Crème à la Mode Quarterly Box - Swatches and Review

Press Sample 

*These products are Cruelty Free 

Hold onto your hats, ladies (and gents) - tonight I have a BRAND NEW nail polish box to show you! And this one was made for me! Okay, well, it wasn't really made for ME, but it was made for creme-lovers like me.

The new Crème à la Mode Quarterly Box is a quarterly box of four fashion-forward creme nail lacquers delivered right to your door at a discount you can't pass up!

Meet me after the jump for my swatches and review...

What's Your Favorite Nail Polish Shade?

Nothing to Disclose 

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Everyone is always asking "What's your favorite color?" Well that's impossible to answer. For Clothing? Purses? Cars? It's different for everything. I wouldn't want a violet orchid car, after all.

And for nail polish? Well, that's nearly impossible as well because it depends on my mood, what I'm wearing, the weather, etc. And thankfully because there are SO MANY shades, we don't have to choose!

I love browns. And greys. And taupes! But if I just had to pick one that is my "favorite" more often than browns or greys are my favorites? Violet berry orchid. No, I do not mean purple. And no, I do not mean pink. Technically, it's between red-violet and purple but people get the wrong image in their heads when you say that, so I call it violet berry orchid. Pretty much most shades in the violet family are my favorites. But get one bit too much pink in it and I'm out. Or too much blue? Nope. I love almost ALL colors, but not all of them are my "favorite."

Basically
THIS...

photo cred: wallpaper-kid.com

I've gathered up a few of my favorites in this color family...ones I didn't have to go into drawers and boxes for, that is.

And just a few photos I was able to grab easily from my pinterest boards.(You can check them all out in the link.)

Well that's mine! For now anyway.

What's YOUR favorite nail polish color family?

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Polish Stash

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Okay okay...people keep asking for photos of my stash and how I store them. All I can say is BE CAREFUL WHAT YOU ASK FOR!

I have some storage solutions I'm happy with, some makeshift solutions that will need to change eventually and some NON-solutions that drive me totally batty. So here it is...the good, the bad and the ugly.

The only thing I'm not showing you is my desk area and boxes of donation polishes. I feel like I'm already stripping down to my bikini, but I'm not going to bare it ALL! At least not right now.

Continued after the jump...

Drunk Painting?

Okay, so I'm not really drunk.  But I drink so infrequently, despite my propensity for talking a good game, that when I do have a shot (or two?) of vodka, I feel tipsy. Grey Goose, Bay-Bee!

Tipsy expands my "comfort zone."  Not necessarily a bad thing, since my comfort zone isn't that large to begin with. Unless we're talking nail polish. Recently, I've even polished my nails *shudder* BLUE!  I thought that was pushing the limit to the maximum.

I was wrong!  Put on your sunglasses!

Pure Ice Super Star

Pure Ice Super Star

Can white be considered NEON?

Any bets on how long this stays? *grin*

Newspaper Nails!

You'd be surprised what you can find when you "go down the YouTube Rabbit Hole."  I get lost in there all the time.  Doesn't really matter where I start, I always end up somewhere unexpected.  This time I started innocently with a cute puppy video, which led to a sleep pig, which led to March of the Pigs by Nine Inch Nails, which lead to marbling nails, finally resting on newspaper nails.

Go figure!

Cutenails posted this YouTube video - so easy!  I didn't have any light grey nail polish, but I decided to try it with what I did have, thinking if I liked the look, I could easily pick up a lighter grey later.

And I didn't hate it!  I think I WILL pick up that lighter grey.

Here's what it took.

Rubbing alcohol, base coat, grey polish, top coat and strips of newspaper

And here's how it looked.

Newspaper Nails! (First try - a little crooked)

It will look a lot better with slightly longer nails than I have here and definitely a lighter shade of grey.  I"ll do this one again.  So quick and easy.

Essie Sew Psyched vs. Zoya Gemma

Here's a side-by-side comparison of Essie Sew Psyched and Zoya Gemma.  As you can see, Zoya Gemma is brighter, with a little more yellow and more hints of the bluish shimmer inside while Essie Sew Psyched's shimmer is not as blue and not as apparent.  It's also a little bit "muddier."

Essie Sew Psyched and Zoya Gemma - One Coat

Essie Sew Psyched and Zoya Gemma - Two Coats

Stepping Out of My Comfort Zone

...and into BLUE nail polish.  Me.  Wearing blue nail polish.

I don't really know now what I was so afraid of.  Probably left over from the 70s and 80s where all we had were reds, pinks, mauves and neutrals.  Blue nail polish was unheard of then.  I'm not going to get over my fear of black polish as easily.  But I won't say never.

So I started by sticking my toe in and testing the waters.  Literally.  I wore China Glaze For Audrey on my toes for a few days and it wasn't that bad!  So I decided to pull out one of my untrieds in a scattered holo (because I love holos!) and put on Milani 3D Cyberspace.  And I loved it!  Who knew? The formula is great for a "holo."  It's not a tight holo, but it's better than strictly a holo glitter.  I'd call it a scattered holo.  This is three light coats with a topcoat.

Milani 3D Cyberspace

Milani 3D Cyberspace

Milani 3D Cyberspace

Milani 3D Cyberspace

So with an easy blue under my belt, I got a little braver!  Dior makes great blues, but I'm not going to shell out the price of a Dior when I don't know if I can follow through with it.  So I picked up NYC Skin Tight Denim Creme and Sally Hansen HD Laser to test drive.  The Sally Hansen definitely has a lot of depth and shimmer with flashes of purple and pink. It took 2 coats.  I didn't do clean up on either the Sally Hansen or the NYC because I didn't know if I was going to leave them on.  I usually have very little, if any, cleanup, but blues and reds seem harder for me to apply perfectly on the first swipe, for some reason.

The NYC Skin Tight Denim Creme is a little on the thick side, but for a $2 polish, it certainly had more depth and shine than I expected.  It went on okay, not great, only because it's thicker than I am used to.

NYC Skin Tight Denim Creme

NYC Skin Tight Denim Creme

Then I decided to see how the Sally Hansen HD Laser would layer over it.  Below I've layered it over the NYC polish on the middle and ring fingers.

NYC Skin Tight Denim Creme with Sally Hansen HD Laser layered over on middle and ring fingers

I liked it, so layered the rest of the nails and I decided to leave it and see how it fares tomorrow.  Can I make it through an entire day with such a BLUE blue?  We will see!!!  (Below I tried to capture the flashes of purple.)

NYC Skin Tight Denim Creme with Sally Hansen HD Laser layered on top

NYC Skin Tight Denim Creme with Sally Hansen HD Laser layered on top

Hope everyone is having a great weekend!

Chanel Graphite vs. OPI Lucerne-tainly Look Marvelous Part Deux

Continuing from last night's post with the comparison between Chanel Graphite and OPI Lucerne-tainly Look Marvelous, I've taken photos of the two in natural light.  As you can see, they are not identical.  That said, it's likely that you could wear both colors as your mani for a week and no one would notice that you have two different colors - except you, of course.

Chanel Graphite and OPI Lucerne-tainly Look Marvelous

Chanel Graphite and OPI Lucerne-tainly Look Marvelous

Chanel Graphite and OPI Lucerne-tainly Look Marvelous

You can see that the Chanel Graphite flashes gold (with a very subtle copper and green) in indirect sunlight. But you have to look really hard for the copper/green flashes and I wasn't able to capture them here.

Chanel Graphite and OPI Lucerne-tainly Look Marvelous

In full, direct sunlight, we are back to barely seeing ANY difference between the two at all.

To sum it up: without natural lighting almost perfect dupes; indirect natural light, not dupes; direct natural light, back to almost perfect dupes again.

My Nail Polish Collection

Here is a spreadsheet of my current polishes.

I'll be randomly swatching them as I post my Nail of the Day posts.

If there are any of them you'd like to see specifically, just post a comment and I'll get them swatched PDQ!