Beware!! Long Rant Ahead!!

As anyone who knows me can attest to, I am obsessed with polish. Not only am I obsessed with polish, but I stay loyal too the brands I love. I may grumble when a price hike comes around or grumble that I pay 20-40% more than Americans simply since I don't live in the united states. The fact that some brands are not available here and REFUSE to ship to me no matter how much I beg them (illamasqua and le metier de beaute I'm looking at YOU!) still doesn't put me off. At least enough to stop jumping through hoops to get them.

Congrats to RESCUE BEAUTY LOUNGE!! You have done what no other brand has ever done. Ticked me off to the point where I will NOT under any circumstances purchase you. It matters not how pretty colours may be. Mismas and 360 may have been the longest residers of my wish list but they are now off my list. Your conceit, lack of customer service, immature behavior and bullying of people is insane. I have never seen a company act or behave in the manner you have and I am done. As much as I like your colours I refuse to support you a moment longer.

I will not get into or explain the bullying. If anyone saw the girl selling a massive lot of polish on eBay, or reads the purse forum rbl thread regularly then you have seen for yourself. If not, you can read the thread in the purse forum nail polish sub forum on rbl and get the gist.

I will however describe MY experience. In late April I was in NYC and made a point of going to the rescue beauty lounge with a girlfriend. I was so excited. They were sold out of every polish on my wish list so I was out of luck in that regard, though I managed to buy a few polishes. I chose Catherine H as my manicure of choice and my girlfriend chose scrangie.

Thiswas the worst thing we could have done. Seeing as they were unavailable and we didn't have them no touch ups could be done. We sat at a long table beside each other while our manicures were done. We were surprised to not see dryers anywhere but ok. Shrugs. Ji knows best. We are told to sit there for twenty minutes while our nails dry. Really??? Fine. There are two of us so we can chat! 25 minutes later our manicurists come back put some quick dry drops on our nails and tell us to wait a couple minutes and we are done. We pay - more than I've ever paid for a manicure before but again, it's the rescue beauty lounge and we knew the price going in. We hop a cab to times square and grab a lunch of felafel and shwarma. Yum. And by time our lunch is done we each have at least 3 chips in our nails. And of course neither of us can touch up our nails!!! Eek!

I later tweeted that I was somewhat turned off by the company. Rescue beauty lounge actually tweets back to ask why. I responded with an unhappy spa experience and that I will email them what happened. And guess what? I never ever hear from them again. Not even an I'm sorry. Nothing.

I hope others enjoy the beauty of storms and hurricanes in the new collection (gather not a lot of people from New Orleans are jumping on THAT marketing campaign). I'm done with the brand and the company.

Clarins 230

Clarins 230 is one of the most gorgeous, stunning, amazing colours I have ever seen. A girlfriend had a spare of this and offered it to me. I told her NOT to give it to me. I know that this is a long standing lemming in many a polish junkies collection. I know many who would kill to have this colour and just cant afford or aren't willing to spend the 60-300 dollars it sells for on ebay. And yes its nice, but it just didnt scream out to me like it does many others. I told her to give it to someone else. I was sure I would enjoy it, but it wouldnt send me over the moon like it would so many others we both know.

Well that wonderful woman ignored me. THANK THE HEAVENS!!!!!!!!! <insert a gospel choir here> It is so much more amazing than I had ever even imagined. Even when I saw it in the bottle I thought it was nice, but whats the big deal? THIS IS THE UNICORN PEE everyone wont shut up about? ARE YOU KIDDING ME? Then I swatched it. And a convert I am!

Now in trying to decide what colours to swatch this bad boy over, I thought naturally of red and blue. But then a friend of mine on twitter said DIOR PURPLE MIX!!! I said sure (though I wasnt expecting it to look very good) and it taught me a lesson. I am pretty sure that clarins 230 will look amazing over ANYTHING and EVERYTHING. Ok. I have no pinks or yellows to try, and I am not running to grab an orange to test this theory. But look how amazing the photos look???

To start with I tried it over the following:

Julep Catherine, Illamasqua Phallic, Dior Purple Mix

Julep Catherine, Illamasqua Phallic, Dior Purple Mix

Now are you ready for the pics AFTER clarins 230???????

Julep Catherine, Illamasqua Phallic, Dior Purple Mix all topped with Clarins 230

Julep Catherine, Illamasqua Phallic, Dior Purple Mix all topped with Clarins 230

And because I had just had those Tokaido Express comparisons and swatches made, i though clarins 230 over those too!!!!

Nars Tokaido Express, Estee Lauder Ultra Violet, Dior 972 Licorice, Nfu Oh 51

And then topped with Clarins 230:

Nars Tokaido Express, Estee Lauder Ultra Violet, Dior 972 Licorice, Nfu Oh 51 all topped with Clarins 230

And here are some more pics just because its so pretty!!

Nars Toakido Express

Nars Tokaido Express

Nars Tokaido Express is just another of the 40 or so polishes I picked up on a recent trip back to NYC. Now this colour certainly IS available here at a Nars counter. But every time I check out their polish selection they are SOOO old and separated it honestly makes them all look completely unappealing. So when I walked into the Forrest Hills Sephora and saw this in the display, I KNEW it was going home with me. If you haven't noticed yet, I LOVE purple!!! You will notice that purples and grays make up half my stash!

Toakido Express is described as being a Black amethyst infused with gold.  Honestly I don't see the gold. It looks to me to be a dark purple with light purple shimmer. AND I LOVE IT!!!!!! I looked all through my stash and this was the best I could come up with dupes wise.

Nars Tokaido Express, Estee Lauder Ultra Violet, Dior 972 Licorice, Nfu Oh 51

As you can see, none are truely dupes. Amazing since I have 45-50 purples in my stash!!! I was quite impressed.

L-R Nars Tokaido Express, Estee Lauder Ultra Violet, Dior 972 Licorice, Nfu Oh 51

L-R Nars Tokaido Express, Estee Lauder Ultra Violet, Dior 972 Licorice, Nfu Oh 51

As you can see, they are all dark purples with specks of shimmer or flakes. But none are quite similar. I would go so far as to say that each one is unique enough to warrant having in your stash!!!

New Deborah Lippmann Colours!!!!

NEW DEBORAH LIPPMANN COLORS

Stairway to Heaven:

I Love the Nightlife:

Shake Your Groove Thing:

Do Ya Think I’m Sexy:

Good Girl Gone Bad:

Single Ladies:

Stormy Weather:

Billionaire:

Brick House:

Glamarous Life:

Now Ive been told that the shipping dates for companies (not consumers) are as follows (as per a distributor for DL)

8/1/11
Get this Party Started
Billionaire
Brick House
Stormy Weather
Single Ladies

9/7/11
Good Girl Gone Bad
Glamorous Life

10/1/11
I Love The Nightlife
Stairway to Heaven
Do Ya Think I'm Sexy
Shake Your Grove Thing:

And, for the anniversary sale going on at Nordstroms, the following set will be released

Happy Birthday, Forget You, Candy Shop