Late Spring and Early Summer Displays

In the past few weeks there's been a influx of new displays in my usual haunts, which is a bit disconcerting since I've yet to swatch most of the colors I bought from the ones in my last big display post. I might just have to sit out a season or two in order to catch up. Just kidding—I don't expect I'll ever catch up.

As usual for Maybelline, two displays showed up at once, one all-polish and the other makeup and polish. Both of these are called The Bright Side, and I assume it's intended as a summer collection thought it's not labeled as such. The eight colors in the polish display are
Coralicious, Pink Passion, Blue Brilliance, Orange Blazes, Go-Getter Green, and Sunshine. The makeup display has Pink Burst and Outloud Lime.

Sinful has a whole mess of stuff out; unless you've memorized their product line, it's hard to know which are limited edition colors, which are old colors being re-promoted with new names, and which are new core colors—it might be a mix of all of those in each display, especially since my Walgreens has been known to just fill up the displays with random colors from the core collection as things sell out.

Regardless, the Tropical Ecstasy display is pretty to look at, with the brightly colored birds and equally bright polishes. The lineup here, left to right: Gorgeous, Happy Ending, Let's Meet, Big Daddy, Cloud 9, Fiji, Fly Away, Innocent.

The Polka Dots display is a little softer overall. This one had a pad of tear off instruction sheets for dotting your nails, which may be old hat to many of us who frequent nail blogs but I imagine is new to a lot of casual drugstore shoppers. The sheet suggests using a toothpick for a dotting tool and emphasizes there is no right or wrong way and that people should have fun and be creative. I can't argue with that. The colors in this one: Fig, Nirvana, Hazard, Unicorn, Innocent, Pink Forever, Savage, Why Not.

Then there's the "hi, we're hoping you might confuse us with OPI" Lone Star display. Like OPI Texas, it's got green, brown, silver, turquoise, and some hot pinks and oranges. Left to right: Boom Boom, Nirvana, Savage, Folly, Tapping Nails, Envy, Casablanca, Oh La La.

Say what you will about the Essie brand being cheapened by its move into mass market retailers, but I'm happy for the change since it means it's a lot easier for me to get the new colors, like those in Braziliant. Left to right: Too Too Hot, Braziliant, Meet Me at Sunset, Super Bossa Nova, Absolutely Shore, Smooth Sailing. Rite Aid has these out now; I've no idea when Ulta might put them out (and the sales assistants there don't either).

One thing Ulta does have out is OPI Femme de Cirque. It's a SoftShades collection, so that means nothing too startling: In the Spot-Light, a pale pink, Step Right Up, an even paler pink, and So Many Clowns So Little Time, a pink so pale as to be ivory, are joined by a shimmery top coat, I Juggle Men (no, OPI, I am not putting the ellipses or commas in these names; you're lucky I put the hyphen in the first one). I'm disappointed OPI used such an interesting collection name for such a sedate group of shades; I see the words "Femme de Cirque" and think of Cirque du Soleil, which is filled with bright, brilliant, flashy colors. I'd have called this one "Femme de Tranquille" or "Femme de Ballet"; of course then the colors would need new names, like I Take Naps or My Toe Shoes Pinch.

Revlon's Summer Romantics has three shades of nail polish in it: Tangerine, Blue Lagoon, and Sunshine Sparkle. I've seen both wall and shelf displays of this one.

Revlon also has some new mini sets out. Like in fall/winter, there are two different trios. One has Waterfall (a light blue that looks very much like Blue Lagoon), Sparkle (which looks very much like Belle from the Add Some Sparkle collection), and Garden (a bright spring green which looks new to me). The other has Butterfly (a soft orange), Moss (a murky light warm green), and Tulip (a pink which I'm almost certain they've done before with a different name). I believe I need Moss, and I believe Revlon knows that putting it in a set with a pink and an orange was the only way they'd get me to buy the other two colors.

And that's not all from Revlon; there are new summer Top Speed colors, too: Stone Wash (soft white), Modern Grace (periwinkle), Mock Snob (coral), Super Nature (lime), Luxe Laque (pink), Wind Fall (teal), Polished (peach), and Gold Rush (gold).

Finally, not a display but still new polish: a set of scented minis from Crayola, the crayon people. I first saw this propped up next to a random makeup display at Rite Aid; I've since seen it hanging in the regular nail care section.