Weekend Beauty - Nail Polish: Picking Mushrooms

Mushroomy colors, all the rage in the past season and one of my personal most favorite categories of nail polish...What is a mushroomy color? The definition is very much open for interpretation, as it is easier to intuit than to describe this elusive shade. An earthy, dirty, grayish brown, like You Don't Know Jacques is mushroomy. A dirty, dusty purple like Metro Chic is mushroomy. An odd, again, slightly dirty pink-taupe like Tickle My France-y is mushroomy. So I suppose "mushroomy" stands for a little bit dirty, a little bit odd and very hard-to-describe. Mushroomy in nail polish is what skanky is in perfume. The best joile laides in the nail polish world are mushroomy. Below, from the darkest to the lightest, my favorite "mushrooms": You Don't Know Jacques from OPI Fall/Winter 2008 France collection - the skankiest...pardon me, the mushroomiest and the dirtiest of them all. A color of mud, but in a chic way. Ugly-beautiful at its best. Application, for me, is a little bit troublesome, as the color has a surprising tendency to have bold spots, on my nails, and needs 4 coats, but it is worth it. Metro Chic by OPI for Sephora, an immediate cult favorite in the debut collection, is described by Sephora as skyscraper gray. I would describe as dusty gray, mushroomy purple. Definitely urban, irressistibly weird and undeniably chic. Impeccable quality and application. Zoya Pasha was flying the mushroomy flag way before the craze started. It is a slightly dirty light-brown with gray undertone. Great application and texture. I wish it did not have a pearlescent effect, but only because I am not in a mood for that kind of thing right now, gravitating towards creames and gels. Country Club Khaki is from Orly's Spring 2009 Prepster collection, and it is surprising to find an off-kilter, kind of dirty color like that in a line of, as the name suggests, preppy shades. It was love at first sight for me, a thick, almost one-coater cream taupe with, yes, khaki and mushroomy undertones. And if you look at it long and hard, you might start to notice something light-purple there too. Rescue Beauty Launge Grunge. I don't know if the name really fits, this calm and chic taupe is neither angst-filled nor unkempt. It's Park Ave Grunge. This was one of the first nail polishes to make me realize that taupe is not such a dirty (read- boring) word anymore. Or rather, that it IS dirty, in a very good way. Again, if you look hard, you can see slight purple-ness in Grunge along with slight grayness. Apart from fitting the desription of a mushroomy color, this shade makes me think of milky hot chocolate from school cafeteria. And I mean it as a compliment. Perfect quality and flawless application. Misa Cool Mousse is the gray-est of my favorite mushroom nail polishes. Its grayness has a slight green quality alongside with some brown. It escapes definition. There is something mysterious and tranquil about this color, something elvish. It is a three-coater as it is fairly transparent at first, but the application is impeccable. Brucci Taupe Matters. Yes, it does! This is a darker version of Tickle My France-y below, only with less pink and more brown in it. Brucci line is worth exploring as it has some surprises in it, and this is one of them. The quality is superb, the application non-problematic and it costs $2 or so. Look for it in stores like Duane Reade. If there is such a thing as Holy Grail nail polish, then OPI's Tickle My France-y, from last year's France, collection is mine. I love it when I can't describe a color. I love it when a color appears straghtforward (beige-nude-taupe in this case) and demure, but isn't. There are so many nuances to this deceptively PC shade: it is pink, it is gray, it is slightly purple, it is taupe...it is my favorite mushroom. Complex, indescribable color at its best. Any more ideas for mushroomy nail polishes? Do share!

Weekend Beauty- Nail Polish: In Search of a Perfect Laduree Violette

I have been toying with the idea of posting about makeup, cosmetics, beauty on weekends. Perhaps, I will finally start doing so, every once in a while. Being a nail polish maniac, I am, of course inaugurating, the Weekend Beauty on PST with a post about nail polish. It all started with a Laduree's Napoleon III box in what they call "violette" color. I would also describe this color as light lilac or lavender. Whatever is the right name for it, I've been obsessed with this shade forever. A lot of it, worn close to my face, makes me look like I drowned, and not pretty Pre-Raphaelite Ophelia kind of drowned. But in a lipstick (a post to follow) and nail polish it suits me well and is oh so pretty. Here are swatches of nine nail polishes I tried on in an attempt to match the sublime Laduree "violette", from the least to the most similar. China Glaze Mr & Mrs was too pink. Nice application, as always with China Glaze, but on a transparent side, with a shimmer that is becoming too obvious for my taste, as the color builds up. I also must say that this shade is, to me, rather tame and dull. Orly Petit Four is pinker still or actually mauve-er. Even, creamy texture that is thick enough to almost be sufficient in one coat. Very pretty, but...it might be my taste, it might be the fact that it sort of doesn't sit too well with my skin color, but I found it quite boring. China Glaze Agent Lavender is lovely taken on its own merit, but too blue Laduree-box-wise. At times it looks to me light periwinkle more than lavender. It had amazing creamy texture and easy application. This is the kind of polish that appears as though it would apply unevenly and then miraculously spreads on a nail flawlessly all on its own. It is also a perfect match to tanzanites in one of my favorite rings and so it more than earns its place in my collection. Essie Looking for Love is less blue than Agent Lavender but still on a too-blue side for my Laduree violette ideal. It was also the worst of the nine polishes with regards to quality and application. Too transparent, it applied with "bold spots" and needed 5 coats to look at all decent. China Glaze Who's Wearing What is a little darker than what I was looking for in this case, but unexpectedly gorgeous in an odd kind of way in which Sephora by OPI Metro Chic is gorgeous. It has some mushroomy dirt in it which makes it rather edgy. Not Laduree material, but a surpising discovery anyway. OPI Done Out in Deco from South Beach Spring/Summer 2009 Collection, although lighter than Who's Wearing What, is still a little too dark and has a little bit of dirt (which I love) in it as well. To me, it is also somewhat of a lighter cousin to Parlez-Vous OPI. For those who, like me, adore mid-tone purples like this, it will be a new holy grail. The application was perfect, the polish was almost thick enough for one coat and impeccable with two coats. Essie Baby Cakes is almost a perfect match, perhaps just a tiniest, minutest touch on a pinker side than the color in question. Love-love this shade anyway, and the quality and ease of application are what I came to expect from Essie. Something chilly and mesmerizing about this color. My new favorite. Zoya Miley is basically It, the violette-lilac-lavender shade I was looking for. It is a little too transparent and needs 4 coats for nail tips not to show through but the gel-like texture and final result are sublime. Here is one more picture with it, just because: Orly Bon Bon is The Perfect Match, perhaps unsurprisingly somehow, given the name. It seems a little transparent at first, but builds up fine in 3 coats. The texture is even and smooth, somewhere in between cream-cream and gel-cream. I used to complain that Orly polishes dry too slowly (if at all), but ever since I started using drying top coat, it became a non-issue. This delicious lilac is a must-have. Any more ideas for light violet-lilac-lavender polishes? Do share, because one can never have too many. China Glaze, OPI and Orly polishes mentioned can be found at 8ty8beauty.com and/or transdesign.com. Zoya polishes can be bought on artofbeauty.com.