Here's Nubar's spring 2011 collection, "Spring Garden". A set of pastels that are a little different from all the ones we've seen lately. They're kinda dirty (in a good way) and each shade except Honeysuckle has a silvery hidden shimmer.


Baby Sprout. Not the mint green clone I was expecting! This is just barely green, like a creamy white with a bit of green cast to it. It's lighter than China Glaze Groovy Green. Really pretty color, though unfortunately it gives me mega lobster hands.



Blue Hydrangea. This is a pastel blue- it's like a dark baby blue or a pale sky blue. It is the only one that actually looks shimmery, the shimmer in the rest of the colors is more of a secret shimmer. The shimmer gives it a reflective pearl finish.



Earthen. A dirty, murky grey! I like. It has a little bit of a taupe tone to it, but it looks mainly grey on my skin. The very fine shimmer softens the color a little bit so it looks sort of... fuzzy? It's ever-so-slightly pearly, but only in certain lights.


Honeysuckle. Here's the obligatory Pantone 2011 Color of the Year honeysuckle shade. It's the only true creme in the collection and it adds a jarring pop of bright color amongst all these faded, dusty pastels. It's bright and clean and surprisingly nice; it has a subtle jelly look to it, though I wouldn't call it a true jelly finish (it's too opaque). Oddly, I never think of this color when I think of honeysuckle flowers. The honeysuckles I remember from my Grandma's garden were all white and yellow.


Pink Lily. Light, peachy pastel pink. Slight subtle pearl finish from all that fine silver shimmer in there.


Purple Aster. A light lavender pastel. Not quite as blue toned as it looks here, but still slightly blue toned in real life. I had about two seconds of sunlight to take this picture, I think it shows how subtle the shimmer is. Only a hint of silvery frost, you would never know if you didn't see it in direct light.


White Peony. This looks like a pure clean white in this picture, but in real life it has a bit of a dirty look to it. Not enough to call it off white or ivory, but it looks slightly faded and really creamy. I can't tell if this one has shimmer or not, actually... At some angles it looks like it, but my eyes hurt from staring at it!


Yellow Primrose. Very pale butter yellow. Lighter than Nubar Lemon Sorbet and Maybelline Banana Pudding. Very cute, very springy. The shimmer in this is almost invisible, but it softens the look of the color so it doesn't look chalky.

There's one more color in this collection- a coordinating glitter topcoat called Dewdrop. It doesn't really show up well alone, so I've only photographed it layered. It's a pastel opal glitter in a clear base, reminds me of something like Color Club Bishop's Weed or China Glaze Glacier.

I've done one coat over each color, no topcoat.

Dewdrop over Baby Sprout.

Dewdrop over Blue Hydrangea.


Dewdrop over Earthen.


Dewdrop over Honeysuckle.


Dewdrop over Pink Lily.


Dewdrop over Purple Aster.



Dewdrop over White Peony.


Dewdrop over Yellow Primrose.

The formula on all of these was good. It was thinner than usual but still nice and even, not runny. These weren't as opaque as previous Nubar cremes, I found that I needed three coats on all shades to get them completely even. Drying time is good. Bottles and brushes were all without defect.


These pastels are a little bit different from all the other pastels this year. I really like Earthen and Yellow Primrose, and White Peony is a nice white for wearing alone since it's not quite as chalky looking as other whites.

These will be available soon on ByNubar.com, though I don't know the exact date.

(These were sent to me for review.)

Nubar Spring Garden Collection Spring 2011 Swatches and Review

I did this mani that I really hated, but I didn't feel like taking it off and starting over. No matter what I layered over it, I still hated it... So I figured, why not add one more layer just to see what it looks like? I didn't necessarily love what I ended up with, but it was at least better. I photographed the evidence:


Here's me playing with China Glaze Fault Line and Broken Hearted. I don't remember everything it's layered over, but it included Milani Magenta Metal as the base and Sally Hansen HD in Byte on top of everything. I liked the subtle crackle effect of Fault Line with little glints of duochrome sparkle from Byte peeking through. Fault Line still doesn't crack as well as the other shades, but I did get it to crackle more this time by applying it over completely dry polish and waiting 5 minutes before applying topcoat.



This one I actually liked. It's China Glaze Lightning Bolt over the random pink polish mess. I love the way the glass fleck sparkles in Byte shine through the cracks of the white polish. White crackle is really neat. I want to do it over neon yellow... think I'll try that soon.


So, there's that. Just thought I'd share a few more layering combinations with the crackles. I'm still a bit obsessed with crackle. I don't think I've done more than one or two manis in the past month that haven't had crackle on them...

Playing with China Glaze Crackle Glaze again...

These are technically two separate collections, but they really seem to go together and combined they make six polishes which is about the size of the average polish collection.

I don't know anything about Katy Perry besides the fact that she's cute, has really cool nail designs and blue hair. I do know Serena Williams, though; champion tennis star and brand new nail tech. That's one of the most interesting celebrity collaborations I've seen!

Katy Perry has four brand new colors plus Black Shatter crackle topcoat and Serena Williams has one color plus Black Shatter to go along with it. Black Shatter really is the star here, but all the colors are fantastic:

Katy Perry for OPI Collection

Last Friday Night. This is opalescent glitter with some tiny iridescent electric blue sparkles in a sheer blue tinted base. I know I have at least one other polish that's similar to this- it's either Sally Hansen or Confetti, possibly both even... But this one has that extra something to it. The tiny blue sparkles. They're amazing. They glow and shimmer and light up the whole polish. This is a very sheer shade. It's perfect for layering but you can also wear it alone and I think the end result is magical. Since it's so sheer it doesn't have the same depth as bottle color, but I think it still looks fantastic.


Not Like The Movies. I took a million pictures of this one because it's too awesome for just one shot! It's a purple/green duochrome with some really delicate shiny flaky shimmer in it. It's a little sheer and frosty but it totally works. This is one of the few metallic duochromes to incorporate glitter and actually have it work. Normally a metallic frost formula like this creates a lumpy, bumpy, bubbly look when combined with glitter, but OPI totally nailed it. No lumps. All the glitter shows up and it's absolutely perfect. It seems like a lot more care went into creating this frost/glitter shade than some of the ones from other brands I've tried lately. It's not too frosty, the duochrome is really strong and the glitter adds a really nice touch to it. This might be my favorite of the collection (aside from Black Shatter). I love the name, too.


Teenage Dream. This reminds me of the pictures I've seen of some of those really rare Japanese and UK exclusive OPI glitters I've seen, but I don't have any of them to compare! This is a light pink fine glitter mixed with some holo-opal medium sized glitter in a clear base. It's an opaque glitter and might be a little too dense for layering. It's so pretty and fairy-like. Am I getting sick? That's two pinks in a row that I've fallen for this year!


The One That Got Away. My pictures of this aren't the best- it's one of those crazy luminous shades that make my camera do that weird glowy radioactive looking thing... But if you'll take a look at the bottle color you'll get a better idea of how it looks in real life. It's a red-toned wine purple with some really shiny metallic flaky shimmer in it. You have to see this in person, it just glows!

This collection comes with the brand new Black Shatter topcoat. If you've been into nail polish for a while, you may recall some of the older crackle polishes- namely the Cover Girl Crackles. You apply them over a base color and as they dry they crack and give a neat two-toned cracked/shattered look. This is basically the same thing but with a much improved formula.

It is recommended to apply this over completely dry polish and I agree with that recommendation. You get the best shatter effect that way. When the polish is still slightly wet, the topcoat doesn't crack as much and you end up with larger pieces and not as much of the under color showing through. And, if the polish is too wet, the crackling action and fragmentation of the topcoat takes the wet polish with it, leaving bald spots in between the cracked pieces.

Black Shatter does dry a bit matte and it has texture to it, so I'd recommend a good coat of topcoat after it's done doing its thing. This smooths the texture but also helps keep the cracked pieces on- they can actually fall off when they're fully dry!

Here it is over the Katy Perry shades:

OPI Black Shatter over Last Friday Night.


OPI Black Shatter over Not Like The Movies.

OPI Black Shatter over Teenage Dream.


OPI Black Shatter over The One That Got Away.


Serena Williams Grand Slam Collection

Simply Smashing. This is a yellow-green "lemon lime" type of shade. It might just be the power of suggestion, but it reminds me of a tennis ball. Am I that impressionable? But it really does make me think of a tennis ball, especially one that's been used for playing fetch for a couple weeks. It's a little bit dirty, not quite neon green like a brand new tennis ball. It has a glass fleck type of shimmer- really bright shiny particles of shimmer. Slightly duochrome, too, there's a bit of orange reflect on this shade.

And here it is paired with Black Shatter:

OPI Black Shatter over Simply Smashing.

Isn't Black Shatter great? I'm a bit obsessed with it already. It applies so easily and shatters so quickly. With the old ones you used to have to wait a while and it would take forever to dry. The old generations of crackle polish were also a huge pain to remove. They stuck to your nails like cement and took forever to dissolve with acetone. OPI's Black Shatter crackle polish removes as easily as any normal polish and dries really quickly. It's really, really great and I kinda want to use it for every manicure now.

Just for fun, here's what it looks like over yellow:

I had China Glaze Lighthouse on when Black Shatter arrived and I had to play with it immediately. In my opinion, it's quite a stunning combination. I love the contrast between the creme black shards and the glimmery yellow brightness. I think Black Shatter looks amazing over sparkly shades.


This is one has a coat of OPI Last Friday Night over China Glaze Lighthouse and then a final coat of OPI Black Shatter. The pretty opal glitter might be a little hard to see in these pictures, but it added a really nice subtle something that made it just that much more interesting.

The formula on these was good. All of the shades were on the sheer side and needed at least three coats. I did three coats in all these pictures. Last Friday Night was unusually thick and I'm not sure if that's normal. It applied just fine, but it was almost jelly-like, I'm wondering if mine was a little dried out when I got it because it didn't look completely full, either. Anyway, application was good aside from the sheerness of the shades. Dry time was very good and removal was painless.

I love all the colors in this set. Nothing boring, nothing plain, it's 100% fun. I love the edgy and fun look of Black Shatter and it does look rather nice over all these shades. I think OPI did an excellent job on these. It's bright and shiny, glitter-heavy, sparkly, playful and includes an improved formula Crackle topcoat to make it even more fun. I'm absurdly happy to see that crackle polish, too. It's such a fun look and it really makes people stop and ask you how you did it!

My only complaint is that I wish there were more colors! But I am quite satisfied with the collections as they are. There's duochrome, glitter, a little holo, and an awesome crackle polish. Not finding any flaws at all. They didn't play it safe this time and I'm thankful for that!


(These were sent to me for review.)

OPI Katy Perry and Serena Williams Grand Slam Collections (with Black Shatter Crackle Polish!) Spring 2011