Sunday, September 16, 2012

Retro Sunday Squared - Vintage Hard Candy Tricky and AWOL

Good morning everyone and welcome to another edition of Retro Sunday Squared with Polished Claws Up! Dana and I have one of our favorite vintage brands to show you today, Hard Candy! Vintage Hard Candy polishes are extremely hard to come by these days, and I have no idea how I managed to find so many of them over the past few years. Sheer luck, I guess. Well that and stalking eBay, blog sales, swap lists and all that fun stuff we do as vintage polish collectors!

Hard Candy polishes are super iconic because back in the 90's, they were at the forefront of the growing trend for unusual nail polish colors. If you've been reading my blog for awhile, you probably know the story about Hard Candy but basically, it was created by a college student who mixed up a sky blue polish to match her blue platform sandals. Out of that polish, which was named Sky, Hard Candy was born. As most of you probably know, Hard Candy is now available at Wal-mart, and the original color Sky is still available. It is now owned by a different company and has unfortunately lost that edge it once had. So for me, original, vintage Hard Candy polishes from the 90's are the only way to go!

One of my favorite things about Hard Candy is they did grungy, dingy, ugly colors and definitely put green on the map as a nail polish color. Now, I'm a huge fan of green nail polish so I decided to show you guys two grungy greens today. Hope you all enjoy!

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First up is Hard Candy Tricky. Tricky is from the Radioactive line from Spring 1997 that included other colors such as Dork, Ghetto Girl, and Chump. Hard Candy had some of the best polish names ever! Anyways, Tricky is a pea soup green with flashes of golden iridescence. I absolutely love this one! It's such a 90's color, with the hints of brushstrokes and the iridescent quality that it has. It doesn't exactly look all that great against my skintone, but who cares?! It's too awesome to pass up!

Here's 2 coats of Hard Candy Tricky. Enjoy!





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Next up is Hard Candy AWOL, which is from their fall 1996 line of polishes. AWOL was the polish at the tippy-top of my Hard Candy wishlist FOREVER and I was absolutely thrilled when I found it on eBay. AWOL is a dark forest green metallic with silver shimmer throughout. This is another one of those murky, grungy greens that Hard Candy did so well back in the day! It looks much more brushstroke-y in the photos than it does in real life, I promise. Out of the two, Tricky was definitely the more brushstroke ridden, even though it may not look this way in pictures. Anyways, AWOL is definitely a must have for any Hard Candy collector! 

Here's 2 coats of Hard Candy AWOL.





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Well kiddos, thanks for stopping by today and don't forget to check out Dana's Hard Candy post over at Polished Claws Up!

Stay tuned for more Hard Candy here all week! Thanks for stopping by and I'll see ya tomorrow!

49 comments:

  1. Love the gold shimmer in Tricky!

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    1. It definitely adds something special to the polish! Glad you like!

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  2. Oh god, I looooove green polish! I never owned any Hard Candy polishes but I wish I had, looking at these!

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    1. They were definitely some special polishes, I'm glad that I have been able to grow my collection.

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  3. I love green polishes, although I have to careful with light greens or I start getting corpse hands.

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    1. Haha they definitely give me corpse hands but I tend to ignore it! If I love the color, I put up with the skin tone issues =)

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  4. Two interesting grey colors, thanks for sharing!

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  5. These are stunning Jacqui, me like me greens too ;D

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    1. Greens are definitely some of my favorites too, glad you like these ones!

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  6. Wow those are so green! I don't know if I could pull it off, but they look great on you!

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    1. Haha I'm not so sure I can pull them off either but I sure do try!

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  7. What great colors! I am pretty sure I had that first color green when I was in middle school and would wear it constantly. Seeing it makes me really want to get that color again!

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    1. So cool! I wish i would have saved some of my old polishes, I had some good ones back in the day!

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  8. Great colors! I didn't know that was how Hard Candy started! That's awesome! :D

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    1. Yup, homemade nail polish is what spawned HC as a huge iconic brand! Very cool =)

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  9. I love the "This color doesn't look the greatest on me, but eff it, I don't care!" attitude. I'm the same way.

    I totally remember seeing Hard Candy in magazines in high school and thinking, "Green nail polish? Awesome!" But it was never available in my surrounded-by-cornfields town. :(

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    1. LOL I'm glad I'm not the only one =) The first time I ever saw Hard Candy was in Sephora, I remember thinking I had hit the jackpot =)

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  10. Love these greens...great color for fall!

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  11. Your nails are beautiful and the greens look amazing on you!

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  12. lemming so many vintage HC's right now..these greens are awesome!

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    1. Vintage Hard Candys are definitely lem-worthy! I hope you can find some that you like!

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  13. Both of them are great, they make me think about Chroistmas! I think I prefer AWOL though, it's so deep and reach :)

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  14. YOU REALLY PULLED OUT ALL THE STOPS, GIRL!! DAAAAAAAAAAAANG! You couldn't have picked two better polishes to share today. I'm seriously drooling. Tricky is just awesome & AWOL is a major lemming of mine. Fantastic swatches!

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    1. Thanks girl!! They are definitely some great greens, they just don't make them like this anymore!

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  15. Somebody seriously needs to remake AWOL. WOW!!!! Really love it! I remember Hard Candy was sold at Neimans back in the late 90's, really sad the brand wasn't able to hang on to its edgy, innovative identity....Neimans to Walmart...JEEZE!

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    1. I agree, AWOL is such a stunning polish! It is kind of sad how the brand has evolved from being high end and edgy to a run-of-the-mill brand at Wal-Mart. I miss the old Hard Candy!

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  16. Omg AWOL is amazing! I can't believe I've never really heard of Hard Candy! Although I don't think they had them over here. Someone needs to bring back the super edgy colours!

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    1. It really is! Hard Candy was more of a niche brand back in the day, and now it's sold at Wal-Mart. I agree, someone needs to bring these kind of shades back!

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  17. I love BOTH of these colours! I have way more green polishes than any other colour (obsessed much?) and these are both so beautiful and rich! I wish I could take them home!

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  18. These are so 90's, I'm in love! I think I had AWOL or something verrrry similar to it in the 90's, this is bringing back all kinds of nostalgic (and tragic nail art my 10 year old self would attempt).

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    1. I think that's why I love them so much, they just scream 90's to me!! I wish I would have immortalized some of my old school nail art attemps back in the day, most of them involved white out and permanent markers =)

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  19. I really like AWOL but the frosty streaks are kind of a bummer.

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  20. So pretty!! I have been loving greens more and more lately!

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    1. I'm glad you're getting into greens lately, they're some of my favorites!

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  21. Your AWOL looks a lot smoother than mine. Mine is brush stroke city! Maybe it needs some thinner. \

    Gorgeous swatches as usual, my dear!

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