Dusty Hunting: A great way to get Bourbon and Nail Polish

So This weekend I decided to try my hand at dusty hunting.  You may have heard of this in reference to liquor or more recently nail polish.

What is dusty hunting?

Dusty hunting is when you go to various liquor stores looking for old stocks of alcohol. Alcohol doesn't expire and stock isn't rotated on a regular basis because of this.

It's a good way to find older bottles of liquor or even liquor that isn't made anymore depending on the store.

Best places I've found have been hole in the wall liquor stores or places where the general demographic doesn't stray from the basics: Hennessy, Patron, Smirnoff and others.

Places like these I've been able to find old Jack Daniels (before they lowered the alcohol content) and have seen some other pretty awesome bottles lurking in the back of the shelf collecting dust.

Now.... in regards to nail polish.  Dusty hunting is where you go to various beauty supply stores, nail salons and the like, but instead of delicious alcohol you're looking for discontinued bottles of nail polish.

I've never done this before.  I usually go to my regular places of discount nail shops that are abundant in San Jose.  But I don't travel to too many nail salons or go out of my way to sketchy supply shops on a regular basis.

So this week I went to two beauty supply shop that wholesales to salons but sells to the public and a nail salon.

Since I have severe phone anxiety I decided to go online, check store hours and take my chances.  Nail salons are great places to look for nail color but in regards to dusty hunting they can be a hit or miss.  Many salons mix their own colors or add thinning agents to make the bottle last longer.  Plus, their focus is on the color of the polish, not the brand.  Also, authenticity can't be guaranteed so unless you know your stuff I wouldn't pick these places as a first choice.  

But it wasn't a total loss, I had my first gel manicure and I must say that I am loving it.  Only problem is that the gel is pretty thick (4 coats total) so I've been having the hardest time prying stuff open with my super thick nails.  

I went to a beauty supply shop a few blocks from where I stay in San Francisco.  I never knew such a place existed (plus I wasn't paying attention).  They had a great variety of polishes but there weren't too many sought after and discontinued colors.  I definitely found dusty polishes and they had two big boxes of random color changing polishes that I ultimately passed on.  I got 3 polishes here that I think are very pretty, although not necessarily rare.

Today I went to another beauty supply shop a few blocks down from where I stay in San Jose.  They cater to salons as well as the public but aren't opened on Saturdays (is this a common thing in San Jose?).

I went in expecting to find a couple of old polishes that might or might not be dusty gold.  I had a look around and was pretty amazed at all the nail decorations they had.  The store in San Francisco had some nail art stuff too like opal bits, glitter and colored acrylics but this was even better.  They had metal leafing in gold and silver (super tempted to go back and get this), acrylic powders in all colors, glitter, shapes, flakies, pearls, stencils, nail tips galore and almost everything I could want in nail art.

The polishes were kind of a mess but they were organized enough where they weren't all on the ground and they were mixed up enough to make for a good hunt.  They also had old nail polish sets from China Glaze.  So if you wanted the One Love or Sexy Sport mini polish sets then this is your place.

I ended up buying 6 different polishes, a basecoat and purple flakies.

Jessica polish in Palladium, OPI in Simply Smashing, Color Club  in Wild at Heart and Alter Ego and LaRosa Crackle in Seaweed.

CND Sticky basecoat, China Glaze Chiaroscuro (old formula), Color Club in Shimma, Bella Nail Lacquer in Coconut Grove and OPI DS Sapphire.

Close up of purple flakies.

Oh yeah purple flakies.

If you're wondering what that silver capped OPI polish is, it is indeed DS Sapphire.  Holy lemming Batman!  I got myself DS Sapphire and for cheaper than Ebay prices too!

High off my find and feeling very proud of myself, I get myself a sandwich at Subway and go home to relax on this beautiful Sunday evening.  After all, I think I deserve it.