I received four of the five full size bottles: 127 Pacha, 128 Amnesia, 129 Bora Bora, and 130 Frozen Rose. Apparently the fifth one is a green, called 126 Applepolitan.And here's a quick wheel swatch of the full size colors:
Three coats of all.127, 128 and 129 all contain the same shimmer, but dispensed in different colored bases. The shimmer is familiar to us from before: it's the same kind used in OPI's recent Austin-tatious Turquoise, and last summer's Sea? I Told You from the same brand. You know, the glassfleck kind that has a slight duochrome and shifts from blue, via pink, to purple. However, none of these are dupes for those, but in the same vein, definitely. Another property they share with the afore mentioned OPI colors, are being very sheer. Sure, that brings out all of the glassfleck bling, but you'll need some coating for opacity, or less sheerness, perhaps. The fourth one among these is a straight up hot pink neon creme. Nothing we haven't seen before, but could do as a good staple for anyone who is still lacking a color like this. It seems to be of good formula and pigmentation, but I still used three coats on the wheel to cover up the plastic white.
On to the minis:
The minis are: 25 Apple Mojito, 26 Cool Banana, 27 Blue Bird, 28 Absolute Passion, 29 Afrodite, and 30 Mint Pearl.And the swatches:
25, 26 and 27 are two coats, the rest three.These are somewhat peculiar. The first three are exact dupes of previously released Depend polishes - you know, that other big Swedish brand - quite pigmented cremes infused with heavier silver shimmer. 25 and 27 have dupes in the almost simultaneously released Depend collection, while 26 has a dupe in Depend's line for fall last year. Also, 29 is a dupe for one of the two jellies from the recent Depend collection. Coincidently, Viva La Diva also put out two jellies, the other one being 28, a medium rose color. No. 30 goes by the name Mint Pearl, but I'd rather describe the finish as a frost, and this one is also on the sheerer side, but not what I'd call a jelly.
Overall, I'm not that enthusiastic about this collection. Nothing really wows me, and the concentration of dupishness bothers me. I now nothing (yet) about any links in between these two companies, if they share an owner, or if they just share blending facilities, but for being a more brave brand, color wise, I would have liked to see some more originality from Viva La Diva. I expect Depend to put out staples inspired by the big brands, but I have come to expect other things from Viva La Diva - as for example what they did with the Viva La Diva Rocks! collection. Oh, and Ibiza Party? I'm not a fashionable or trendy person, but isn't that... Kind of... 90's?
I really hope Viva La Diva rocks it again for next season.
Full swatches of some of the colors will hopefully be up tomorrow.
On a side note: editing photos on my new Mac drives me crazy! Not because they look awful, quite the opposite actually, but because once I take a peek on my other computer, an old laptop running Windows, they look like ultimate crappiness. I just saw my post from yesterday and the dead hands were crawling all over my face! My god, what must it not look like on your monitors? also, I'm starting to wonder what any of my old photos looked like, in terms of color accuracy. Any hints on processing color accurate jpgs for the web from all the color splendour in my Mac Photoshop are very, very welcome, so are any opinions on the overall coloring of my photos. What if... What if... The problem all along hasn't been my camera, but my old computer's monitor? The mind boggles.
Swedish word of the day:
ambivalens -noun ambivalency
Damn it...
What a great post, those polishes are lovely.
ReplyDeleteI think that I have to get to terms with every summer collection being full of pastels.
ReplyDeleteI can't stand pastels ;-)
I hope for an autumn full of edgier and darker colours.