THE NINETIES CALLED. THEY WANT THEIR FROST BACK.

I have no idea when or why I bought this, or why there is bottle puke on it, although that is presumably my fault.

  

Orly Rose Radiance with the zebra? tiger? stripes from MASH-41 in Sally Hansen Celeb City. Yes, I am stamping the hell out of that polish.

  

I kind of hate this polish alone, but stamping hides the brushstrokes and lessens the glare.

The stripes came out exactly as subtle as I intended. IT IS A SECRET TO EVERYBODY.

Beautiful and stylish bows added to hide random cuts sustained during a battle to the death against some evil or other.

WAIT WHAT: OPI Just Spotted the Lizard

Here we have OPI's Just Spotted the Lizard from the recent Spiderman collection of summer 2012. Another dupe for Chanel Peridot, it has proven rather popular. I had almost given up getting my acquisitive little fingers on it when it turned up at my salon. Consolation for a massive wax bruise in my elbow INDEED.

  

I wore it plain on the first day but kept picturing it stamped with the concentric ringy-dings from BM19. I have a hard time with full-nail designs, but that one is a little more forgiving than some. I had to apply extra little bits around the edges, and the uneducated eyes could not tell.

  

The color shift was not all that pronounced; it's a pretty color, but it's prettier in the bottle. As I have sworn a blood oath to collect all golden nail polishes, that does not necessarily disappoint.

  

You can still catch a glimpse of green in the right light, though. I think the right light is mostly found on Neptune in the spring.

  

I have no idea what lizards have to do with Spiderman and am betting >75% of people purchasing this polish don't either. DEAR OPI: WE NEED A SAILORMOON TIE-IN FOR SUMMER 2013 GET ON THAT SUZI PLSKTHX.

UPTOWN GIRL

These are from the China Glaze Fall 2011 collection, Metro. I suppose this collection is meant to be gritty? edgy? on trend? something like that. It offers a fairly wide range of colors. I'm trying to break away from my pink-red-purple-gold-teal rut and considered getting Westside Warrior, one of the newly popular puke greens (some people call this "olive"), and Trendsetter, which is sort of mustard (see Scrangie's lovely post here) but played it safe for this round.

I ordered these from Trans Design because a) the people who work at the Sally's Beauty Supply by my house are scary, and b) my Ulta gets its stock about eight months late. Also, Trans Design sells China Glaze for $2.99, and Sally's is $5.99 with the card if they aren't having a sale. So it tends to be cheaper even factoring in shipping. I visited a Sally's far away from my house today and viewed the puke green and the mustard in person. Trendsetter would look like my cat threw up on my hand, but I kind of did want Westside Warrior. I need to live more vivaciously.

Street Chic (Uptown)







This is a perfect dupe for Essie's Hot Coco. I wore the two alternating every other finger to work one day, and no one could tell. It's a deep taupe creme with a hint of purple; I think it dries a little darker than it looks in the bottle. Essie's formula is a smidge more runny than China Glaze, if it makes any difference to you.

Loft-y Ambitions (Downtown)








This is a nice burgundy creme. There are probably 347 dupes out there for this one too, but I don't own any personally. Like I said. It's nice.

Urban-Night (Uptown)








Lovely deep purple creme. Again, not that original. but I like it. I could probably wear it to work even if my office wasn't a freak show.

P.S. I'm such a murch that I didn't get the pun in the name until I'd worn it two days.


CG In The City (Uptown)










As you should know, I am ALL ABOUT THE GLITTER. This works well as a layer over any of the other polishes, as demonstrated above. I think it would take too many coats to be worth trying on its own. If you do, let me know.

COMING UP NEXT WEEK: Orly Mineral FX. In a word, SHINY.