in the group, Love Bite, is a vampy browned red. It’s bright berry base makes 2-3 coats necessary to achieve bottle color. I have to say that this is the one color I wasn’t all that jazzed over. As you can see below, it’s very similar to Misa Stiletto so not really a must have for me.
The Poisoned Passion collection is available for sale online at MisaCosmetics.com and Head2ToeBeauty.com.
So fanatics, what do you think? What did you/are you buying from the collection?
Lisa N.
Ms Meatballhead
Birdie
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