OLD Urban Decay

Brooke found an old Urban Decay with no label ... I thought it was Radium & told her I would check for sure when I got home. After looking at my own bottle, I stand by my original assessment, especially as she said it was a little darker than what showed in her pics.

So Brooke, here's the shot of my bottle I promised you:

Left to right: Uzi, Radium, UV-B. UV-B is the only other polish that came to mind when I saw Brooke's mystery bottle, but it is more of an indigo blue.

I love old Urban Decay. I have several more bottles of polish, both old and a few newer, and I also have some of their earliest promotional material. I scanned some of it in to share with you guys, I'd guestimate that this stuff is around 15 years old!

Super-edgy at the time, and still some great colors.  I don't know if they carry much if any of this old stuff - do you have any old-school Urban Decay?

Thanks for reading.

~Colette

A Couple Quick Comparison Shots

Not full swatches I'm sorry, just bottle shots. Top is under the natural lamp, bottom is with camera flash:


Left to right: Misa Earthward, Barielle Misbehaving Mistress, Essie Huckle Buckle, Urban Decay Graffiti.

So, the story behind the browns is that I saw Misbehaving Mistress over at Polish or Perish and thought it looked very similar to Earthward, which I wore just recently, so I had to come home & pull both out. I haven't worn the Barielle shade yet but I think I will soon because I really enjoyed Earthward (which my mom is wearing right now after seeing it on me LOL) and they are very similar, although I think Misbehaving Mistress look a little darker, I kind of want to say more dark chocolate w/ silver sheen, while Earthward is kind of a slightly pinker brown w/ silver sheen.

The story behind the purples is that I saw Huckle Buckle over at Helen & Sheenie's Nice Things, and it's actually my current mani. At first glance, it immediately reminded me of Graffiti (which I have both an 15+ year old bottle & a new bottle of), but putting them side by side Huckle Buckle is more lavender while Graffiti I think I want to call periwinkle blue.

Anyway, just wanted to put a little something up, full pics of my Huckle Buckle NOTD coming tomorrow. Thanks for reading =)

~Colette

My Learning Curve & The Search Continues

So, at first I couldn't firgure out why my pictures weren't links you could click for a bigger image. After some searching & experimentation, I discovered that when I import them & then move them around in "Compose" mode for whatever reason the portion of html code that makes them linkable dissapears. If I want them clickable, I need to cut & past the code in "Edit Html" mode.

Great! Yeah ... sorta. Because then my pics were clickable but they were seriously GINORMOUS.

So I started trying to figure out what was causing this, because it's irritating to me, even though most people probably don't notice - was it because of the resolution I'm shooting my pics at? Because I select large when I upload (but I thought that just effected how big it appeared within the blog?). It's kind of behind the scenes stuff, but it's the kind of stuff that makes me feel like a noob.

But today we had SUNSHINE & so the perfect opportunity to experiment with my camera settings while getting some pics of Shattered in the sun. And I'm happy to report I was right, and so now I know how to have clickable pics that are a little more reasonably sized. Like this:

Old Setting (click to enlarge A LOT):

New Setting (click to enlarge a more reasonable amount):

Even the smaller one is still pretty big, almost too big really. I can see every single bad thing huge as well as all the good stuff. More inspiration to improve my technique I suppose.

Unfortunately, shopping has had the normal results of when I came home I noticed I had chipped a few nails. And my tolerance for chips, which used to be pretty high, has taken a nosedive & now even though I'm still loving this color I think I have to take it off.

Shopping itself did not go as planned, but still turned out pretty good. I got a new watch, which I've been needing, then I went to a couple CVSs, looking for the Barielle Shades polish (I am currently particularly lemming the green, but the other colors are also gorgeous) and I came up empty on that front but I did find a couple of Sally Hansens to make me feel better & a Revlon:

From left to right: SH Flair, SH Glow, Revlon Silver Screen.

So even though I the search for Barielle continues, I'm happy enough with what I got for now. Thanks for reading.

~Colette

Thank Goodness & NOTD

#1 – Thank goodness I never throw out old polishes
#2 – Thank goodness for polish thinner
#3 – Thank goodness for Scrangie showing me how to combine #1 & #2

This is definitely one of my top 10 favorite polishes ever, maybe top 5, and for several years it sat sad & dried up on my dresser. Then I started browsing nail blogs, and stumbled across Scrangie's post for bringing old polishes back to life. I already had some thinner, and my old original Urban Decay polishes were the first thing I grabbed to try this out on. They are probably at least 15 years old, no joke, but they are smooth & lovely after considerable thinning & shaking & stirring & shaking some more. After wearing Peacock Feathers for several days, which was pretty dark, I wanted something bright & happy. May I present my current NOTD – Urban Decay Shattered:

If anyone knows of an available polish that is a dupe for this, LET ME KNOW. Seriously. It's such perfect shimmery turquoise excellence. The pics don't quite capture the depth of color or the bluer flash.

Since there was some visible nail line (which I probably didn't have nails long enough to notice back when I used to wear this) even at 4 coats, I decided to add some Konad, which I hadn't originally planned on. Hides the VNL pretty well, although the tips are still noticably lighter. I thought about messing with it some more but then I remembered my experience of a couple weeks ago & my lesson of less is more so I stopped while I was ahead. Konaded with CG Awaken & plate m62. 'Scuse my edges btw, I was too lazy to clean up.

I wish I'd known enough back then to buy an extra bottle. I wish they'd had it available when I placed an order when they were closing out the polishes. Most of all, I wish they still made it (or any polish at all, stupid Urban Decay, forgetting your roots! Nail polish is where it all started!). Although I have to say the old handle is one of the worst things ever. Their newer bottles have a much better top.

That's all for now. Thanks for reading

~Colette