Inglot 955 with Nubar 2010

Given how much I wanted Sally Hansen Hidden Treasure -- and never found it -- I thought I'd be thrilled with Nubar 2010, which is a pretty good dupe for it. I wasn't unhappy with it but I was not... over the moon for it like I thought I'd be.

Also, it's hard taking good flakey photographs. Witness:

Inglot 955 with Nubar 2010 in the sunlight

Where did all the flakies go?!

Inglot 955 with Nubar 2010 in the shade

Ah ha! There they are. This is two coats of Nubar 2010.

Inglot 955 with Nubar 2010 in the lightbox

At least this photo is more in focus, even though the flakies do kinda wash out.

Psst. Wanna see why we should always proofread our writing?

Yup. And I don't have a good photo of this but where you see the letters "ngeles" at the bottom? That's not short of "Los Angeles" where Nubar is based. That's a misspelling of "Ongles".

About 75% of my Nubar bottles have these misspellings on them but it doesn't look like there's any pattern to it. So I'm guessing they caught this one awhile ago but still have the misspelled bottles left over somewhere?

Aug 9th (45m cardio+strength), Aug 10 (60m cardio+strength), Aug 11 (25m cardio). I know I've been wimping out by just doing mostly cardio lately... but Aug 11th was really funny because I basically downloaded my powerpoint to my iPad and rehearsed my entire talk (while talking aloud, to nobody, in the exercise room in my apartment building) while on the recumbent bike. It worked pretty well!!

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Some Inglot NOTDs: 955 and 943

Dude, Inglot! When are you going to put these online so I don't have to travel cross-country to get my paws on your polishes??

Inglot 955

Beautiful cornflower blue creme. A little hard to control when applying (just a teensy bit runny) but the short length of the brush made it easier on me. Three coats. Wore it with minimal tipwear for two days with Gelous bc and Diamont tc (before I layered it with Nubar 2010, which I'll be showing you tomorrow). It did, however, contribute more staining to my already-stained nails.

Inglot 943

Hello, yellow! Golden yellow creme. A three coats, I can't complain too much. There were one or two nails that needed a fourth. The first two coats are streaktastic but it settles down by the third. Even without topcoat, it was pretty nice and even on its own.

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My favorite almost-blacks

As promised (or perhaps "threatened" depending on how you feel about almost-blacks) here is a post featuring my favorites. Some swatches are new others have been posted before:

Groove Thang

(2 coats)

710


(2 coats)

Midnight Ride

(1 coat)

Cherry Tobacco

(1 coat)

Mystery

(2-3 coats - I don't remember)

Love the flakey glitter in this one. Ugh.

852

(3 coats)

Maneater

(3 coats)

Um espresso JELLY? Um Ya. Yes.



You know what, you guys? It's fine that you don't like almost-blacks. More for me.

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RBL polish comparisons - Dead Calm & Starfish Patrick

Continuing on w/ my RBL comparisons. In this set we have a 2 colors I love, and 2 formulas I don't.

Dead Calm

(1 coat)

Isn't this color gawwwgeous? The coverage of this polish is well documented and seriously impressive. However, my experiences with staying power left a lot to be desired. I had terrible tip wear w/in mere hours and over the course of 1 day I ran the polish brush over my tips 3 times to combat chipping and tip wear. Not happy.

Neon Sapphire

(Middle & Pinky Neon Sapphire - 3 coats; Ring Dead Calm 2 coats)

This polish is less than 1/10 the price ($1.50) of Dead Calm. The color is slightly lighter and doesn't dry well. But, at $1.50, at least you get close to the color without feeling the sting. Further, I didn't have the annoying tip wear problems.

I like how Flinty described the difference b/w (if I recall correctly) Mismas and Grape Pop. She said it was 6 times the price without being 6 times better. That's exactly what we have here: Dead Calm is 12 times the price without being 12 times better.

Inglot 710

(2 coats - Sorry fuzzy pic!!)

I couldn't help myself. I had to swatch my favorite dark blue ever. It is completely different (thus totally irrelevant) but it is just so AWESOME. Those of you who hate almost blacks, look away. I love you forever, 710!!! *hugs* Wearing this one makes me so happy. It dries to a satin finish but looks bonkers w/ a top coat. No formula complaints.

***

Starfish Patrick

(Middle and Ring 3 coats, Pink 3 coats over 1 coat Underware)

I don't actually have a color comparison for this polish. There is nothing else like it in my collection. I love this color sooo much; it leans on the orange side of peach. I recently swapped away Zoya's Maya; it was the only other jelly peach I had and it was way, way, way too pink to compare anyway.

Problems?

1. It's kinda streaky...Heh check the pinky - streaky color on top of a streaky white. All yours for 36 bucks! *rolls eyes*
2. It really does not dry well at all (much like the KleanColor). And yes, I've tried multiple top coats.
   

There are no comparison winners in this post. Until I get my hands on China Glaze's Peachy Keen, there is only 1 competitor in my orangey-peach challenge. And I do not believe in defacto winners unless the formula genuinely satisfies me (see NMW).

I cannot choose a winner in the dark blue category. 710 doesn't count (it is a navy - wrong color category). And I hate myself no matter which of the other 2 I pick. I choose Neon Sapphire and I groan about the dry time issues, the not as perfect color, and the kind of weird smell KleanColors have. I choose Dead Calm and I'm disgusted for picking anything so expensive and tipwear-y as a winner.

No winners!

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Tony Moly and Inglot swatches: ugh, I hate it when polishes don't have actual names

So far, I've found that a lot of non-English-language brands seem to ID their polishes by number. Probably because they were manufactured in other countries (South Korea and... Poland, respecitvely? Man, Polish polish? I crack myself up!) and maybe have names in other languages that no one has bothered to translate into English yet. Or at least, they're sold by the number when they reach the generally monolingual (and sadly so, since a heck of a lot of the world's population is bilingual) American populace. (Obviously, most nail polishes here are numbered -- we just know them as OPI "Kangarooby" instead of whatever number Kangarooby is.)

Reminds me of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, where not only buildings but MAJORS are numbered. (For those of you who have never seen the MIT campus, it is awesome: awesomely ugly but unendurably cool. C'mon, an auditorium that is one-eighth of a sphere? A building whose layout is a 30-60-90 triangle? The ridiculous Gehry building that looks like drunken robots dancing and, apparently, is not that well built? It's total geek chic.) When I was living in the metro Boston area, once in awhile, I would ask some MIT student what they were majoring in and they'd be like, "Course 9" and I'd be like, "Oh, I majored in cognitive science!"

(The Course 9 folks got a brand-spanking new building too in recent years: the Picower Center for Learning and Memory, which has this gorgeous glass atrium... and ugly ass decor otherwise. Here's a thing-you-did-not-know-about-Flinty: I love university and college campus architecture and landscaping. It says so much about what a school aspired and aspires to be. I joke that I chose my schools based on their beauty... except for my master's. That school was ugly but literally down the [very long] street and I wasn't ready to move away quite yet.)

Okay, enough about university campuses before I start blabbing about the masculine quad (a la University of Virginia) vs. a more sinuous feminine blah-di-blah (a la Wellesley College)...

Anyway, I do believe that my biggest mistake nail polish shopping in NYC was not to buy more Inglot polishes. For all their cost, they were beautiful polishes... and they're near impossible to get anywhere else in the US at the moment. Half of this thriftiness was because of the six I chose, four were out of stock. Half of this was because I was trying to conserve money. But I was near the beginning of my trip and was trying to save money, in case I came upon some big bonanza of nail polish. Which never happened. Thus, I accidentally saved money. Not willingly though.

Inglot 179

This was the least rose out of the three rose golds. As I've said before, I'm on the quest for the perfect gold (not kidding when I say I'm looking for a 24K) and I thought this is far too red to be a pure gold, it's got that burnished sheen that I love in real soft gold. It applied perfectly (even though I applied it carelessly), dried fairly quickly and really just made my day. It looks like it could burn me in the sunlight. I am not a fan of metallics so I'm all the more pleased with it: I love polishes that make me rethink my preferences.

Inglot's regular polishes -- of which they have an extensive line consisting of cremes, shimmers, metallics and what they're calling "mattes" (but I call "satin") -- are 0.51 fl oz. They have a series of very similar looking but actually quite different white/clear opalescent glitters, also in 0.51 fl oz. The flakies are... about half that. TINY bottles for $10 (same as the normal ones). The flakies (all meant to be topcoats) looked incredible and I was going to take the plunge and buy one but the one I wanted was OOS. Alas. I didn't have much hope for the opalescent glitters -- they look so much like all other opalescent glitters -- but I swatched them all anyway and a few hypnotized me into thinking that a glitter topcoat was worth $10. I ended up buying my favorite one:

Inglot XL4

XL4 consists of fine square glitter that reflects gold-bronze-pink-peach-green. The overall effect is an light orangey-green sparkly sheen. It could not be built up to opacity but that's okay because it's a great topcoat on its own.

Close up of Inglot XL4

For the above swatches, XL4 was layered over a Tony Moly polish, a South Korean brand.

Tony Moly MK10

MK10 is a smooth periwinkle creme. Fairly glossy but not jelly. Three coats but not entirely even application. Four coats would have probably been best for this one. I got these off of eBay from a South Korean seller for about $4-5 each shipped.

Tony Moly OC10

Teal creme that is practically a jelly. Three coats. Extremely smooth. This one makes me wanna buy a dozen Tony Moly polishes.

Stay tuned: my Obsessive Compulsive Cosmetics order has arrived and hopefully, if I get any work done tomorrow, I can start swatching them!!

Also, if you haven't already, please enter the BB Couture for Men giveaway! If you don't want the polishes, please comment on the reader request section of the sidebar which lesser known brand you'd be interested in seeing on Polish or Perish. It's always fun to find out what people are curious to see!

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Inglot's 852

3 coats.
Applied well. Dried quickly.
This is a black jelly with purple shimmer. There is a subtle multicolored shimmer as well.
The black jelly is predominant w/ first few coats. However, it purples up as the shimmer builds.

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Inglot's 806, 709, and 710 & Color Club's Fast Woman

I had a great time visiting Inglot on Thursday. I picked up 3 colors, 2 of which were mattes. I haven't actually worn any of these as NOTDs yet so I can't comment on staying power but I've swatched all three.

806 (& Color Club's Fast Woman on middle finger only).

(No top coat! Shiny shiny.)

Like gold, I am forever searching for a red creme that looks good on me. Too many that appeal to me are blue based and they look awful against my skin. In fact, I asked the woman that was helping me, a makeup artist, whether or not I was warm or cool toned and I explained that I was totally flummoxed b/c primary blue looks god awful on me but silver looks way better than gold. She laughed and said, "You are definitely warm toned. You have a lot of yellow in your skin. The silver/gold thing is not a universal rule." So mystery solved.

Anyway, she recommended this red to me and boy was she wrong.**** The camera is lying, the red looks harsh and makes my skin kind of jaundiced looking. Not quite as bad as Essie's Jelly Apple. But I would feel pretty weird wearing it. I think I'll actually attempt it as a mani one of these days to confirm that feeling before I put it up for swap.

I had also recently acquired Fast Woman and thought they looked reasonably similar in the bottles. Fast Woman is definitely more my color and significantly darker on the nail.

Application: Both are jelly finishes w/ 806 requiring 4 coats and Fast Woman requiring 3. Dry time for the Inglot was a bit quicker. Both applied quite evenly.

709 (top coat on index and middle fingers)

(Please forgive the crop. My whereabouts would be kind of ascertainable if I included the full pic.)

Ahhhh 709, pretty pretty 709. First my camera is lame, I tried very hard to get this to be color accurate inside on top of my white paper but no dice. So I took to my fire escape. Sunlight photos will be a very rare occurrence for me for a few reasons. First, NYC has decided to become Seattle and rain all damn summer. Seriously, it's raining right now. Second, my apartment only gets direct sunlight for about ohhhh 2 hours starting at 7am. Third, my only access outside (other than through the front door, and sorry I like nail blogging but not enough to walk down 5 flights) is through my rickety fire escape.

Even still the photo isn't quite accurate. The reality is sort of bluey purple and not quite so gray-ed out. It's close enough though.

Notice the finish. This is one of the mattes. All the mattes I saw in person at Inglot (the sales lady swatched about 6 or 7) had this satin-y finish. So for those of you looking for chalky, you wont find it here.

Application: This was 2 coats. It dried quite quickly. This color is a keeper!

710 (top coat on middle and index finger)


Lolol how mad was I at this polish. I swear, in the store I thought it was going to be the most beautiful deep, dark, creme purple on the planet. No dice.

Instead I get a really almost equally stunning navy blue. I'm not a dark blue girl but this one will get worn. As you can see it is almost black but this is a quality that doesn't bother me in the slightest. It is so rich.

Application: Not as good as 709. This took three coats and took much longer to dry.

****UPDATE (a few days after the orig post) - Ya I was way off on 806. I'm wearing it as a mani and it looks alright against my skin tone. It's not SO bad. What brought me around: It is the exact color of blood. I love that.

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Soo Nails' Gold and Blue Foil and Post-Bar Haul

(FYI - the 3rd polish from the left is wayyyyy more purple in person.)

Soo Nails' is a completely random brand of polish. It's distributed by some people in Brooklyn and I have never seen it anywhere except my very local (around the corner!) beauty supply shop. There is no mention of it on the internet. I'm sure, like most other local polishes, they buy colors from some manufacturer and slap their label on it. No matter. My shop charges 2 bucks a pop for them and they come in some pretty sweet shades.

I was really excited by the two colors on the left. I love foil finish and they looked really foily in the bottle. There was some mild disappointment when they came out much smoother and more metallic-y on the nail. However, that was offset by my giddiness about the gold one. I am forever searching for a gold polish that looks good on me. I love the color but they always end up looking kind of dirty and rank against my skin. This one has quickly risen to the top! It's a few shades lighter than Lippmann's Nefertiti - a color that is no good on me. I'm really mad at myself for getting it, I knew I should have gotten Believe instead but noooo I had to get the one more people mentioned. Ugh whatever, lesson learned.

They both went on really smoothly, were two coaters (or one thick coat), and they dried on their own crazy fast. I did a proper mani w/ these so I can't wait to see what the wear is like.

Things I did yesterday, my first day as a woman free of bar study:

1. Wake up after 10. The first time all summer. Glorious.

2. Wait for FreshDirect. If you ever move to the NYC area, bookmark that website. I love it. NYC grocery shopping is a bleak, bleak place unless you live close to a WholeFoods and I don't.

3. Get a pedicure. I hadn't had one in a month and a half. My feet looked like hell and I was sick to death of Zoya's Charisma on my toes (a color I do love). I had them do Milani's Disco Lights. (I'll spare you a pick of my feet.) I adore getting a uniform colored glitter on my toes. It wears like f*cking iron and it's nice and glittery without looking childish. NYC is home to a lot of airbrushed nails and toes - a look that isn't my favorite. I feel like I have as much fun looking at my toes as the airbrushed ladies do but I wouldn't feel weird breaking them out in a nice sandal at an event where I have to look reasonably adult and professional.

4. Go nail hauling. This was a very good time until I went to my last stop: My friend's apartment. He has a doorman so I had a bunch of polish shipped to him (so I wouldn't have to deal w/ a UPS nightmare). Picking up 6 nice polishes and another 6 cheapy polishes as a reward for a long ass summer was lots of fun. Collecting another couple dozen made me feel kind of bad about myself. I suspect I wont be buying any polish for a long while.

4a. First stop - my local beauty shop where I picked up 6 fun colors (4 shown above).

4b. Next stop - RBL near Chinatown. Yikes. It's located on a really quaint street that looks like rent would be reallllly pricey. But idk, inside the ~lounge~ didn't feel nearly as luxurious as I was expecting. High standards I guess for a place that charges, what, $50 for a base pedicure? Plus while the colors are even more gorgeous in person, the display bottles looked REALLY sad and old. They were separating and gunky and just... yikes. If I wasn't fiending for the SpongeBob collection like no other I wouldn't have picked up a thing.



4b. Next stop - Anna Sui in Soho. I didn't get anything. The polish offerings from Anna were kind of a creme lover's nightmare. I like sparkle and glitteriness well enough. But, I keep my fancy polish buying to cremes only. Idky.

4c. Next stop Sephora. Mehhhhhhhh. Other than the SSN knock off, I didn't buy a thing. And Sephora by OPI's Dark Room looked totally blah in person.

4d. Ricky's. I love this shop! They carry a bunch of different brands and even orly minis. I'm always happy in that store. The Ricky's in Soho was working extra hard for customers yesterday because they had a very wet looking and chubby gentleman stomping in high heels on a treadmill. (Googled pic but not from yesterday, he isn't nearly wet nor thrilled enough.) I was really impressed w/ his enthusiasm and energy. Whatever they were paying him, it wasn't enough b/c the A/C was severely lacking inside. No buys.

That was it for me in Soho. I couldn't have gotten out any quicker. I really effing hate that place.

4e. Next to Inglot. If Anna Sui is a creme lover's nightmare, Inglot is a sparkle lover's hell. Obviously it was my kind of place, rows and rows of beautiful cremes. I picked up 3 colors. 2 of which were matte. They took FOREVER to dry on the lady who was hard-selling me and I was happily obliging (I came in to buy). But I didn't CARRRREEEEE I loved the colors.



This morning, I'm much less thrilled. Mainly because the bottle on the right looked like a beautiful dark purple in the store. I pointed at and practically yelled, "THAT ONE!" as soon as my eyes landed on it. It still looks kind of purple in the bottle. But the pic makes it look more blue. And so I thought, eh I'll paint some paper to show ya'll that it is purple. Nope. Blue. My only hope is that after 2-3 layers it becomes more purple. It was unequivocally blue on the page.


(I'm rolling my eyes so hard at this polish.)

4f. Last stop - I went to my friend's apartment where I picked up an order from VNS and another site I completely forget the name of (who was out of stock on CG's Blue Island Iced Tea and glue resin and gave me a refund check for $6.50 in the order - crushing but I'm dealing).



5. Korean bbq w/ my bff, a fierce and hot public defender. Love hah.



FYI - Today is starting off equally good. I'm eating a burger and fries and having my favorite drink - a mint lemonade slushy.

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