swatch: opi the show must go on!

the day after thanksgiving i wore opi the show must go on!, which quite frankly, i hated... screamingly bright pink-orange foil is so not my scene:


this polish applied smoothly (two coats are shown above), and i know many people love this shade, but again, the color really just isn't for me. i'm actually somewhat relieved, as i bought mac bad fairy right when it was released but never wore it because i was disappointed by the murky/muddy quality it had. at the same time, however, i was hesitant to jettison something so highly coveted without even a cursory swatch. but now i can safely assume that i won't like bad fairy either and can feel comfortable offloading it!

boy says: "that looks finely textured, like pink aluminum foil."

swatch: bloom bianca

bloom polishes unfortunately aren't available in the u.s., which is a shame since i've had my eye on a few for a while! luckily, i was able to score this one through a swap:


the consistency of this polish is a bit odd - it felt like i was spreading a gel over my nails (and a fairly sheer gel at that, as bianca required three or four coats for opacity depending on the thickness of the coats i used). the color is soooo worth it though... i have mermaid nails!

bf says: "your fingernails look like the shells of ten jade turtles."

swatch: rescue beauty lounge scrangie

this color is absolutely beautiful in the sun; the duochrome comes alive and the individual shimmer particles can be seen distinctly. however, i'm not in the sun that often (especially not in new york in november), and in the shade i like this polish much less. in the absence of sunlight, scrangie's shimmer appears frosty rather than particulate, and the duochrome effect becomes so subtle as to just make the base purple color look dull and muddy. both of these issues are completely understandable and couldn't have been avoided in the creation of this polish (or for that matter, any duochrome shimmer), but they're still issues that make me eager to change my mani and remind me why i don't normally do duochromes.

application on this was great, just like i'd expect of an rbl - three thin, easy coats to perfection. i know some girls on the nb reported that their bottles were streaky and chunky, resulting in bald spots and the need for "impossibly thick" coats, but i had none of those issues.

by the way, for those of you wondering how this compares to brucci typhoon lagoon, i did a comparison here.

bf says: "holy moly i like that np." (yes, he's also started shortening "nail polish" to "np." ha!)

comparison swatch: rescue beauty lounge scrangie and brucci typhoon lagoon

just did this for one of the nb girls, so figured i'd post it here as well.

scrangie is on my index and ring fingers; typhoon lagoon is on my middle finger and pinky. irl, they generally appear more different than they do in this pic (i think because the shimmer takes over in photos and makes it harder to see the differences in base color), but at some angles/in some lighting they do look quite similar.

main differences:

- opacity: this swatch is 3 coats of scrangie and 4 of typhoon lagoon. i bet scrangie would've only needed 2 though, had i been more careful.

- shimmer particles: the shimmer in typhoon lagoon is more "frosty" (which imo makes it more cheap-looking), whereas the shimmer in scrangie appears in larger, distinct particles. this difference is seen better in the pic below than in the one above.

- color of shimmer/duochrome effect: typhoon lagoon's is plain light blue, whereas scrangie's is green/greenish (which makes it, imo, more interesting).

- base purple color: scrangie has a slightly darker purple base color than typhoon lagoon, and then the fact that scrangie's shimmer is in particles rather than an all-permeating frost makes it look darker still (because the overall appearance of the polish isn't lightened by the shimmer in the way that typhoon lagoon's is). here's a pic that shows this well:

overall, i greatly prefer scrangie, not only for its ease of application but also for its darker purple color and its distinct shimmer particles rather than frosty appearance.

swatch: l.a. girl rock star punk

i've been wearing this for the past couple of days and i really like it (although i'm about to change to a pink or coral creme, i think - craving a return to my np roots). it's blue with a strong purple duochrome effect and gorgeous large shimmer. this polish went on quite sheer at first, so i used three coats in these photos.

here it is in natural light, on a very overcast day:

and here's a pic taken under my desk lamp that really shows the purple duochrome:

by the way, if you get this at forever 21 (which is where i got mine - trying to delay a cherryculture order as right now i have >100 untrieds), this is simply labeled "blue."