Vintage Stash Spam Week - Hard Candy and Urban Decay

Happy Sunday everyone!!! Today I am so excited to bring you the first day of my week of vintage bottle spam! I have been wanting to photograph my vintage collection for a long time and I finally am doing it! I know I love seeing bottle spam pics, so I hope you guys don't get too sick of it this week =) I promise I will have swatches of some of these fantastic vintage polishes for you in the upcoming weeks!

If you have been reading my blog for awhile, you will know that I have a slight obsession with vintage polish. Any polish that is old and HTF means that I probably want it in my stash. I'm not quite sure when exactly my vintage polish love turned into a full blown obsession, but it was somewhere between the point in time where I started collecting nail polish and the time that I found Kaz's blog Pretty Random. If you are a new reader, and are unsure what I mean by vintage polish, here's a quick reference guide and FAQ about vintage polish I put together a few months ago: Let's Talk About Vintage Nail Polish!

The first bit of spam I wanted to do for you guys was an easy choice: Hard Candy and Urban Decay, of course! These are two of my all-time favorite polish brands because they came out during the 90's (the decade of my adolescence) and helped revolutionize the world of nail polish as we know it today! I had a bunch of Hard Candy and Urban Decay polish growing up, but unfortunately it was all tossed out over the years. If only I had known about thinner and the long shelf life of polish back then!! So, all of these polishes I have acquired in the past two years or so, mostly from eBay, swaps and blog sales. They are very hard to come by these days so if you ever see one pop up somewhere, I highly suggest snatching them up!

For a few little tidbits about the history of Hard Candy and Urban Decay, check out these posts: Vintage Hard Candy Manic, Vintage Urban Decay.

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First up is Hard Candy spam. I have broken it down into chronological order, with the original polishes (beginning in 1997) first and then the second release (beginning in 2001), flat bottle polishes next. For some reason, I forgot to take pictures of the 2009 vintage re-release generation (not the Wal-Mart stuff) so I will have to add that pic later today.

Hard Candy

Reds and Pinks, L-R:

Normal, Luscious, Porno, Scorn, Pussy Cat, Bubble Gum

Oranges and Yellows, L-R:

Weenie, Pulp, Tantrum, Dork, Hot Rod, Taxi Cab, Pixie

Greens Part 1, L-R:

Heist, Shag, Pea Soup, Tricky, Chronic, AWOL, Girlie

Greens Part 2, L-R:

Mint, Sushi, Gank, Mermaid

Blues, L-R:

Sky, Cloud, Static, Earth, Frigid, Hick, Manic

Purples, L-R:

Star, Haze, Scam, Fetish, XXXMas (decant)

Black, White, Silver, Gold, and Neutrals, L-R:

Jailbait, Galaxy, Space Boy, Gold Digger, Hype, Love Child, Angel

Minis:

Fiend, Blast, Chump, Trailer Trash, Platinum, Love

2nd Gen. Part 1, L-R:

Erogenous, Ego, Peep Show, Mirage, Solar

2nd Gen. Part 2, L-R:

Glitch, Liquid, Vinyl, Cosmic, Complex

Next up is Urban Decay!! These are almost all second generation ones, as the 1st generation ones are almost impossible to come by these days. I do have one very special 1st gen. Urban Decay polish that will be pictured at the end =) I believe these came out somewhere around 2001 as well. Enjoy!

 Reds, Pink, Orange, L-R:

Kiss, Metropolitan, O, Trip, Hotpants, X, ID

 Green, Blue, Purples, L-R:

Cult, Grafitti, Exhaust, Freakshow, AC DC, Toxin, Bruise

 The Rest, L-R:

Perversion, Flourescent, Strip, Midnight Cowboy, Burnout, Twisted

1st Gen:

DUDE

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Do you remember these brands? Did you have any Hard Candy or Urban Decay polishes back in the day?

Thanks so much for stopping by today! I hope you guys enjoyed today's episode of vintage bottle spam! Stay tuned all week for much more!

Retro Sunday Squared with Polished Claws Up- Vintage Urban Decay

Hey you guys!!! Today's post is going to be uber quick because I'm currently working on baking/frosting about a million different kinds of cupcakes (and homemade ice cream) for my husband's birthday party today so I don't have too much time on my hands. Please forgive any typos/grammatical errors/confusing rambling that you find in this post today =) I'm a bit behind on blog reading as well so if you haven't heard from me for a few days, I promise I am going to catch up on all my blogs tomorrow =)

Anyways, I'm super excited about today's post! Dana and I have decided to do vintage Urban Decay for you today. Don't forget to check out her post at Polished Claws Up! as she has some excellent vintage Urban Decays for you guys =)

Urban Decay is a brand that was born in the 90's and is very near and dear to my heart because it was one of my favorite, if not my absolute favorite, cosmetics brand growing up. It was sold in stores such as Nordstrom and Sephora and had a grunge feel to it. It was right alongside with Hard Candy as being one of the cutting edge brands that had unusual colors and even more unusual names. Urban Decay's nail polish was one of its signature items, and I am lucky enough to have one of the polishes from Urban Decay's original line.

For some reason, hardly any polishes from UD's original line exist today. Hard Candy came out around the same time as Urban Decay and a ton of original Hard Candy still exists. My theory as to why original UD is nearly extinct is this: the bottle design did not allow for a tight enough seal. So probably the majority of old UD's dried up because the bottle is not airtight and pretty much everyone who owned one ended up tossing it out. Hard Candy bottles have a bit better of a seal on there, and even better, they had those rings around the cap to help further seal the air out.

Anyways, the original UD I have for you today is called Dude. It was released in 1998 as a special edition for the release of The Big Lebowski. I found this on etsy in a shop that recycled old cosmetics and turned them into magnets. When I saw this bottle in that shop, I almost peed myself. I never thought I would see an original bottle of Urban Decay polish in my entire life! When I first received Dude, it was completely dried up. The glitter was all stuck to the sides and there was not a drop of liquid to be found in the bottle. But with about half a bottle of Seche Restore, Dude was good as new!!

Dude is a dark seafoam green glitter in a clear base. I used 3 coats here to reach opacity, with a coat of Gelous and coat of Seche Vite on top to smooth it out. Enjoy =)

Next up is Toxin, from the 1st re-release of Urban Decay polishes. Toxin was re-released sometime around 2002 (hopefully Kaz will step in and confirm or deny that fact). Around this time, Urban Decay and Hard Candy were both acquired by LVMH (Louis Vuitton Moet Hennessey) and both brands saw a major overhaul to include more consumer-friendly shades. Sadly, both lines lost a lot of the edge that they once had and along with that went the puke greens and mustard yellow nail polish shades in exchange for lots of pinks and reds. However, both brands still had some awesome colors and with this was Urban Decay Toxin. Toxin was actually a color available in the original UD line but I'm not sure if this was how it looked in that line as well.

I have to apologize for these pictures, folks. Toxin is WAY more awesome than I was able to capture here. Part of why Toxin is so highly sought after is because it contains the same red-to-green color shifting pigment that is in the infamous Clarins 230. I wasn't able to capture the shift very well today, so I apologize. Hopefully one day I can re-swatch Toxin when I have more time to play around with lighting situations.

Anyways, Toxin is a purple jelly polish (think melted grape popsicle) packed with the color shifting pigment that adds a phenomenal shimmer to this. These pictures are 4 coats of Toxin plus one coat of topcoat. Enjoy!

So what do you guys think? Do you own any vintage Urban Decay polishes? Did you have any back in the 90's?