Milani Techno Red

After a few pinks, I thought it was time for a red. After enjoying the squishy Maybelline Gold Fleck Fuschia, I decided to go with a nice jelly. 

I pulled out Milani Techno Red from their Neon line. This line may possibly be discontinued.  I'm not 100% sure since I've been under a rock for the last few months about the coming and goings of polish collections. I got my bottle during a CVS clearance sale last fall, which means this line was discontinued or repackaged. If you can find any of the Milani Neons, pick some up because they're easy to apply and have a great jelly finish.

Keeping to my unofficial drugstore theme this week, I did an accent nail with Revlon Slipper and Maybelline Express Finish Deeply In Love.

Slipper, Techno Red, Deeply In Love

Milani Techno Red is a warm red-orange jelly. It does dry matte without a top coat, but I don't think it's a true eye-searing neon. Here it is with two coats and a shiny top coat.

On my ring finger, I topped it with a thin coat of Slipper (a red and silver glitter in a clear base) and Deeply In Love (pink hearts in a yellowing clear base with red glitter that never makes it on the nail). 

This mani felt bouncy and playful with the soft tomato nails and heart-covered accent. I thought this was a cute look, but it definitely confused my husband.  He isn't used to me playing with accent nails, so he thought I had smushed my nail or something. Upon closer look, he realized they were hearts, not dents or dings. I think next time I'll wear this accent nail with a different base color, like a light pink, so there's a bigger contrast and the effect looks more intentional!

Shimmery Pinks - Gold Fleck Fuschia and Sublime Strawberry

After a month of vampy and murky shades to go along with our chilly January days, I'm ready for Valentine pinks and reds - the girlier, the better! I dived into my stash to pull out some of my older drugstore polishes. They need love, too!

First up is Maybelline Wet Shine Diamonds in Gold Fleck Fuschia.

This is two coats of Gold Fleck Fuschia. I don't think this polish has ever been fuchsia, so I'm going to assume this name isn't misspelled and refers to the fuschia plant. Maybe that's why this pink is closer to a soft bubble gum pink with hints of coral rather than a darker and bolder fuchsia shade. It is filled with small gold fleck shimmer making this a warm pink. I really liked how glossy and juicy this polish looked, but the dry time was a bit long (I dented my ring finger after an hour even with a coat of Seche Vite) and the brush is shedding. This shade is too pretty, though, so I won't be getting rid of this polish.

The Wet Shine Diamonds line has been discontinued but these polishes could show up at Dollar Tree or Big Lots, so keep an eye out for them.  Now for another scented polish from Revlon!

This is Sublime Strawberry, originally from the limited edition Spring/Summer 2009 Fruitful Temptations collection.

In the bottle, these two polishes look related because of their mid-pink base color.  On the nail, they look significantly different because of their shimmer and opacity. No jelly squishiness here! Sublime Strawberry has a silvery white micro-shimmer so this shade is much cooler than Gold Fleck Fuschia.  Sublime Strawberry could have been opaque in two coats, but I didn't let the first coat set long enough, so I needed three coats for this mani. After asking a few people what they thought of the scent, we agree this strawberry scent reminds us of strawberry Bubblicious bubble gum.

I'm pretty sure that Sublime Strawberry is now part of the permanent Revlon collection. I know that it was put in the newer all-black cap design, so it should still be easy to find wherever Revlon polish is sold.

Is anyone else in a pink mood, too?

Zoya Gwin

Gwin is from the Zoya Spring 2010 Reverie Collection.  Zoya describes Gwin as a "sunny melon metallic." I describe Gwin as pink-toned orange with a strong gold shimmer.

This polish really has a lot of iridescent shimmer. There are flashes of gold, yellow, and even green shimmer running through it. This is a lot more apparent in sunlight. Here's a blurred picture to show off some of sheen. It's like you think you're looking at a bright juicy orange shade and... it's glowing! from inside!! the shimmer!!!

My husband bought me the Reverie set a few months ago and today he picked up Maybelline Sunset Prisms for me. Yay for bright colors with a shimmer flash! (By the way - Lacquer Laine has a full swatch of Maybelline Sunset Prisms and it looks like this is one of those polishes that has a different color batch out there. One is orange with a green flash. One is pink with a gold flash.)

Side by side in their bottles, I thought Sunset Prisms might be a possible dupe for Gwin. On the actual nail, Sunset Prisms is a lighter melon orange shade. It's the early spring cousin to Gwin.

Gwin's on my index and ring finger.
Sunset Prisms is on my middle and pinkie finger.

Gwin is a darker orange with a gold flash and pretty much opaque in two coats. Sunset Prisms took four coats to get opaque but the gold shimmer and green flash is more obvious in most lighting. They both had decent formulas. Even though, Sunset Prisms took twice as many coats to get rid of VNL, it actually dried faster than Gwin. Not bad! Sunset Prisms even had a good brush - and it's a Maybelline Express Finish!

Soooo... since both of these polishes were nice to work with and they are related but different colors, both are staying put in the stash. No dupes this time!

Maybelline Pie in the Sky

I know the Maybelline Sweet Things collection has gotten a notorious reputation for its bad formula, bad brushes, etc, etc. Their Express polishes have found their way in and out of my collection because I can't make their formula work, but I'm in a blue polish mood right now and I *needed* Pie in the Sky.

After extensively searching all my local CVS, RiteAid, and Walgreens (checked the Duane Reades, too, just in case), I couldn't find any of the polishes from this collection except for the random pinks. BOO! Then I saw the Essie Resort comparisons from All Lacquered Up and happily decided I didn't *need* Pie in the Sky. I was going to get Lapis of Luxury and successfully have my cornflower blue polish. Take that, impossible-to-find drugstore polish!!

Then my husband randomly got sick to his stomach (he's never, ever, ever sick) and I had to rush to Rite Aid for meds. What did I find the same day I had declared to be done with my Pie in the Sky search? Frickin' Pie in the Sky. Last one of its shade on the display. With a coupon!

Now that Pie in the Sky's mine, I have to agree with the blogosphere. What's going on with this brush? Mine had stray hairs that did not want to get clipped in to shape. What's going on with this formula? Runny and chunks?!

After all of that, though, the polish did have some good qualities. It's opaque in two coats. This is probably because the first streaky coat self-leveled itself for me. Really. I think it did. The chunks and bubbles and streaks went on and a minute later it was dry, smoother, and decently shiny. After the second coat, there was still evidence of tiny bubbles or some kind of mess in the polish, but in very trace amounts. Overall, the color and end result made up for this polish's very funky first impression.

I've seen other pictures that show it as a bright sky blue like Zoya Yummy, OPI Just Groovy, or Misa Right Here Now, No More Later. It's not that kind of blue. This is a light cornflower or periwinkle blue shade - meaning light blue with purple undertones.  Not even my picture really captures the purple-ness. Even though my index is a little bit out of focus, it's getting closer to being more color-accurate than the other fingers. Imagine a little more purple, a smidge more gray, a little darker, and that's what it looks like!

I thought it was an excellent color to wear right before Easter. I wanted to have a calm color that helped me feel quiet. I was so glad that's exactly what this one did and in only two coats!