Is Sephora's Formula X nail polish discontinued?

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How did I not notice this before? It looks like there are now only 5-6 shades left on the website, and everything is marked down. Boo! I've liked all the polishes I've tried from the brand and they had really unique options. Maybe they should have priced them lower to begin with. I know I never bought a bottle at full price, personally.

Has anyone seen the display in the store recently? I'm wondering if there are still more options on sale there. I might pick up the set with the top and base coats for half price.

Zoya raises prices to $10 a bottle

Hope you bought any Zoya polishes you wanted in their last sale, because they are now $10 a bottle! Sorry, as much as I love Zoya, that's way too much for me. They've raised the price $2 in just over 2 years--that's pretty steep when you think of it in terms of percentage.

I know there are much more expensive polishes out there, but I've never been inspired to buy them. I've tried some out and read lots of reviews, and I don't see a big (or any) difference that can be correlated to price. What's your upper limit for polish?

Four "Free" Zoya Polishes

Zoya does some version of this sale every year, and while it's a good deal, I kind of hate the way they promote it. According to them, you get 4 free polishes of your choice (some products excluded), but you have to pay "promotional shipping" of $15, which is higher than their usual shipping cost. So really you're getting 4 polishes for $3.75 each with free shipping. At least that seems to me a better way to think about it. Great deal, still--last time it was only 3 polishes for $15!

Details here. Use code 4YOU. Ends Jan. 13.

Are you going to get in on it? Zoya is probably my favorite nail polish brand. You can see some of my swatches in my Zoya tag.

And now I can die: Color Club Oil Slick multichrome nail polish swatches (with excessive photos)

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I felt like I was pretty much over nail polish after amassing a ridiculously large hoard and then purging dozens of bottles from it and not being able to find anyone to take them off my hands (pun intended?). The rejects are still sitting in a box in my closet taking up space. Anyone want them?

But then I saw photos of the Color Club Oil Slick Collection on beautygeeks, and my acquisitive drive fired right the fuck back up. Multichromes are my absolute favorites, and these ones looked as stunning as the many indie options out there, but more accessible. I've just never really got into indie polishes. There's definitely some fascinating stuff out there, but the prices and (often) the need to pounce before things go out of stock just don't appeal to me. ILNP, for instance, has dozens of multichromes - but the choice is overwhelming, and they are more expensive than Color Club. I've used and liked Color Club before, and I really hoped I would be able to find these polishes at Meijer, where I once got some of the Halo Hues (holos) for under $4. No such luck, of course.

Color Club Oil Slick collection: Cash Only, It's Raining Men, We'll Never Be Royals, and Burnt Out

I'm not impulsive. I told myself that I wasn't allowed to buy them until I could redeem 200 coins in Habitica. In the meantime, I wanted to find the cheapest possible price online. I only wanted four from the collection: Cash Only, It's Raining Men, We'll Never Be Royals, and Burnt Out. You can find them on ebay, and I'd heard that some people had picked them up there for about $6 each + free shipping. I checked several times over the course of a few weeks and never found anything lower that $8 + $3-4 shipping per bottle. Amazon's prices fluctuate, but over the weeks I was looking, they didn't go lower than ebay. I looked at several other beauty and nail supply sites, but when Color Club had a 31% off sale on their site for Halloween, I ended up getting them there for a total of about $33 including shipping for the four bottles. If you want a few bottles, I'd recommend getting them from the Color Club site, if you don't mind waiting for a sale (right now they have 25% off), though if you just want a single bottle, $10 + free shipping on Amazon is probably a better bet.

Color Club Oil Slick collection: Cash Only, It's Raining Men, We'll Never Be Royals, and Burnt Out

Anyway, enough shop(ping) talk. I have them now and they are nearly everything I imagined and we are very happy together. Some general points about the formula of all of them, and then I'll move on to photos. They are nice and opaque, so you only need two coats. If you're very good, you might be able to get away with just one coat. But all four of these polishes are quite thick, so I anticipate having to thin them sooner rather than later. That also means that you have to wipe the brush off carefully or you might end up with a big glob rolling down the wand as you're painting your nail and messing everything up. Dry time is average, but I always use a quick dry top coat, because I am not at all patient enough not to. I used Orly Polishield (reviewed here, but I've found recently that I like it much better when I use a thick coat of it) for all the photos below. I applied Cash Only without a basecoat and it chipped the next day. For all the others, I used Orly Bonder basecoat and went at least two days without chipping (it's rare that any polish lasts much longer than that for me).

So let's get on with the swatches. It's impossible to capture all the shifting colors in photos, because it's really movement that brings them alive. I did my best with my mediocre camera. I exercised almost no restraint, so I've put many, many photos below the cut. Indulge me! I haven't been this excited about nail polish in a long time.

First up: Cash Only. This was a surprise. I hesitated about getting it, but it turned out to be my second favorite of the bunch. It's really amazing and not like anything else I've seen. It would be hard to name all the colors in there. It goes from rosy beige, to gold, to steel grey, to silver, to lavender, to blue, to green, with a bunch of other shit in between.

The photos below are in all sorts of different lighting, and let me warn you one last time that I went overboard with the number of photos here (you can enlarge them by clicking on them). But they're all different! All equally important.

Lab Muffin speculates on what caused the problems with the Mentality polishes

Here's a very scientific and fascinating exploration of the possible causes of the reactions people have been having to Mentality nail polishes, if you can't get enough of that saga.

The Downside of Indies: Mentality Polish and "Sensitivity"

Buying from indie cosmetics companies can feel really noble and gratifying. I think supporting small, independent businesses rather than massive corporations is a good thing. Also, indie companies tend to put out some more interesting products than mainstream companies, since they are only making small batches and don't have to try to appeal to the broadest audience possible.

The downside is that, when something goes wrong, a small business might not have the infrastructure or resources to fix it. That's what seems to be happening with Mentality Polish, who sold some products this spring that caused what they call "sensitivity" for a number of their customers. People's nails have been lifting from the beds and it's all pretty gross and painful-looking. A major company would do a proper recall at this point (or would have been able to do extensive testing of their products beforehand to avoid these results in the first place). In the case of this indie nail polish company, they seem to have started out trying to replace the products of the people who got in touch with them, but ran out of money to do so and are no longer making amends (and posting on social media about "bullies" - not enough eye rolls for that). They also didn't communicate the issue to all of their customers, so there are likely people out there having bad reactions without knowing why. You can find out more about the issue and the company's response in this post from The Mercurial Magpie (warning: graphic photos of injured nails).

I'm posting this tonight in case you bought anything from Mentality during the problem window (April-June 2015; see above link for details) and also just as a word of caution about dealing with independent cosmetic manufacturers. I'm curious about people's thoughts on indie cosmetics in general. Do you think they are likely to be more or less reliable than mega-corps?

Butter London 50% off + free shipping (and other beauty deals at Macy's)

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Okay, I'm just going to make this the day that I spam my blog with sales. It's not what I usually do, but it's what I'm doing today. I blame you, Amazon. Macy's has a big beauty sale going on, and among other things, BL polishes are $7.50. And everything has free shipping, apparently. Check it all out here.

Ebates also has an extra 8% cash back for Macy's, so your best bet is to shop through their link. There's no downside. (More info about Ebates here.)

Instagram Mini Reviews

I'm away from home at the moment, and don't have the photos I need to finish any of the posts I've started recently. Instead, here's a quick round up of some mini reviews I've posted on Instagram in the last couple of months for those who don't use it. If you follow on Instagram: sorry - I'll have something more interesting for you soon.

It's a 10 Miracle Leave In Product

Maybelline ColorSensational Lipstick in Maple Kiss: On my lips here and swatch comparison here

Derma-e Evenly Radiant Brightening Day Crème SPF 15

Sally Hansen Triple Shine Making Waves: Nail swatch, then 4 days wear and 5 days wear

Suave Natural Infusion Strengthening Light Leave In Cream

Plus: how to paint your toenails without making a mess and my final Birchbox

3 Zoya Polishes for $15

The way that Zoya words their promotions is pretty ridiculous. Technically, they are saying that you get three free bottles of nail polish, but you have to pay $15 shipping. Come on. It's three bottles for $5 each, which is a decent discount, since they are usually $9. Use code KICK. Full info here.

Zoya is my favorite nail polish brand, and you can see some of their polishes that I like in my Zoya tag.

Butter London is on HauteLook today (50% off or more)

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Dammit, I was just going to pass this information along and ignore it, but Two Fingered Salute is included in the sale, and I've been wanting that for two years (or however long it's been around). Should I?

Individual bottles are $7.50 (i.e. half price), and there are also sets, and lip products, mascara, etc., for a variety of prices.

Doing any Memorial Day shopping? (It's kind of weird that this is a shopping holiday, right?)

ETA: Oops, I bought Two Fingered Salute and Posh Bird.

Is your 3 or 4 or 5-free nail polish really free?

By now you've probably read the NYT article about nail salon and human trafficking/exploitation (if not, get on it). There's been lots of interesting discussion stemming from the article as well. I would recommend, as usual, skipping the Jezebel commentary on the topic, in which the author goes apeshit in the comments - as she's been doing in the comments of other articles, including ones she didn't even write herself (I am hesitant to link from here to such ridiculous antics, but let me know if you want some directions to the train wreck). But Wondegondigo has a thoughtful discussion, for example.

As part of describing the poor working conditions of salon employees, a link in the NYT article pointed to a study done in 2012 on 3(+)-free nail polishes that showed that many of them still included the chemicals that they were supposedly free from (including formaldehyde, DBP, and toulene). In fact:

"Toluene was found more frequently, and in higher concentrations in products with toxic-trio related claims than in traditional products. Ten of the twelve products with “toluene-free” claims did, in fact, contain toluene."

You know that I am not overly concerned about "chemicals," but if these particular ingredients, which do pose potential health risks when used frequently or in the wrong way, are a concern for you, well . . . maybe you should still be concerned. Or you should be extra careful to paint your nail in a very well-ventilated space.

It was nice to see that the Zoya they tested in that study did turn out to actually be 3-free, so I can blissfully go on loving my Zoyas.

Zoya Dream

Illlamasqua is on HauteLook today (bigger selection than usual and 50%+ off)

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Looks like a good sale. All sort of lipsticks, cream pigments, nail polishes, etc., starting at about $7.50. Some things are already sold out, so you might have to make up your mind soon.

Zoya Earth Day promotion: 50% off 6-24 bottles of polish + free shipping

For Earth Day, Zoya always does this promotion where you can get a discount in exchange for sending unwanted bottle of polish to them for proper disposal. You're not supposed to throw nail polish in the trash, since it counts as a hazardous material, so this is a way to get rid of it properly.

But you can get the deal even if you don't send them anything back. They say it's on the honor system, and they suggest that you might also donate some nail polish instead of disposing of it. You'll get each bottle for $4.50 with this deal.

Use code EARTHLUV from April 21-28. All the information is here.

Zoya's one of my favorite nail polish brands. Possibly my very favorite. They just make such fucking interesting shades and they have a million of them. I've been happy with almost all the ones I've bought, and I've never paid full price, because they frequently have good sales. I'm going to have to sit this one out this year, because I just can't afford any more polish, but if anyone goes for it, show me what you get!

Here's one of my favorites, Giovanna (more here):

And here are links to some of my other Zoya swatches: Evvie, Neely, Ibiza, Arizona, Odette, Song, Lotus, and Fei Fei. And those aren't even all the ones I own.

Illamasqua is on HauteLook today (nail polishes for $7.50, lipsticks, glosses, and eyeliners for $12)

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Unless things have changed recently, Illamasqua is no longer being sold in the US outside of ebay - and sales like this one on HauteLook. Last time the showed up on HL, things sold out pretty fucking fast, so you might want to get on that. I don't have any Illamasqua stuff personally, because it's pricey, but there are some major fans out there. The beloved Raindrops nail polish is included in the sale. I'm tempted, despite my anti-hoarding plans.

I've said this before, but the upside of HL are the prices, obviously. I've ordered tons of things from them with no problems - they're not particularly shady, since they're affiliated with Nordstrom. The downside is that your stuff will take weeks to ship. So don't order anything you want immediately.

You need an account to browse or buy, so here's my link, if you want to use it.

(And if you're going to buy something anyway, you should add the Chella pencil sharpener from $2.50 to your order. I got mine form Birchbox, and it's the best sharpener I have ever used. Even sharpens fat lip pencils without making a mess!)

3 full size and 3 mini Zoya nail polishes for $15 shipped

Use code NYNH. You get to choose the full size ones, but the minis are mystery shades that have never and will never be for sale (???). And this deal is also open to Canada! Expires Jan. 14. More info here.

(Someone remind me I already have too much nail polish. Zoya is probably my favorite brand . . . )

What makes $675 nail polish better than drugstore nail polish?

Do you think anyone was like, "I have no idea why this would cost so much money," but they didn't include those people, because it's not as funny? There had to be someone, right? RIGHT?

Does nail polish go bad? (from Pretty Girl Science)

No.

40% off "vintage" Butter London polishes

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Hasn't Butter London only been around for a few years? I think we're playing a little fast and loose with the word vintage these days. Anyway, these are some of their "old" favorite, and you can get them for $9 each using the code VINTAGE40 until July 31. That's still more than a cheapskate like me would spend on a bottle of nail polish, but I don't know your life. I do know that people get excited about BL sales, and that they make some good nail polish. Wallis is always a good choice. Shipping is around $8, so it may not be worth it unless you're buying more than one bottle.

L'Oreal Project Runway "Electric Fantasie" nail polishes (limited edition from Fall 2012) on clearance

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So probably this doesn't sound like the most exciting deal in the world, but hear me out: drugstore.com has the L'Oreal Project Runway nail polish collection on clearance for $3.79 each. The colors in that collection are really interesting and unusual. I couldn't find a good link with swatches of all of them in the same place, but you should definitely google the ones you're curious about. There are 6 of them left, and I have not seen these in stores since they first came out in Fall 2012. The only one I own is The Temptress' Power (the names are kind of ridiculous), which is seriously spectacular (swatches here). I'm not supposed to be buying more nail polish, but maybe these constitute a special exception? Maybe?

You can get free shipping over $35, as well as an extra 4% back using Ebates (invite link).

ETA: A few people are still selling some of these on Amazon and ebay, but the prices are generally higher, which is why I wanted to point out the drugstore.com price.

How to Get the Most Out of Seche Vite (from Pretty Girl Science)

Everyone loves Seche Vite, right? Seems that way. But if you've had trouble getting it to work like the miracle top coat it's purported to be, these tips from Pretty Girl Science will be super helpful.