Maybelline Banana Puddin' & Juicy Tomato Swatches

So, for those of you who have entered the giveaway we're having HERE (still plenty of time to enter), here are some swatches of the featured colors:

Banana Puddin'

Let me just say this: I think this is the prettiest soft yellow out there. It's not as stark as American Apparel Butter or as yellow as China Glaze Lemon Fizz, I think it's the perfect balance of yellow and white. Also, the formula's good, but a tad sheer. Easily buildable though, this was three coats.

Juicy Tomato

This is a classic orange red (sorry it's so messy!). It really lives up to its name. It's a jelly, but a bit on the sheer side. It is buildable, but not like Banana Puddin'. For those of you that are into this, this color is phenomenal. Great formula, gorgeous shine and color. I did three coats for this swatch, so you can see how it builds.

Cropping a boatload of photos as we speak, lots to come :-)

Maybelline Express Finish Goody Plum Drop & Konad M15

This is the last of the three Spring Maybellines that I picked up. Goody Plum Drop is a pretty light purple, pretty feminine, and leans to the pinker side of purple rather than blue or red. Color-wise, it's not really totally my speed. A little too purposefully "pretty" for my taste, but I'll enjoy wearing it nonetheless. It's actually the best of the three I tried, formula wise: not gritty at all and applied very nicely. It also has this lovely shimmer, which is just awesome. I sorta wish Minty and Pie In The Sky had shimmer, too. It's not frosty shimmer, just very subtle silver pearl. I needed a break from greens and straight up creme pastels, so this was a nice transition. I think this would also look really nice on the toes, as I'm partial to purples for pedicures. Anyway, not too much to say about this polish and that's a good thing. It's lovely and I highly suggest grabbing it if you do happen to run across it in your travels.

Here's 2 coats:

It leans a bit bluer in these photos than it does in real life, but I felt pretty confident that I captured the gist of it.

And, because I'm naturally prone to ADD when it comes to nail polish, I broke out the Konad and used the starburst design from M15 to add a little accent at the base of the nail. I used Konad White Special Polish for the stamp. I really liked the way this turned out. Sometimes I forget I don't need to do the whole nail when I stamp... and that a little thing can be just as impactful and cool.

Springy and pretty, I think. I'm sure we're going to get our asses kicked in the Northeast for this string of nice days we've been having (in the sixties!), but I'm in the mood for April, it's right around the corner.

Thanks for looking!!

Maybelline Express Finish Minty & Pie In The Sky, Konad M76

Here are two of the new, limited edition, Spring Maybellines for you. There's seven (I think?) in total, and so far the hardest for me to find was Goody Plum Drop, which I passed on twice initially, and was impossible to find once I wanted it (which I did, finally). I really like these, color-wise. Minty isn't terribly unique but I grabbed it anyway, being somewhat inexplicably partial to both pastels and the color mint. I don't dress in pastels or wear them in any form, but on my nails I do enjoy them. Pie In The Sky is pretty unique, I think. A nice cornflower blue pastel, not a baby blue. So the formula? Let me begin by saying that these are not for amateurs or those faint of heart. If you balk at a difficult polish, stay far, far away. These are lumpy, bumpy and a bit gloppy. Thinner helps... sort of. The second coat, plus a nice hefty coat of Seche Vite help even things out, if you get that far. I've also heard that some of these have terrible brushes---I didn't feel that way about mine, they were OK. Since there's a plethora of pastels out right now, I decided to sort of do skittles with this one... by which I mean I alternated Minty and Pie in the Sky (Goody Plum Drop was still MIA to me when I did this manicure).

This is 2 coats for each color. You may note that I finally decided to stop being lazy and reinstated the watermark:

There was a lot of clean-up involved.

And, since I feel that creme polishes are the perfect base for Konad, I added a little something from plate M76, which is one of the newer ones. I think they've started to make the lines wider and more deeply engraved for the line-based designs on the new plates, because I found this VERY easy to work with and place. No problems with the lines breaking or not picking up at all.

I like it. Delicate, flowery, but not overly girly in Konad Black Special Polish.

Can you tell I'm from the Northeast and currently being blanketed and re-blanketed with snow? I'm craving Spring colors.

Thanks for looking!