First of all, while doing some research, I found the owner of the old Urban Decay & Hard Candy pages! Clockwork Dahlia has a blog here and has mirrored her original Hard Candy and Urban Decay pages. I’ve sent her an email asking permission to keep the images of hers that I have used in my Urban Decay entry so hopefully she will be okay with that, and I gotta say that I am so thrilled that these sites aren’t dead!

Check out her amazing Hard Candy and Urban Decay collection! It puts mine to shame!

So before I get to more of my pictures, a little history. Hard Candy launched in 1995 and the original six shades were pastels in Sky, Violet, Peachy, Sunshine, Mint & Bubble Gum. Before long though, the business grew and along came a whole line of kickass colours!

Holiday 1996 would be my favourite without question. Of the eight christmas polishes, I only own two. Grinch and Gangsta Booty. But I would give my right boob to get my hands on Seasonal Psychosis, Jingle Balls, Sexy Santa, Holiday Homicide, XXXmas or Icky Eggnog. You can see a pic of Icky Eggnog HERE at Clockwork Dahlia’s blog, and Polish Packrat has some great shots of XXXmas.

But now my pics! We’ll start out with some swatches.

Hard Candy Grinch & Stop

GRINCH is a super dense bright green glitter which is a lot like Color Club’s Object of Envy. I think the Colour Club might be slightly yellower. I should photograph them side by side to check. Grinch came from the aforementioned Holiday collection and I tell you I nearly fell over when I won that auction. STOP is a newer silver capped version and is a gorgeous red with gold shimmer. The shimmer is much more pronounced in the bottle, but it gives the red shade enormous depth. This polish is stunning.

Hard Candy Soul & AWOL

SOUL aka PIMP is a beautiful, rich mid tone purple that looks much darker in the bottle than it does on the nail. My bottle is marked Soul, but I have seen the same colour labelled Pimp. I imagine that they must have changed the name as they did with a few others like Playmate (Player) and Superman (Superfly). AWOL is a murky green with an odd silver shimmer. It’s slighly brushstrokey, but I like it a lot.

Hard Candy Mermaid & Sky

MERMAID is an awesome green that is frosty and brushstrokey but you know what? I don’t care in the slightest! It’s the closest to a deep green foil that I have come across so far, although I have found that it may be dupey with Ruby Kisses Ocean. SKY, I am pretty sure, is the first ever Hard Candy colour. I know it was part of the original six polishes and it seemed to be the one that stuck around through all the bottle changes and even the 10th birthday re-release in the original square bottle in 2005. The blue shimmer in the bottle doesn’t quite come out as much on the nail, but is still very visible in the right light.

Okay, now for the rest of my bottle pics!

Navel, Sunshine, Flaming, Heist

Chronic, Greed, Tantrum, Sushi

Hick, Manic, Earth, Frigid

Angel, Weenie, Sugar Daddy, Tantrum

Gold Digger, Dork, Fuzz, Kung Fu

Sex Pistol, Sissy, Cloud, Sky, Exxtasy

I’ll try and photograph the rest of mine tonight and tomorrow I plan on putting together a checklist and talking about later releases and the new Walmart polishes! Enjoy!

Posted in: Hard Candy | View Comments

Hey guys, to make up for my pictureless uber ranty rant rant from Monday, I figured that since I had already done the old Urban Decay thing, I might as well show you all my old Hard Candy polishes.

While I only have a handful of 2nd Issue Urban Decay polishes, I have an ENTIRE HELMER DRAWER full of old Hard Candy polishes. Back when I was throwing a lot more money around on this hobby of mine, I was doing a fair amount of shopping on Yahoo Japan, and I ended up finding a pretty stacked source, which I bled completely dry. My collection is by no means complete, I still have a whole list of polishes that are on my “must find” list, but I definitely own more than half of the original square bottled Hard Candy line.

Hard Candy nail polish saw a number of redesigns over the years, from the first change – a subtle change from white caps to silver caps, to the second change – moving from square shaped bottles to taller, wider, rectangular shaped bottles after which Hard Candy discontinued their polish line only to return in 2009 with a makeup line exclusively for Walmart. But we’ll cover more on that in my part 3 post.

Here are a few pics I dug out of my flickr, for your viewing pleasure. These are old photographs – I’ll try and pull everything out in the coming days for some lightbox photos.

Oedipus, Gigolo, Dog, Libido, Cowboy

Angel, Groove, Star, Chump

Normal, Girlie, Pixie

Gangsta Booty, Galaxy, Grinch

Space Boy, Galaxy, Twinkle

Cry Baby, Mermaid, Sissy, Sushi, Sky, Mint, Greed, AWOL, Pea Soup

Soul, Haze, Sparkle

Manic, Mermaid, Gank

Fuzz, Gold Digger, Chronic

I hope you all enjoyed these and I’ll be back with more tomorrow!

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I have been debating about whether or not to post this all morning, and after reading a few ridiculous articles about IP/Copyright laws in media (unrelated, but another sore point with me), I am suitably riled up to get on my soapbox and have a bitch.

First of all, I’m not here to be popular. I’m not here to suck up to brands and get free samples. I don’t really care if I am on their PR list. I prefer to let my freak flag fly. I’ll buy what I want and be honest with my reviews. I’ll also be honest when I feel slighted or mistreated. And in this instance, I do.

A friend of mine (who I will not name) recently told me that while at a PR event, an Aussie rep from a well known polish company was rude to her, because she happened to mention that not only had she already seen the “new” collection that this rep was touting, but had no qualms about importing polish from the US.

“Oh.” The rep remarked with disdain. “You’re one of those people.”

How ridiculous is that?

Of course she is “one of those people”, and so am I. We both have at least half a brain in our heads and access to the internet. Do you expect us to just bow down to your exorbitant prices and outdated collections when we have the ability to search for a better deal?

Look, maybe I can forgive the fact that the few seasonal collections that we do get are late. We are on the opposite side of the world, and “trends” differ from season to season, but my main issue is the price.

China Glaze Australian RRP $18.95 AUD
China Glaze US RRP $5.99 USD (AU $6.65)
Transdesign Price $2.99 USD (AU $3.32)

Orly Australian RRP $16.95
Orly US RRP $6.95 (AU $7.72)
Transdesign Price $3.75 USD (AU $4.16)

OPI Australian RRP $19.95
OPI US RRP $8.50 (AU $9.44)
Transdesign Price $5.24 USD (AU $5.82)

Given that the Australian dollar at present is buying $0.90 USD, why on earth is there such an enormous price discrepancy? I am able to import the polishes in small quantity (the bulk import that the polish companies would be working with would result in a much lower freight factor than what I am paying), and even AFTER shipping costs importing is STILL cheaper for me than paying Australian retail.

China Glaze even went as far as imposing shipping restrictions on etailers like Head 2 Toe Beauty and Transdesign, which prevented them from shipping China Glaze products outside the US in an attempt to get the rest of the world to buy their expensive local product. You know what though? It didn’t work. I just started buying on eBay. Nfu-Oh has restricted Fabuloustreet.com from selling to Australian customers, because there is an Aussie reseller – Vivid Nails. It doesn’t seem to matter that most of the colours at Vivid Nails are perpetually out of stock, and retail for double the price of Fabuloustreet. In fact, the range hasnt been updated in years and all their stock is now on clearance. And yet I still can’t order from Fabuloustreet?

EDIT: GildedNails has informed me that Transdesign are still shipping worldwide – not sure if any product restrictions are still in place. Also, if you email Vivid Nails, they will order in stock for you and are selling at $14.95, which isn’t too different from Fabuloustreet’s $12.95 per bottle of Nfu-Oh. They really should update their site!

But it’s not just salon brands that we suffer with. What the Americans refer to as “drugstore” brands are enormously inflated too.

Revlon Australian RRP $13.95
Revlon US RRP $4.79 (AU $5.32)

Maybelline Australian RRP $9.95
Maybelline US RRP $4.49 (AU $4.98)

Sally Hansen HD Australian RRP $16.95
Sally Hansen HD US RRP $5.95 ($6.60)

Not to mention the fact that we get very few of the seasonal collections, and when we do it can be up to a year later. Is it any wonder that we are all turning to online shopping? What is going on? Are the companies REALLY making that big of a profit? Is there some sort of massive import tax on cosmetics that we are not aware of?

My biggest beef at the moment would have to be Illamasqua Nail Polish. I was SO excited to hear that Illamasqua was launching in Australia. I have a few of them, and they are amazing quality. Illamasqua are manufactured in Australia, so I really thought that that factor would impact the price in a positive manner. WRONG.

Illamasqua UK RRP £13.00 (AU $21.60)
Illamasqua US RRP $14.00 (AU $15.55)
Illamasqua AU RRP $34.00

*sigh*

I’m all for buying local and supporting the Aussie arms of these international companies, but I have to draw the line somewhere. I feel like I am being ripped off. Until these prices change to accurately affect the strength of our aussie dollar I’m going to continue to buy my polishes overseas.

And no rep with a negative attitude is ever going to make me feel guilty about that.

Posted in: Bitching | View Comments

Can you believe I have made it through a whole week of posting?! Yay me! If I can bang out a review or two for BMovieChicks.com, this will have been my most productive week in the last few months!

First of all, I finally got to putting together another dupe for you all, and I didn’t go easy – I’ve pulled out all the stops for this one… Prepare to have your mind blown out your patootie because ESSIE DOMINICA GREEN HAS DUPES, YO.

Nat Robbins Greed, Essie Dominica Green, Finger Paints Sketch & Etch

Dominica Green was my white whale for a LOOOONG time. I was lucky enough to snag a bottle for $20 from a friend who was downsizing and I swear it felt like all my Christmases had come at once. I’d really like to see Essie re-release this colour, but I’m not holding my breath. But if you are without the great Dominica Green, fear not because for $5 or less you can have something close enough to fool even the most discerning eye.

Essie Dominica Green, Nat Robbins Greed

When I stumbled across Nat Robbins Greed for $0.99 on eBay, from the pictures it just looked like another pretty emerald green. Imagine my surprise when it arrived! I knew straight away that I was looking at Dominica Green in another bottle. I probably would have near on fainted if I didn’t already own DG.

Index & Pinky: Nat Robbins Greed, Middle: Essie Dominica Green, Ring: Finger Paints Sketch & Etch. Taken with Flash.

Sketch and Etch is close, but is ever so slightly more frosty. The base colour and transparency is the same though. Honestly I can not spot a single difference between Nat Robbins Greed and Essie Dominica Green. Same amount of coats, same consistency, same amount of frost, same shade… They even SMELL the same. Could Nat Robbins and Essie been one and the same at some point in time? Were leftovers of the Dominica Green batch sold from Essie’s manufacturer to Nat Robbins on the cheap? I definitely think it is one the the two, because Greed & DG are not the only Essie/Nat Robbins twins. There’s also Nat Robbins Midnight Hour, which is eerily close to Starry Starry Night… But more on that later.

Sally Hansen Prisms Ruby Emerald, Maybelline Pink Pizazz, Maybelline Purple Punk, Sally Hansen Prisms Rainbow Presents

The no-buy (low buy) is going well! Above is my eBay haul for the week – and it all came from one seller! My fave of the bunch would have to be Rainbow Presents. How cool is it? What a great name for a polish too.

I found these while I was out shopping today at an odd little stand in the middle of Narellan Town Centre that had a whole bunch of weird stuff like tacky jewellery, lighters, hand soaps and toothpaste. They have no names or anything, but they were only $3 and the colours are great!

Finally I wanted to show you a couple of frankens that I just built for a swap request.

On the left is “Teenage Vixens from Outer Space”. It’s blue diamond, red square and purple square glitter in a black holo base. “Four Past Midnight” is a 50/50 mix of China Glaze Nightfall and Silver Glitter. Essentially its a purple Starry Starry Night. I hope my swap partner is happy with these!

Have a great weekend everyone!

Posted in: Essie, Finger Paints, Frankens, Maybelline, Nat Robbins, Sally Hansen | View Comments

From L to R: Maybelline Go Go Green, Appletini Time, Key Largo Lime.

You know, maybe once I’ll forgive you for re-releasing a colour with a new name… but twice?!

From L to R: Maybelline Go Go Green, Appletini Time, Key Largo Lime.

Kinda makes that Limited Edition sticker in the middle there seem like a bit of a farce, huh? Judging from the bottle labels I would guess that Key Largo Lime is the oldest, followed by Appletini Time which would make Go Go Green the newest. Hot tip though, Maybelline – there’s no need to re-release a colour simply because you’ve been able to knock 10 seconds off your drying time.

From index to ring : Maybelline Go Go Green, Appletini Time, Key Largo Lime. First shot without flash, second with flash.

Maybe I’m being too hard on them. I mean, I guess this is a good thing if you really wanted Key Largo Lime or Appletini Time but missed out. But then again, finding good green shades is hard enough as it is – there should have been two more unique greens in this lot. As far as I am aware, they were all US releases too. I would have been a tad more understanding if they had been released in different countries but that doesn’t appear to be the case.

Oh well. I leave you now with this Maybelline Ad from 1984 featuring Wonder Woman’s Lynda Carter. She was the face of Maybelline for many years and did a whole series of totally slutty sounding ads. Hilariously suggestive!

All of a sudden wives everywhere were wondering why their husbands gave a rats about lipstick…

Posted in: Dupes, Maybelline | View Comments

BYS Adventures of Alice, Down the Rabbit Hole, Through The Looking Glass

Oh man!! The lovely Ms Nixxy broke the news last night that she had found these babies while shopping at KMart and I don’t think I have been this excited for a BYS collection since Glitterazzi! You can see Nixxy’s twitter pics here and here.

I think I might need to get out the tinfoil hat, because I think BYS have been reading my mind! I’m going to try and grab these before the end of the week if I can make it to Mac Square. Apparently these are already in stock at both Gloss and KMart. I checked Fashion Addict this morning and as at time of posting this, the Wonderland Glitters are not for sale, however they do have the new mattes! Matte Aqua and Matte Mint Green both caught my eye immediately!

EDIT: Fashion Addict will have the Wonderland Glitters later today! Thanks Director Dave!

Matte Mint Green, Matte Aqua

BYS Wonderland Glitters retail for $4.95, and the Matte line $3.95. BYS Cosmetics are available from Gloss (NSW) and KMart (Australia Wide) as well as online from Fashion Addict. Great price and well worth checking out!

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Glitter Gal Not Another Red & Marine Blue

Last week I teased these pics of two great new shades I had bought from Aussie cosmetics company, Glitter Gal. I got a chance to wear one over the weekend, and it did not disappoint!

Glitter Gal Marine Blue and Not Another Red

I wore Marine Blue out to dinner on Saturday night as a full mani and got a bunch of compliments. The polish was well pigmented with great coverage and dried quickly. The colour itself is AMAZING. I thought I was in love with OPI’s DS Glamour, but Marine Blue is hands down better than that. Think of the brightest, most vibrant blue that you can think of, add tiny holo microsparkle that catches the sunlight as you move your hands, and then up the awesome factor by about 100% and you might be getting close to Marine Blue.

Glitter Gal Marine Blue

I took this pic in the sun the following day, just before I took it off to swatch the other one. As you can see, there is a little VNL in direct sunlight, but inside and under indoor lighting I didn’t see that at all, and a third thin coat would have fixed that problem without any hassles.

Glitter Gal Not Another Red

Many times I have heard people on MUA ask about the “perfect” or “true” red holo. Well folks, Not Another Red is it. In the pictures it does seem to pull a more pink tone, but I assure you, this baby is RED! This was two coats with great pigmentation and colouring and best of all, INTENSE RAINBOW SPARKLE!

I was thoroughly impressed by both of these and wanted to thank Glitter Gal Cosmetics for making them available for me to purchase before they had been listed on their website. I had an excellent above and beyond experience with Les from their customer service who contacted me to ask if I wanted to exchange the Red & Blue that I had ordered (Electric Blue S756 and Red S704) for the new Marine Blue and Not Another Red which had not yet been listed on the site. I had gotten their newsletter in the days prior and mistook what I had ordered for the new shades – their wonderful CS were great enough to contact me and ask if this was the case and give me the opportunity to change my order, even though the new shades were not officially for sale yet. How cool is that?

From L to R: Blush, Ballerina, Cupid, Not Another Red, Enchanted, Suede, Marine Blue.

The new shades are all on sale now at Glitter Gal’s Store for $9.95 each. They also have regular polishes too and other makeup items. And yes, they do ship international!

Posted in: Glitter Gal | View Comments

I know, I should have been continuing to swatch my dupes, but these gorgeous Nails Inc polishes arrived and I just had to try them. I mean, look at them. Can you blame me?

Nails Inc Leceister Square, Emerald Street, Bow Street. Bonus NiGHTS!

Another photo that was enhanced by my lovely boyfriend. He added in the little PaPETCH NiGHTS especially for Scrangie. How amazing are the crystal caps! I am SUCH a sucker for packaging and I want an army of these!! Downside is, they are expensive. Factoring in shipping and the exhange rate, Leciester Square cost me around $25 AUD. Emerald Street with the plain cap was a much cheaper $10 or so, and Bow Street was a gift from the lovely Carla G.

Nails Inc Leicester Square

Leicester Square is a beautiful, rich, shimmery, mid tone purple. Insanely gorgeous packaging aside, the colour is amazing. It’s velvety smooth and picks up flecks of fuchsia and blue sparkle when you hit the right angle of light. This was two coats, and as usual the Nails Inc formula did not disappoint. I even found that the extra weight of the swarovski crystal cap made brush control even easier, so yeah. BONUS!

Nails Inc Emerald Street

Back when I first started collecting nail polish and had a HUGE stash of say, around 20 or so, my search began for the perfect green. Finding green nail polish, especially in Australia at the time was a near on impossible feat. It just didn’t exist! I managed to score a bottle of Streetwear Forest off eBay and then thought my search was over – but I think we may just have a new frontrunner for the title of most gorgeous green. Emerald Street is exactly what the name implies. The perfect emerald green. This is what I wanted OPI Rainforest to be (Rainforest is more gold toned). I have a sneaking suspicion that this may be a dupe for Nails Inc Ascot – I will have to pull them out and swatch them side by side to be sure.

Nails Inc Bow Street

HOLD THE PHONE. Not only does Bow Street have a crystal cap, but its fuchsia/purple glitter in a DARK PURPLE JELLY. I thought for sure from promo pics that this was black with pink glitter, but I was GLORIOUSLY wrong! (How often can you say that!) I was so thrilled when I put this on that I almost jumped up and down. I had tp restrain myself. Lucky! Don’t want to ruin a good swatch and waste any more of this precious polish than I have to! Two coats to inky perfection. Now they need to make a blue version. Crystal cap will also be much appreciated!

So what do you guys think of Nails Inc? Pretty? Pricey? Worth it or not? Would you like to see more swatches?

Posted in: Nails Inc | View Comments

Well another week of this torturous no-buy has passed, and while I wouldn’t say that I have a spotless record, I’m still doing pretty okay. Saving for my trip is well on track and I can hardly believe that it’s only six weeks away now!

My boyfriend’s computer is at the opposite end of the study to where I take my pictures, and he happened to be sitting at his computer when I was preparing shots for the new stuff that had arrived. Normally he doesn’t pay too much attention to what I do with my nails or my polishes, but on Saturday he decided to take an interest and added a little of his own flair to my shots.

Unnamed Lancome Gold Glitter, Lancome Le Magnetique Bleu Enigma… and Sackboy.

I love weird old HE stuff. It’s so unexpected. This Lancome glitter is crazy (it has a number on the bottom, but I can’t recall it – I’ll have to update later). It’s gold glitter shards of about three different sizes, all irregularly shaped. I’ve never seen anything like it, and especially coming from a company like Lancome – definitely an oddball. Bleu Enigma is a Le Magnetique polish, and came with the little magnet to make the star pattern on your nails just like the L’oreal Star Magnets. I have all of those, and being able to nab this blue Lancome baby puts a big grin on my face.

Revlon Celestial, Saffron Green, Wet & Wild Love Em & Leave Em, Maybelline Silver Spells. All safely guarded by the might of Tri-Klops.

Revlon Celestial was a bargain pickup at only $0.99 or so and I really have a thing for old Revlons, especially glitters! The Saffron Green was also a cheapie, but I was intrigued by the shade and the brand. I see them all the time for cheap on eBay UK, and so far it looks pretty good. I have yet to swatch it, but it looks thick and pigmented, doesn’t smell too bad and the shade is amazing. I grabbed these two Wet & Wild’s on the cheap from A Beautiful Secret. I’m always thrilled when someone finds old Wet & Wild polishes – they used to make the most interesting glitters. I may have Love Em & Leave Em back to front in terms of names but I’ll confirm that later. Maybelline Silver Spells is an awesome chunky silver glitter. It looks sort of gold tinged in the photo because the base has yellowed with age. Still pretty though. I got ripped off on the gold version (Bold Plated) on eCrater about six months ago by a seller who took my money and disappeared. Boooooo! I think there may be a copper version too.

Lastly, there’s no need to worry about a no-buy when you have gorgeous, generous friends. My beautiful friend Carla G from the UK was holding a Nails Inc polish for me which I bought via eBay and had shipped to her. One polish. Emerald Street. To be honest, I had even forgotten that I had bought it. It arrived the other day, and it brought many, MANY friends.

Nails Inc Emerald Street, Bow Street (!!!)

Names to come

Names to come

How much does that green Charlotte Russe look like Moonpool?! LOVE. Not pictured is the metric assload of Caramac and Reeses cups she sent me and the adorable Winnie the Pooh card. I loves ya Miss Carla G and I hope to see you very very soon!

Posted in: Lancome, Maybelline, Nails Inc, Revlon, Swaps, Wet & Wild | View Comments

Yes, yes. I know that I was supposed to post this yesterday, but I ended up having people over and then going out and then having more people over. Can’t beat a suprise social life. But I am here now and I have done a little digging and have found some more Urban Decay info, so this might end up being a pretty long post.

I managed to dig out my UD’s and snap some pics, and it wasn’t until after I had done it that I realised I had left out my newly purchased Metropolitan. Oh well. I will be sure to snap another pic soon.

Bruise, Toxin, Twisted, Cult

Trip, Big Bang, O, Kiss, Id

As far as info on this second lot of Urban Decay polishes, it’s a little easier to come by than the older ones. Urban Decay changed their logo in 2000, and I would imagine that these new bottles were part of that overhaul. Unfortunately only a handful of the old shades made it into the new line, and some even had the same names, but were different colours. Some of the more popular shades like Big Bang, Toxin and Id are a little harder to track down nowadays, but many of the others pop up frequently on eBay, especially in the UK. For those of you looking to build a collection (like myself) I have made the following list.

Am I missing any that you know of? Leave me a comment and I will update the list. I’ve created a section in my Reference Guide for second issue Urban Decay polishes. As I buy more, I’ll update it. I did a little more digging in regards to the older polishes and found a couple more colours.

Absinthe, Ozone, Violence. Meltdown, Fluorescent, Snow, Cash.

This is the original colour chart from Urban Decay’s first website, in 1996. Found via the Wayback Machine. This order form shows a list of the colours that were available at the time.

High, S&M, Urban FX, Smaze, ABC Gum, Perversion

Urban Decay were right at the forefront of edgy and unique cosmetics, and did a bunch of media crossovers too.