Color Club Alter Ego: Keep It Under Cover Collection Spring 2011 Swatches and Review

Aha... now here's the exciting part. Part two of Alter Ego (or really, probably part one, you can't really Keep It Under Cover after you've already revealed your mystery), Keep It Under Cover. This half is filled with glass fleck sparkle, duochrome shimmer and vibrant color.


Alias. This color has so many faces... It's purple, it's blue, it's glass fleck... It has yellow flash, green flash, red flash... Purple shimmer! Silver shimmer! Pink shimmer! It's freakin' awesome.


Alter Ego. This has a very greyed-out purple base with crazy gold and silver glass fleck shimmer. Very, very shiny... Very cool to look at.


Masquerading. This is an interesting color. You'll notice in the first picture that it dries matte. I'm not sure if it's intended to be a matte, it doesn't seem to have that typical matte formula and it doesn't chip as easily as mattes do... Just a bonus feature, I suppose! In the second picture I've added topcoat. It is a metallic grey-teal, a touch on the frosty side but not super streaky. Nice depth to it, though... Looks light in the middle and dark on the edges, I love that! Black highlights!


Secret Agent. Gorgeous silky vibrant purple. It's a frost. Like Masquerading, it's a silky frost, not a streaky frost. Just a very fine shimmer with a soft-feeling formula. Makes me think of Jessica Birds of Paradise or something.



Total Mystery. I have to apologize for these terrible pictures. Why does it always have to be that the best colors are the hardest to capture? This is the best color I've seen in a while. It's crazy. It's bright blue and purple. Blurple? It's duochrome and shimmery. It's like OPI Ink on steroids. Everyone who saw me wearing it commented on it. I just grabs your eye and won't let you look away. If you like blue or purple, you have to get this one. At least see it in person if you can.


Ulterior Motive. This is a fun one, too. It has a dark pink / dark fuchsia glass fleck base and lots of very visible blue and purple glass fleck pearls. Go ahead, enlarge the pictures, check out those sparkles! I love blue sparkles!

The formula on these was great as well. No application issues to be found. Great dry time and wear time. Opacity was good, but I did three coats on all just to see what it looks like. Also, since this set comes with the Vivid 10 Color Intensifying Topcoat, I put a coat of that on as well.

The Vivid topcoat is a lot like the Milky White basecoat; it has a slight blue-violet tint and it brightens colors. It's not really that noticable. It is a very nice topcoat, though. Very shiny, adds a little brightness. It makes a perfect refresher topcoat if your mani has lost its shine. Dries quickly.

Now, this collection has me excited. The excessive amount of purple and duochrome make my heart skip a beat. Every color is great and beautiful. Total Mystery is a definite must have for me, and I'm thinking about getting a few backups, I love it so much.

And hey... purple glass fleck duochromes for spring? I have to love them for that. Sure, they did pastels too, but they did this at the same time! They gave us holos and duochromes and glass flecks for spring a few years back... Now every year I can't wait to see what Color Club is going to do next. Always a surprise.

(These were sent to me for review.)

Color Club Alter Ego: Reveal Your Mystery Collection Spring 2011 Swatches and Review

This is only one half of Color Club's spring 2011 collection, "Alter Ego." The Reveal Your Mystery set is a collection of light, un-intimidating sheers/neutrals/soft shades. It's practically a polar opposite to the dark, deep, mysterious and colorful shades in Keep It Under Cover.


Get A Clue. A soft pastel pink creme. This is actually a really nice pink because it has a hint of grey and lavender in it. It's very rare to find a pastel pink like this that actually compliments my skintone instead of making my fingers look dirty or bright red.


Give Me A Hint. Your standard grey/taupe/purple hybrid creme. This one leans a little more on the grey side than the purple side than some similar shades.


Incognito. A sheer, fleshy pale brown based nude. This seems neutral toned to me, and against my cool-toned skin it doesn't seem to pull particularly warm or cool. It's like a lighter version of Lippmann Naked.


Revealed. This is an interesting color... It's a warm peach creme base with some red and violet subtle shimmer. I really love how the shimmer lights up the color. It's subtle, but it looks almost like a duochrome when the light hits the shimmer.


Secret Rendezvous. A light lilac creme. This picture makes it seem pure blue, and it is quite blue in real life, but it definitely has some purple to it. I like the name of this because it reminds me if playing DDR. Random.



Sheer Disguise. A nice light grey. I love grey polish. This is a very pretty grey, though there's nothing particularly unique or different about it. It's on the light side and has a bit of blue to it.


The formula on these was great. I had no problems with the formula or the brushes or anything at all. Everything was smooth, fairly even, and perfect in three coats (I did three coats on all). A few can be worn sheer if you do only one coat. Good dry time, good wear time, easy removal, no staining or anything like that. Quite honestly, nothing to report!

The box set of this collection comes with a bottle of Milky White French Manicure Basecoat. I didn't take a picture of it, because, uh, it's clear. But not just plain clear! It's clear with a blue tint and it counteracts yellow tones in the nail. This is a genius product and I think everyone should have a bottle. I've been using it for years and I always make sure I have it on hand, just in case. I were to wear a sheer or for some reason go without nail polish, I would make sure to apply this as my basecoat. Not only will it hide the yellowness of stained nails, it will brighten and whiten the look of the nails and even fix certain types of old nail polish. Really. If you use it as topcoat over certain shades of polish, for instance, a glitter with a clear base that has yellowed with time, it will take out the yellow. Awesome stuff, seriously.

While these are all nice colors and I do like all of them, there isn't anything terribly exciting about them. Well, I guess I suppose that's the point of neutrals and sheers. Good formula and flattering colors, but the exciting part of the collection is yet to come...

(These were sent to me for review.)