Drugstore madness continues! I snagged a couple of the new colors from the New York Color spring collection. They have a cohesive mix of brights, pastels, and on trend colors.There's something about living in New York that gives the inhabitants so much pride. The atmosphere is always buzzing and there isn't much to keep you sedentary in this city. It doesn't matter if you were born here or if you moved here, the love just grows with time. It's partly this mentality that makes me happy to be a patron of all products named after my favorite city. It also helps if the products rock.

As I have mentioned before, drugstore brands are doing serious overhauls of their brands, New York Color included. Their new colors are much more no nonsense than their predecessors, with thicker polish formulation, and less shimmer filled spectrums - and more pure color. The bottles look pretty fancy too. The price though, remains the same.

Have you checked these out yet?

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The new H&M polishes are bigger in size and offer more support and surface area for those with adult digits. I grabbed a couple of colors and am using this time of post-cold to catch up with images and posts. Being able to breathe through your nose is fantastic y'all. Left image is without flash and right is with flash. I have an endless appreciation for these polishes (and all other polishes who do this) because of their flawless carryover from color delivery at first look to different lighting. That and I have a thing for 90 degree angles on polishes!

What do you think? Have you tried any?
 

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Y'all got a bit more than a day left to get two polishes for the price of one from Zoya (if you have an account on their website - tell me you do!).

Rules from the blog:

• SIGN IN – to your account** on Zoya.com
• CLICK on MY ACCOUNT
• Once you are in your account go to the left hand side of the page and CLICK on MY PROMOTIONS AND COUPONS
• APPLY the code that reads ZOYA SUMMER BOGO*.
• Then ADD - Any combination of  polishes from the new summer collections to your shopping cart.
•  (This BOGO* you can buy up to 7 bottles and get 7 FREE(of the new summer collections)
• ADD any additional items you would like to purchase
• CHECK OUT (BOGO* applies to polish from Summertime, Sunshine and ModMatte collections ONLY!)
• Please double check all information IS CORRECT and ALL FIELDS have been completely filled out PRIOR to submitting the order. There is NO WAY to issue a new code after the order has been processed.
• SUBMIT – your order.

*Offer open only to those with active accounts** on Zoya.com, artofbeauty.com, Qtica.com and qticasmartspa.com as of 3/20/2011 at 5 PM ST. Offer open to consumers, Online promotion only. Continental US ONLY. BOGO Offer* is good on Open stock .5oz Polish ONLY from Summer 2011 collections. (Zoya Summertime, Sunshine and ModMatte) BOGO Offer good for up to 7 polishes. BOGO Offer* code is unique and non-transferable. One code per account. Code expires on 3/25/2011 at 11:59PM EST. Standard ground shipping is $2.00 and FREE for orders over $55. Upgraded shipping not available for this promotion. Please allow standard  time for processing and shipping, however if volume is higher than expected please allow up to 4 weeks for shipping and processing. Please allow 2-6 weeks for delivery. Comments, videos and pictures posted about this Zoya.com BOGO Offer* outside of Zoya.com or zoyanailpolish.blogger.com are not representative of the opinions of Zoya Nail Polish, Art of Beauty, Inc., Qtica and Qtica Smart Spa and we do not confirm the accuracy of any postings..

**qualifying accounts are those with a valid username (email) and password that has been created and used in the last 3 years account must be made by 3/20/2011 at 5PM EST to qualify for the BOGO Offer. No purchase necessary to start an account. Customers are responsible for maintaining active accounts. If username or password have been lost we (Art of Beauty, Inc.) are not responsible for restoring accounts or giving out any account information. 

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Adults have been telling me to eat and drink my vitamins for years now. You would think that a progression from chewables (they never tasted right to me) to ones you could swallow would be a little less drama, but now there's the matter of being too busy to drink vitamins. When I think about it, I realize how foolish it is. Really? I don't have spare time to remember to swallow something good for me? But enough about my vices.

As I attempt to better my vitamin habits, I am starting to try out the new polishes in my collection one by one, in between overhauls of going back to nubs and growing again.

I love the smoothness and opacity of this polish. It makes me think of Minx manis, although this isn't as perfect. No flash on left, and flash on the right.

What's on your nails?

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Something about the right mix of grey and brown/nude that slims and decorates nails - it looks like they have a bit of attitude and cock up an eyebrow when you sport a mani. I can't find a favorite shade though (nor can I stop buying more!!). Do you have a favorite shade?

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I've been getting quite intimate with the Zoya Intimate Collection. The colors are a perfect segue from winter to spring - pastels, creams, shimmer, and subtle pops of color. Yes please!

My nails are in a state of attrocity. I don't know if it's a lack of vitamins, care, mixture of both, or if they're just mad at me. Everytime I get to any resemblance of growth and legth, they all go through an apocalyptic fervor and snap, crackle, and pop down to nubs! Ugh!

I tried to salvage some nail shots in between, and think I will use falsies to swatch the other colors waiting to be photographed. Left with flash, right without

The greige hue is overwhelming my polish fantasies y'all. There is not a single time when I can walk past a polish line and not succumb to purchasing a grey/taupe color combination. Something about how subtle and different it is makes me a sucker each time.

You can probably tell which is the flash and which is without.

Prevail is a polish company found in Duane Reade drugstores on the east coast. Being that the company was bought by Walgreen's, I am unsure if that means it will be on shelves nationwide.

How do you like the color?

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Following a self imposed no buy diet for the first half of the new year, was the discovery of a handful boxful of products I have yet to photograph or review. And here I was worried the diet would affect the posts!

Some new polishes to add to the roster are the Milani One Coat Glitters. The polishes are super dense and undeniable pigmented.I used two coats to create an even layer on my nails and was blown away. The glitters are the best glitters I have seen so far, and are a great balance of grainy, glitter, and pigment saturation. The polish is also not watery and wishy washy like a lot of glitters can get - there is no such thing as one coat and it's still see through with these bad boys. The only exception is the rainbow confetti polish - but that's not really a color if you think about it. The colors are so saturated that even applying a top coat is pointless after five seconds - the polish swallows up the shine.

Reading other sites always leads to unnecessary spending and lusting. Such was the case when I came across Vampy Varnish posting about Sonia Kashuk polishes. It turns out, I was so excited that I ended up getting the same colors during my Target trip.

The multi colored fuzz is my new scarf that I made. I have taken to learning how to crochet and have mastered three stitches (and two scarves) so far. By the end of next year, hopefully I'll have limitless stitches and handmade items!

Have you had any inspired purchases recently?

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The recent collection by Sally Hansen has been hard to track down at drugstores. The locations that keep up with the newer stuff often have empty displays from the stampedes of customers grabbing up the goods, and the so so stores are either still behind, or going empty and refusing to reorder.

With that said, I was surprised to come across Sequin Scandal when I wasn't looking for it at all. The dark olive green has golden shimmer in it and is a pleasure to look at. It gave me a little trouble when trying to capture on camera (Beauty Judy's third shot of the color is too great), hiding it's glory in the shadows.

This is a great party and holiday color, match it to an identically colored mini (sequins or not), a dark color, or a cream. Keep in mind though, that darker colors have a tendency to stain the cuticle area, thus making it a color you should sit down to apply, instead of swiping on the go.The color can veer on a little dark, but is very complimentary to any skin tone and does not get easily confused for a black (whereas a lot of other colors, like navy, and dark violet do).

What's on your nails?

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This is a story all about how... yours truly walked into a drugstore (Duane Reade) and failed to leave empty handed yet again. My new indulgence? Two colors that caught my eye for different reasons.

Sally Hansen's Problem Child is a purple creamy pearl shade (make sense?) with a slight black and metallic overtone. The best part are the gold flecks swimming around the bottle. Touch of Mink was a must as the new addition to my gray/brown family. The color just looks so darn smooth.I could have a photo shoot with just the bottle.

Gwen Stefani refreshed her manicure at Planet Nails in West Hollywood (it's a favorite nail spot- she got several manicures there earlier, check out the photos here and here) this past Saturday. She got a matching gunmetal color for her mani-pedi.

Photo Credit: Phun Graphics Courtesy of: MyOwnJudge.net

Want to find a color similar to the one she sports? Here are a few of my suggestions (check out the images on Google for NOTDs to see if it's for you). Some are discontinued colors, and others are easier to get.

SpaRitual Mood (use code 'FAB20' to save 20% off at SkinStore). Zoya Freja. Yves Saint Laurent Tuxedo Gray. Dashing Diva Black Diamonds. CND Hyde in the Dark. Nubar Silver Sword. Opi My Private Jet (a bit of extra shimmer in this one). NARS Full Metal Jacket.

Have any color suggestions?

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I've been slightly obsessed with beige grey (or greige) nail colors for the longest time. As soon as a chill entered the air, the color entered my shopping list. Much like purple shades, there is not one that I have come across that is identical to the other.

My polish of choice for a couple of days (as I try to do a different color every couple of days so as not to waste all that my hard earned money paid off VISA for!) is Obsessive Compulsive Cosmetics polish in Uber. As you may have guessed, the left photo is with flash, and the right is without (and disregard the snafu smack dab center of the index finger).

The color perfectly matches the same name liptar (read the post about it here). The color goes on really smooth and dries super quick (especially if you take a pause in between each coat). See what other colors you can get on the site.

What's your favorite shade for the season?

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