For the Pink-Challenged

Spring might not be in the air just yet, but beauty spring fever most certainly is. I can't do away with my coats, but springifying my nails is a good way to cheer one's soul. The problem is that the ultimate spring nail color is girly pink, but way too many of the obvious hues and tones tend to look awful on my hands.

My olive skin looks better in either very warm pinks (with a touch of coral) that are more summery, or in mauve-based tones. Essie has a perfect one: Spritzer (#365) is a muted warm mauve-pink. It's a great everyday shade, always aproppriate and very pretty. One coat is good enough (and looks more pink and bright), a second coat gives the exact color you see in the bottle.

Speaking about the bottle: The color is less pearly than it looks in the bottle, especially when a second coat is applied.

Into the Dark

October is nail polish month at Blogdorf Goodman. We all seem to be going darker and darker, though I'm still not caving in for anything black. It looks like I'm not the only one who was seduced by the powers of Essie's Wicked. I've blogged about it last week and have been sporting it since, just like the Beauty Addict. It's the darkest color I've ever worn on my nails, and I absolutely love it. It's definitely more elegant than goth, which is a very good thing once you're of a certain age. I second Kristen's advice about keeping nails short. The color has more than enough personality by itself, no need for milage.

The other color I bought last week was Essie's Double Dip. I was hoping for a chocolate, but the color sample on the site was misleading. It's a pretty metalic medium red, that today looks very nice on my toes. But it's definitely not what I was looking for. So in my quest for that perfect brown, I'll be trying next Estee Lauder's Dark Chocolate.

Nailed

The goth guy who bagged my groceries at Whole Foods the other day had something in common with many beauty obsessed ladies these days: He was wearing black nail polish. I doubt that he shelled a hefty sum to bid on a bottle of Chanel Black Satin on eBay, but nevertheless, that was shiny black polish.

Nails haven't been this dark since Chanel made everyone crazy with Vamp (also sold out everywhere, albeit temporarily). The first hint of this was back in July, when Bobbi Brown's limited edition Chocolate Cherry polish was sold out even before the chocolate eye palette. A look at drugstores in my area confirmed that those deep browns were gone even from the less hyped brands. I couldn't find even one bottle of anything dark enough for this trend.


Thankfully, we'll always have online shopping. Earlier this week, beauty.com still had a nice selection of very dark colors. I bought Double Dip and Wicked (very similar to the infamous Vamp). By now they're already out of many of these colors (including their black, Licorice).