Cover Band Sticks and Stones Comparison to Candeo Colors Sprouse and Lush Lacquer Salt N Peppa

On Saturday I put a coat of Cover Band's Sticks 'n Stones as an accent on each ring finger nail on top of the Revlon Top Speed Chili that I had been wearing for a week.  On Sunday, before removing the polish, I added Candeo Colors' Sprouse to two different fingernails and Lush Lacquer's Salt N Peppa to another fingernail to compare them to Sticks and Stones.

Sticks 'n Stones is a copy (of sorts) of Lynnderella's Connect the Dots.  Sticks 'n Stones comes in a clear base, which I like.  It doesn't affect the underlying color, and the pattern comes across as very crisp.  The matte glitter is larger in Sticks 'n Stones than in the other two polishes.  Lush Lacquer's Salt N Peppa has a lot of colorful holo glitter large enough to show through and obscure the base color.  Sprouse has very tiny holo glitter that shimmers a little, and it has larger blue glitter.

I didn't have a problem with application, and the glitters dried relatively flat and were even smoother after a coat of Seche Vite.  I didn't have to fish for glitters.

My husband's favorite was the Salt N Peppa because it didn't "have all those 80's" bars and hexes.  My favorites were the other two, of course, *because* they have all those 80s-look bars and hexes.  In terms of getting the look of paint splatters that I like, I think the Sticks 'n Stones does it best with a little more white to it.  I do like the little blue hexes in Sprouse, though.

In each of the pictures below, I have base coat, three coats of Chili, a coat of Seche Vite, about four coats of Revlon Quick Dry Top Coat, a coat of each of the glitter top coats, and a coat of Seche Vite, and I had been wearing Chili for a week with no chips and just a little tip wear and shrinkage (from the original Seche Vite but not so much shrinkage from the Revlon Quick Dry Top Coat).

Outdoors in the sunlight (holding my husband's phone)

Top to bottom:  Sprouse, Salt N Peppa, Sticks and Stones, Sprouse.
I asked my husband if he could tell which two were the same, and he figured it out!

Top to bottom:  Sticks and Stones, Salt N Peppa, Sprouse.

Sprouse, Sticks 'N Stones, Salt N Peppa

Sprouse, Sticks 'N Stones, Salt N Peppa

In these last few pictures, you can see that the glitter lies flat.  There's a little piece of black bar glitter on one nail that was outside the polish area (near my cuticle, ring finger, last finger on the right in the photos), and I clipped it off easily later on.

Thank you for reading my blog!

Nail Mail and Nail Haul

So, I had not been buying nail polish for over a week.  It doesn't seem like a long time, but my buying polish whenever I wanted was leading to larger online orders and more purchases at my local stores.  I didn't want to have to buy more storage. . . yet.  And, I told myself that I couldn't keep spending lots of money on nail polish and instead should be buying work clothes.  I have not bought work clothes since July 2011, and I need some.  But, I also told myself that I don't go and get mani/pedis at a salon, so I'm saving lots of money there, and why not just buy polish bottles instead of getting mani/pedis at a salon, right?  As long as I didn't spend more than $95 per month, I figured it was O.K.

After not buying polish for at least 10 days or so, and planning to continue on my no-buy path, I got surprise nail mail on Thursday.  Essie and Tom's footwear got together on Facebook a few weeks ago to give away 15,000 bottles of a limited edition Essie polish:  Barefoot in Blue.  It's a perfectly smooth cream in the most dreamy periwinkle color.  And, oh, how I had been wanting a periwinkle blue!  I swatched it on a nail wheel right away!

Then on Friday, I had *more* surprise nail mail!  My aunt-in-law sent me three new amazing L'Oreal polishes with a very sweet note.  She sent me Now You Sea Me (an aqua polish), Greyt Expectations (a greige polish), and L'Orange (an orange polish).  I was ecstatic!!!  I didn't even wait to take off all my work clothes before swatching all three colors on a nail wheel.

Here are pictures of my nail mail from Thursday and Friday:

 

 

The colors IRL were in between the colors in the two photos above.

#13 is L'Oreal L'Orange.  #16 is L'Oreal Now You Sea Me.  #17 is Essie Barefoot in Blue.  #18 is Revlon Colorstay Indigo Night.

I *love* orange, and I was afraid I might have a dupe of L'Oreal L'Orange in my Essie Orange It's Obvious, but L'Orange is lighter and brighter than the untried Essie, and it's darker than my untried Wet n Wild Megalast Club Havana.  Yay, no dupes!  

Some of my orange polishes.  No dupes for L'Orange!

#1 is WnW Megalast Club Havana.  #2 is Essie Orange It's Obvious (NOT A DUPE!  YAY!).  #3 is OPI Cajun Shrimp.

Then I was worried the NYSM polish would be a dupe of one of my blues, but it wasn't.  It was much darker than a very pale and sheer no-name blue shimmer polish from Icing (untried), and it was darker than my untried Wet n Wild Megalast I Need a Refresh-Mint.  

#18 Warpaint Galaxy.  #1 Icing no-name light blue shimmer.  #2 WnW Megalast I Need A Refresh-Mint.  #3 Icing no-name blue shimmer.  #4 Icing no-name darker blue shimmer.

#18 Warpaint Galaxy.  #1 Icing no-name light blue shimmer.  #2 WnW Megalast I Need A Refresh-Mint.  #3 Icing no-name blue shimmer.  #4 Icing no-name darker blue shimmer

I only have one other greige, the Wet n Wild Megalast Wet Cement (that my husband *hates,* so this polish has gone untried, too), and the L'Oreal is different from the WnW.  The L'Oreal leans a little to the dusty pink side and is lighter than Wet Cement.  I didn't get good pictures of my WnW Wet Cement and my L'Oreal Greyt Expectations swatches yet.

Today I bought three Revlon Colorstay nail polishes at CVS and a Revlon Top Speed nail polish.  For buying $15 of Revlon, I got $7 in Extra Care bucks.  I also bought a Spoiled brand nail polish at CVS for which I had a $.50 off CVS coupon. They were running a buy two get one free sale on Spoiled, but I didn't see two other Spoiled polishes I wanted. The Revlon Colorstays were $7.99 each, the Revlon Top Speed was $5.99, and the Spoiled was $1.99 = $29 before tax.  I had $1 off coupons for all three of the Revlon polishes and the $.50 coupon for the Spoiled, which brought it down to $25.50.  I bought $15 worth of the Revlons first (two Colorstays and a Top Speed), got the $7 Extra Care bucks, and used those to buy the fourth Revlon (a Colorstay).  In total I used $16 of Extra Care bucks, which brought down the nail polish cost to $9.50 cash out of my pocket.  That's not too bad!  Four beautiful polishes for $9.50 (before tax)!  Yay!!!

The first two colors I bought were Revlon Colorstay Indigo Night (I'm going to call it a dark periwinkle, but I am not good with color descriptions) and Coastal Surf (a sky blue).  I had wanted both colors since seeing them at another store a few weeks ago (when I made my last nail polish purchase before briefly going into no-buy status--what I bought then was a Revlon Colorstay polish at CVS that with coupons and discounts and Extra Care Buck rewards was actually a money-maker, so that was a no-brainer to "buy").  

My husband picked out Revlon Colorstay Bonsai (green with gold shimmer) for me.  The most beautiful polishes I own were picked out by my husband.  He's come a long way.  After years of only thinking in terms of pink and red and orange polish, in December he went out by himself and came back with the Sally Hansen nail strips in Teal with It, a bright, "electric" aqua blue.  I had mentioned once, in passing, how I was thinking of buying the strips.  And, that's how he is.  He surprised me with them the same day.  I wore them that night to the firm holiday party.  They matched my blue dress.  I got tons of compliments on that manicure, and it lasted about 11 days.  Since then my husband has picked out some gorgeous blue polishes and green polishes for me.  

The Revlon Top Speed I bought was Royal; I had been wanting it more and more each time I saw it on a new blog post. It's, as can be expected from the name, a royal blue.  The swatch on my nail wheel dried matte, but it doesn't seem particularly neon-like.

The last polish I bought today was Spoiled's Ants In My Pants, that I had wanted for a while, but I would do the old pick-it-up-and-put-it-back thing on every trip to CVS.  My husband picked Ants In My Pants today from the Spoiled display, and I took it as a sign from the nail polish gods and added it to my collection.  Yay!  Ants In My Pants is a re-release of the limited edition Wet n Wild release Behind Closed Doors, which is believed to be a dupe of the very expensive Deborah Lippmann Ruby Red Slippers.  AIMP has a black jelly base with red glitter in two different sizes.

Here are pictures of today's nail polish purchases:

Left to right:  Revlon Colorstay Indigo Night, Bonsai, and Coastal Surf.  Revlon Top Speed Royal.  Spoiled Ants In My Pants.

Not a great picture, but these are four of today's purchases swatched on a color wheel.  Left to right:  Revlon Colorstay Bonsai, Revlon Colorstay Coastal Surf,  Revlon Top Speed Royal, and Spoiled Ants In My Pants.

Another photo of four of today's purchases swatched on a color wheel.  You can't see Ants in My Pants too well on the right, but you get a different view of the Revlon polishes.

#18 is Revlon Colorstay in Indigo Night (not very color-accurate).  #13 is L'Oreal L'Orange.  #16 is L'Oreal Now You Sea Me.  #17 is Essie Barefoot in Blue.

I am going to paint my fingernails this afternoon.  I want to use a blue polish because a lot of the nail bloggers are wearing blue polish tomorrow for World Autism Awareness Day.  My husband said my new Revlon Colorstay Indigo Night was his favorite of all my new blue polishes, so that's what I will be wearing tomorrow.  I would have gone with a more wimpy choice of a lighter blue because I will be in the office tomorrow, but at least I don't have to go to court.  Usually I wear my blue polishes on my toes. I hope Indigo Night doesn't stain too badly!

My pictures aren't the best.  You can Google all of these colors and see AMAZING swatches by the more experienced and very talented nail polish bloggers.

Thank you for reading!