I've been lucky enough to get my hands on quite a few of Britains more popular drugstore brands of polish. One of the brands that was on the top of my "UK Polish Wishlist" was Accessorize. After perusing the Super Drug website, I was completely smitten by the brand. So did Accessorize meet my expectations? Hmmm....

Let's start with the good.

Indigo

Accessorize makes a good variety of colors that aren't typical of those found in American drugstores. For example- how often do you find a soft peach creme shade in your local CVS? It's probably never happened. I can't think of a single one. But Accessorize not only produces those kinds of shades, but they also have a line of really incredible duochrome glass flecks. I am sad to report that I have not had the chance to try any of those out though :(

Coral Flair

Accessorize polish is also very pigmented. The colors are rich and opaque in 2 thin coats. The only one that I had an issue with was Apricot Crush, which requires FOUR coats due to streakage.

Now for the bad...

Apricot Crush The bottle size is a buzzkill. Being an American, I'm used to the standard .5oz bottles of polish, but that is not the standard in Europe, as I've noticed. Accessorize polishes are 10ml, which is small. This also means that the brush is small. And on top of that, the top of the bottle/brush is as wide as the bottle itself, which makes application a bit awkward. So in short, the packaging is not ideal.

Pillar Box

Accessorize retails for £4.00 at Super Drug in the UK. If you have the opportunity to try this brand, I would urge you to go for it. But be prepared to receive a tiny amount of product in an awkward bottle ;)

Happy Halloween to all of you who actively celebrate it. I rarely do anything special for Halloween myself. Last year I went to a party and drank almost an entire Heineken mini keg that was strapped to someones back (he was dressed as a scuba diver). Each time I went to fill up my cup, I'd ask if I could "tap that ass" (Get it? Hur hur derp). I spent the entire next day hating myself and nursing a hangover. This year I'm curling up in bed with some Real Housewives instead. There's slightly less self hatred involved in that. Slightly. 

It's winter already here in Boston. Last night it snowed, and I had to turn my heat up to 75 degrees this morning. I now have to do swatches between the hours of 12 and 4pm due to the dwindling daylight hours. 

Bottom Line:
Vamp Red isn't a totally unique color or anything, but I'm glad I bought it. Application is better than many other wine shades I've tried, and it only costs $1.99. Plus it comes in that cute tombstone bottle.

I took some photos of a few more Halloween polishes that I bought this week, but I'm really unhappy with the pictures and will have to re-swatch over the weekend. *sigh* I was all set to make 3 posts and schedule them to post all weekend and then my shitty photography skills ruined everything. To be fair though, it's half my cameras fault. It hates red :(

Luckily though, I did manage to get some decent photos of Sinful Colors' San Francisco. If you're looking for a cheaper alternative to some of the holly jolly Christmasy greens coming out, just head on over to Walgreens and pick this up.

Color:
An emerald green super shimmer.

Application:
It's a bit sheer, but easy to control. Requires 3 coats for opacity. Dries a little slower than I would have preferred.

Downside:
Brushstrokes, brushstrokes, brushstrokes! Some people don't mind them, but I absolutely loathe visible brushstrokes. To me, it ruins the whole look. And as you can see, San Francisco is plagued with them. This is a classic example of why I normally steer clear of shimmers. HOWEVER...something about this color makes the brushstrokes more tolerable. Maybe because it's so festive looking???

Bottom Line:
When it comes to Sinful Colors, it's basically a hit or miss. Some of their polishes are fantastic. Others get thrown in the untried pile and remain there for months and months because they just don't measure up. But hey, what can you expect for $1.99?

San Francisco is a hit rather than a miss. Yeah, I dislike the brushstrokes, but it's still a stunning color. I do think it's a color best left to the holiday season though.

Yesterday I took a quick trip to Rite-Aid while I was out running some other errands. I was searching for the pumpkin polishes, but they were nowhere to be found. All was not lost though, because I finally found Sally Hansen's Pumpkin Spice and was able to pick up a few other polishes as well. One of which is called Utopia from Petites.

Color:
Bright teal green that I guess could be classified as glass flecked, but the effect isn't quite as strong as most of my other glass flecked polishes. I suppose it just has more regular shimmer and less glitter than some others.


Application:
Very smooth and easy to control. It's pretty sheer though, so I used 4 thin-medium coats. Drying time was a tad longer than I'd have liked. The wrinkle you see on my index nail is due to the top coat I used (Revlon Quick Dry), but that's a story for another day...


Downside:
This actually has a duochrome effect. Or...at least it DID have a duochrome effect. In person you can see it in the bottle and again when you first apply it to the nail, but for some inexplicable reason it disappeared after a few hours. I know I'm not imagining things. It's a really pretty purple flash and I planned on having beautiful pictures of it. What the hell happened?! Where did it go?!


Bottom Line:
Jessie's Girl (also sold at Rite-Aid) has a much better teal glass flecked polish. It's called Glee. I'd recommend that one over Utopia due to it being much more pigmented and blingy. The reason I bought Utopia was due to the purple flash it had in the bottle...but, as I said, it disappeared. Not a bad color though. It's just not what I expected it to be.

- Midnight Manicures has great nail art on her blog. I especially love the blood spattered skull design.

- Fellow Bostonian, Alexisaurus, has the coolest zombie nail art up right now. Can we get a tutorial, Alexisaurus?  :)

- Fingers did an intricate spider web design that makes me a little jealous.

- Rin doesn't seem to have done any Halloween designs just yet, but she's super nice and has great swatches.

When the new collections come out I usually don't feel compelled to buy every single shade. ChG's Metro Collection was no exception. But there were a few in there that I had to have. Trendsetter was #1 on the list. Every swatch I saw made me freak out in anticipation. It did not disappoint.

Color:
This is a mustardy pea soup green with golden shimmer. Normally a pea soup green polish would come off looking funky and "alternative" (for lack of a better word). This doesn't because it has a lot of warmth to it.

Application:
China Glaze almost always hits the mark when it comes to formula, and Trendsetter is certainly no different. It applied like a dream. It's super easy to control, not streaky, and opaque in 2 coats. Drying time was average.

Downside:
None here.

Bottom Line:
I'm not sure what else I could say about this that I haven't already covered, so I'll just tell you that everyone should have this one in their collection :)

I went ahead and took everyones advice concerning watermarks. The reason I never added them before is because I feel like they ruin the photos. They just don't look as nice with text running through them. Not that my photos are awesome or anything. But I suppose it's a lot like locking your door at night. You aren't required to do it, but it's a good way to protect yourself.

Color: 
Orange jelly with golden shimmer. I am really impressed with this. I've never seen such a true jelly turned into such a true shimmer before. Usually those turn out to be glass flecked, but this one isn't. Does anyone know of any others like this? I'd love to have more in my collection with this type of finish.

Application:
When I called this a "true jelly", what I meant by that is that not only does it have the high shine and sheerness of a jelly, but it's also on the thick side with a slightly gel-like consistency. So it creates a pretty thick layer on the nail, which obviously adds to a slow dry time. BUT, because it has all that great shimmer added in, it's not streaky like it otherwise might be.

 Downside:
These don't close properly. When you screw the top back onto the bottle, the tombstone shape no longer aligns with the bottle the way it should. Not a huge deal, but an issue that I would have thought they'd have remedied. Maybe mine are defective?


This is Black Magic:
Color: 
Black creme base with a strange array of glitter added. There's orange (which actually turns out to be more of a peach), green, and I think I might spot some blue in there too.


Downside:
I'm not sure if this will make sense to anyone else, but this polish just feels cheap to me. I don't necessarily think that it looks cheap, but the formula is very reminiscent of an old Wet n Wild that you kept in the bottom of a junk drawer, and by the time you get around to giving it a nice shake and applying it, the pigment had already separated and it's just a big fail. That's what this reminds me of.

Bottom Line:
I could take Black Magic or leave it. It's not bad, but it's not great either. When I slapped my SD card into my computer and loaded up iPhoto I had a better appreciation of it though. In person it just wasn't dazzling. In the photos it actually looks a lot nicer.

I look forward to doing a few more Halloween posts before the 31st. For some reason none of the drugstores in my area are carrying most of the halloween polishes though. I haven't even managed to track down any of the Sally Hansen nail strips, and I really wanted the skull printed ones. Perhaps I'll make a trip to my sisters house this weekend and use it as an excuse to raid the (much better than the one near me) Rite-Aid that's on the way. If not, I guess I'll have to come up with some nail art!

Designer, De Better! is a silver based foil with flecks of copper added into the mix. I wasn't excited about this until I put it on. It ended up being one of my favorites. Like most of the polishes in this collection, it required only 2 coats for opacity and was easy to control.






Pepe's Purple Passion is a strong, super pigmented burgundy creme with reddish pinkish flecks. Great color, but the formula is kind of odd. It dried in a patchy fashion and I got some dragging when I applied the second coat. It also ate my top coat. Worth the headache though, because it really is an exceptional shade. Requires 2 coats for complete opacity.



Animal-istic almost borders on a vermillion color. It's definitely red, but it's got a good deal of orange in it as well. And that makes sense, considering it's the color they named after Animal. Animal was one of my (short lived) nicknames in junior high, by the way. And then my friends decided that while my personality was "Animal-istic", I looked more like Prairie Dawn because I had long straight blonde hair that I parted down the center. But I'm getting side tracked now. Animal-istic, like I said, is a bright orangey red jelly with glass flecked shimmer. It applied extremely well and again, required only 2 coats for opacity.




Excuse Moi! is a rose colored jelly base that's dominated by rose colored glitter, but pieces of green, silver and gold glitter are thrown into the mix. A very odd combination. I think I might wish they hadn't added the multi colored glitter because the rose color by itself is nice, but the extra glitter is just strange. That said, I can't say I dislike it. I'm still trying to figure out how I feel about it. It kind of looks like vomit, and I'm not sure if that's a bad thing! This is 2 coats.