Cutex (Quick n Go) - 510 Ice Coffee Rush

Sadly this actually had little appearance of ice coffee. It came out too pinky. So I fixed it!! A few dabs of High Heeled Wife from Chi Chi (a creme tan) was much helpful. The brush took some getting used to. It is not only flat, but curved on one edge so you have to flip it over for each side of the nail. The formula was a little streaky but the pale colour is forgiving. I've done 3 coats here.

What I really loved when I saw it was the micro shimmer through it of minty green and candy pink. On the nail it is not very apparent, so I guess for your personal joy only. I had one compliment on it, at a shop. It has worn really well, as now it is 3 days and there is minor tip wear and no chipping!

I remember the days when Cutex was a giant in the nail market in Australia. I came from the day when they had the triangular bottle with the long white skinny handle. Where have they done now? To random chemists (if lucky) and Priceline... Sad times. Cutex is now owned by cosmetic giant, Coty.

Interestingly, nail polish is still one of the domestic products largely manufactured anywhere. For example, I currently have on my desk ones that are made in Spain (this one), Brazil, USA, France and Australia. China does not yet dominate the nail polish manufacturing arena. Look at clothing or shoes for example, and you would have to be trying hard to find product made somewhere aside from China, as this is the norm. But turn to nail polish, and it is actually unusual to find Chinese made polish (exceptions are the $2 variety fashion trend stuff).

b collection - part 4 - attack of the reds

All of these are cremes.

Milan - hot red, pretty much a fluro, orange based.
Rio, Costa Rica and Cancun are barely variable shades of hot red, progressing in darkness and orangeness. Costa Rica is probably the closest to true bold red. These are all chilli pepper tones. Think salsa, unbridled passion and all those exotic things.
Rome - sensible red. This would have been the reddest you could get back in the 50s before they started getting all these new fangled fluro shades. I guess this is your classic naughty dame colour. Scarlet claws.
Florence - now this is heading a little into tomato territory. It's still very much a red but a bit earthier than the dancing queens of before. Maybe they were thinking of tomato paste on pizza bases?
Tuscany - darker, but same line of thinking as Florence. Rome, Florence and Tuscany are in the blue based reds category.

b collection - part 3

Brisbane - well its a creme, it's some kind of blue based pink fuschia colour that I really dislike. The only reason I can think B decided to give this to Brisbane is that we have an arbour of bouganvillea in South Bank, one of our "premiere" tourist sites... except that bouganvillea has a much prettier colour. When discussing this with friends, we felt that Brisbane should really be something like beige or concrete. We have been through a major revamp stage with public spaces, and it tends to be all steel and concrete construction. Beige would be because we have a lot of staid workers here who stick to the rules. If Melbourne is black and Sydney is chocolate, we are definitely beige.

Casablanca - Who would have thought Casablance be a hot violet? But it is what it is. And its a creme.

Shanghai - ok, agreeable, the orchid of the east. Shanghai conjures up prostitute dens, luxury and excess, and velvet passions. Also a creme. Pink orchid.

New York - creme purple, that is what I would call this.Its a very middle of the paint rack purple. Not light, not dark, not red, not blue. Actually, it's probably the colour Yahoo uses in their logo!

Mykonos - dark blue shot with violet pearl. I compared this with the Modelista version of Mykonos and they felt it was better represented as a bold electric blue pearl. Either way, Mykonos is about blue. Blue blue blue blue. If you're an island surrounded by water, and offset by solid white buildings... then I guess blue is the most obvious choice.

Dubai - An electric pearl violet. It has all the lush appearance of silk satin glimmering in light, smooth and rich.

Beijing - There are two dark blues, the other being Moscow. I think Moscow is the darker. Now, if they were thinking that this is like the "workers blue" then it needs to be a bit lighter. But in comparison to Shanghai, yep, spot on. Shanghai is party town and Beijing is officious duty. Hand me the rubber stamp. It's so dark in the bottle it is almost black.