Saturday, July 31, 2010

Haul Saturdays - Volume 5

Welcome to Volume 5 of Haul Saturdays - a weekly post chronicling whatever beauty related purchases I made throughout that week.

MAC:

• Dare to Wear lipglasses in"Dare to Dare", "Ban This!", "Gimme That!" and "Bold & Brash"
• Dare to Wear eyeshadows in "Lime", "Shock-a-Holic", "Sassy Grass", "Going Bananas" and "Louder, Please"
• Lipsticks in "New York Apple" and "Girl About Town"
• Empty 15 pan eyeshadow palette

eBay:

• Zoya polishes in "Adina" and "Zara"

Chatter's Salon:

• All 12 colours from the China Glaze Vintage Vixen Collection (review and swatches here and here)
• OPI polishes in "Here Today...Aragon Tomorrow Suede" and "Red My Fortune Cookie"
• China Glaze polishes in "Custom Kicks" and "Let's Groove"

Wal-Mart:

• Sally Hansen Limited Edition HD polishes in "Hue", "Wavelength", "DVD", "Spectrum", "Laser", "Resolution", "Byte", and "LCD"

Lawton's

• L.A. Colors Art Deco polishes in "Metallic Pink", "Dee-Lite", "Red", "Purple/Blue Glitter", "Orchid Glitter", "Sea Foam Green", and "Wild Fuchsia

Yeah, this was definitely a big haulin' week. But I had funds saved and put away for both the Vintage Vixen Collection as well as the Dare to Wear Collection so it's not as bad.

Review and Swatches - China Glaze Vintage Vixen Collection (Part 1)

My local Chatter's finally got the Vintage Vixen Collection in and I didn't hesitate to get down there and pick up my polishes.


Review and swatches after the jump.

Friday, July 30, 2010

Rainy Day Nails

It has been sunny and beautiful here all week but today it was calling for rain showers so I thought I would channel that into a nail design. This is what I came up with:


I'm not overly pleased (especially with the raindrops) but I liked the little umbrella too much to start over with a new design.

Products:
• China Glaze Strong Adhesion Base Coat
• China Glaze "Rodeo Fanatic"
• OPI "Blue My Mind"
• Zoya "Perrie"
• OPI "Rumple's Wiggin'"
• China Glaze "White On White"
• Seche Vite Top Coat

p.s. I have a number of posts lined up for this weekend so stay tuned. :)

Tuesday, July 27, 2010

Mixing Nail Polish Finishes - Yes? No? Maybe?

Hey everyone.

I was going through my files looking for something when I came across this photo that I took a couple of months ago (as you can see, my nails were in the middle of a regrowth stage) and I thought that this would be a good time to discuss mixing nail polish finishes.


In this photo I used a black base, topped it with a matte top coat and then used a clear top coat to create the leopard design. It's subtle and I think that's what I like so much about this type of design. I know that there's been a big matte polish craze lately and I think this is one way that I'm able to get on board with it.
I've been meaning to try different combinations of this type of design to see what I can come up with (ie: different colour bases, different designs, etc).

So what does everyone else think about the mixing of polish finishes? Are you a fan? Do you hate the matte craze and just want it to end?

Products:
• Orly "Orlon Basecoat"
• China Glaze "Liquid Leather"
• China Glaze "Matte Magic"
• Orly "Sealon Topcoat"

Sunday, July 25, 2010

Link Love - Volume 5

Welcome to another instalment of "Weekly Link Love".

• I came across awesome Winnie the Pooh nail art design on youtube yesterday and I'm absolutely blown away. This girl is AMAZING! I'm going to run through all of her other designs this week because she's crazy talented.

• Check out pictures/swatches of the Lady Gaga and Cyndi Lauper Viva Glam lipglasses over at too much blush. These glosses will be available August 9th in Canada and the US.

• KarlaSugar posted swatches of the OPI Swiss Collection which will be available sometime next month. I'm swooning over some of these colours!

• Head on over the Lacquerized to check out quite a few interesting posts that she's made this week. To name a couple, she posted her polish collection (I LOVE looking at other people's collections/storage) as well as this interesting invention to prevent polish smearing.

That's it for this week.

Also, I'll definitely have more posts up this week than I had last week - I had a busy week and just couldn't find any time!
Have a good day everyone . :)

Saturday, July 24, 2010

Haul Saturdays - Volume 4

Welcome to Volume 3 of Haul Saturdays - a weekly post chronicling whatever beauty related purchases I made throughout that week.
eBay:

• Zoya polishes in "Nova" and "Isla"
• OPI polish in "Black Cherry Chutney"

Chatter's:

• OPI polishes in "Blue My Mind", "Don't Toy With Me!", "Hot and Spicy", "Bogota Blackberry" and "OPI Ink"

Makeup Geek Swap:

• MAC "New Vegas" MSF

And that's it for this week.

(By the way, products only end up in my Haul Saturday posts when I actually receive them. So, when I say I bought something from eBay, it technically means that I might have bought it a week or two ago, but that I actually have it now. Just fyi.)

Friday, July 23, 2010

Green Water Marble Nail Art

I've been really wanting to try water marbling for a while now so I decided to finally give it a shot today.
However, this was definitely my first and last time using this technique; it takes way too long, sometimes it didn't even work for me and I had to redo most of my nails at least once and it also seems like a huge waste of polish. Oh, and it's also way too messy for my liking. So although the results are neat, it's just not worth it.



Products:
• China Glaze Strong Adhesion Base Coat
• OPI "Jade is the New Black"
• China Glaze "Four Leaf Clover"
• Orly "Green Apple"
• China Glaze "Re-fresh Mint"
• Seche Vite Top Coat

Sunday, July 18, 2010

Link Love - Volume 4

Welcome to another instalment of "Weekly Link Love".

• Check out this really awesome Spider-man nail art design over at Meg Is A Nail Geek. I LOVE it!

• Scrangie posted of the China Glaze Awakening collection that's going to be released for Halloween this year. I might be more excited about this than I was for Vintage Vixen! The colours are so unique!

• NikkieTutorials on youtube (she's freaking awesome) posted a super vampy look inspired by The Vampire Diaries TV series. Check it out .

Head over to Lipglossiping to read this review on the new Panteve Pro-V Aqua Light line of hair care products. I haven't seen this line here in Canada yet but after reading this review, I'm very intrigued!

That's it for this week. Have a good Sunday everyone.

Review and Swatches - China Claze Fun in the Sun Set

The China Glaze Fun in the Sun set includes 4 limited edition glitter polishes and it also comes with a beach ball with the China Glaze logo on it.



Keep reading for a full review and swatches.

Saturday, July 17, 2010

My buzz ... killed.

Yes, my buzz has officially been killed.

I have been eyeing the new Deborah Lippmann polishes (they're not actually available until later this month but they're available for pre-order now on the Nordstrom website) for a couple of weeks now and they're absolutely stunning and so unique but at $18 a pop, I couldn't justify it. However a couple of days ago I decided to just go ahead and pre-order them because I wouldn't forgive myself if I didn't get them. I was just going to check out with them (and boy I was excited) but I got an error message saying that this brand doesn't ship to Canada. MAJOR buzzkill.

And it's not like I can even be patient and wait for these to go up on eBay because after checking eBay, there's very few listings for ANY Deborah Lippmann polishes.

If anyone's curious about why I'm so upset about a couple of polishes, Scrangie has some great swatches of them here. See for yourself and you'll understand.

SO sad. :(

Haul Saturdays - Volume 3

Welcome to Volume 3 of Haul Saturdays - a weekly post chronicling whatever beauty related purchases I made throughout that week.
MAC:

• Eyeshadows in "Tilt", "Deep Truth", "Bitter", "Soft Brown", "Ricepaper", "Aquadisiac", "Swimming", "Electric Eel", and "Crystal Avalanche"
• MSF in "Gold Deposit"
• Lipsticks in "Chatterbox" and "Sweetie"
• Empty 15 pan eyeshadow palette

Chatter's: (I originally went to Chatter's hoping they would have the China Glaze Vintage Vixen collection in but since they didn't, I picked up some OPI instead)

• OPI polishes in "Over the Taupe", "And This Little Piggy...", "Light My Sapphire", "An Affair in Red Square" and "Flashbulb Fuchsia"

Sally Beauty Supply:

• Orly polishes in "Royal Navy", "Luxe", and "Moonlit Madness"
• China Glaze Strong Adhesion Base Coat
• China Glaze polish in "In Awe of Amber"

Wal-Mart:

• Nicole by OPI polishes in "Let's Get Star-ted", "Love Your Life", and "Gone Wishin'" (I normally don't go for the Nicole line but these 3 really caught my eye)
• Covergirl Sparkle Topcoat in "Disco Dazzle"
• A backup of my Revlon Colorstay Foundation


And that's it for this week. If anyone wants any pictures or swatches of anything just let me know.

Makeup Recreation - MAC Haute and Naughty Promo Pic

Tonight I decided to try to recreate the more dramatic of the looks from the promo picture for the recently released MAC Haute & Naughty Mascara.

I'm not overly happy with what I ended up with but I think it turned out ok. Unfortunately the only glitter I had was much chunkier than the glitter in the promo pic and I didn't have any false lashes that really matched the pic so I just skipped those. I think the less chunky glitter and a set of semi-clumpy false lashes would have made me a lot happier with this look.

Anyway, onto the pictures (top pic with flash; bottom pic without):



Products:
• GOSH Eyeshadow Base
• MAC "Carbon" e/s
• MAC "Violet Trance" e/s
• MAC "Satellite Dreams" e/s
• MAC "Digit" e/s
• MAC "Purple Shower" e/s
• MAC "Beautiful Iris" e/s
• MAC "Gesso" e/s
• MAC "Blacktrack" Fluidline
• L'Oreal Voluminous Mascara

I'm hoping to find the time tomorrow to do the other, less dramatic look featured in the promo picture.
Have a good day everyone. :)

Friday, July 16, 2010

Watermelon Nail Art

I'm thinking about doing a sort of "Fruit Series" of NOTD looks and I decided to start with watermelons. If my next NOTD is not fruit inspired, you'll know that I decided to not do the series. :P
Hope you all like it!


Products:
• Orly "Orlon Basecoat"
• OPI "Party in My Cabana"
• L.A. Colors Art Deco "White"
• China Glaze "Watermelon Rind" (how fitting, right!?)
• L.A. Colors Art Deco "Lime Glitter"
• China Glaze "Liquid Leather"
• Seche Vite Top Coat

ps. Sorry for the crappy flash pictures, my bedroom is in the basement and I only have one tiny window which makes lighting situations less than ideal.

Thursday, July 15, 2010

Review - Nail Life Aromatherapy Drop On Polish Dryer


So, last week when I was at Sally Beauty Supply, I decided that I would like to try a drop on polish dryer to see if they really sped up polish drying time.
At first I was going to try Orly's Flash Dry Drops but then I saw that Sally's had a special on Nail Life products where if you buy one, you get a free cuticle remover treatment. Since I was also in the market for a new one of those, I thought that that would be the better deal. So, I went home really not expecting much but I'm super impressed with the results!

Full review after the jump.

Tuesday, July 13, 2010

Review - L'Oreal Voluminous Carbon Black Mascara


I included this mascara in my article about great drugstore finds but I thought that since I think so highly of this product that I should do a full review on it.
I won't be adding much new information that I didn't already mention but I do have some pictures of me wearing the mascara so hopefully that will provide a little more insight.

Full review after the jump.

Sunday, July 11, 2010

Link Love - Volume 3

Welcome to another instalment of "Weekly Link Love".

The Foundation Matrix is now available over at temptalia. This is an extremely useful tool and I'm sure it must have taken an awful long time to set up.

• Would you like to know what icky ingredients are in your beauty products? Head on over to The Shades of U where she posted an article describing "13 Gross Ingredients Hidden in Your Beauty Products". I might be wishing I hadn't read the article...

• luxuriousnails on youtube posted a super cute/easy . This type of design is great for someone just starting out with nail art because it's not too difficult but it still looks awesome.

• BE on a budget posted a review on a couple of new Urban Decay products - "De-Slick Spray" and "De-Slick in a Tube". I found the review useful because I also have oily skin and was wondering about these products. In fact, I probably would have tried them myself by now if they were available in my area. Thanks for the review!

Alright, that's it for today. My long weekend is over now and it's back to work for me tomorrow. sadface.
Have a good day everyone.

Saturday, July 10, 2010

Haul Saturdays - Volume 2

Welcome to Volume 2 of Haul Saturdays!
This week was a good haulin' week, I got a fair amount of goodies (mostly nail polish). :D
MAC:
• Alice + Olivia and In The Groove products (separate haul post to follow with pictures/swatches)

Sally Beauty Supply:
• Orly nail polishes in "Goth", "Close Your Eyes", "Shine On Crazy Diamond", and "Love Each Other"
• China Glaze polishes in "Towel Boy Toy", "Kiwi Cool-Ada", and "Wild Mink"
• Seche Vite top coat
• Nail Life Aromatherapy Drop On Polish Dryer (which came with a free Nail Life Jojoba And Tea Tree Oil Cuticle Remover)

Chatter's:
• OPI polish in "Here Today...Aragon Tomorrow"
• China Glaze "Fun in the Sun" Set (includes the colours "Sour Apple", "Dreamsicle", "Blue Hawaiian", and "Bad Kitty" (I'll try to get swatches of these up soon)
• China Glaze polishes in "Sun Worshipper" and "Yellow Polka Dot Bikini"

Wal-Mart:
• Wet 'n' Wild "Wild Shine" polishes were on sale for $1 each so I picked up 8! The colours I got are "Bijou Blue", "Burgundy Frost", "Tickled Pink", "Eggplant Frost", "Lavender Pearlescent", "Sparkled", "Blazed", and "Caribbean Frost"

The boyfriend and I also ordered TiVo from Best Buy (yeah, we don't even have a Best Buy here) which isn't beauty related in the least but I'm still excited about it!

Thursday, July 08, 2010

Lemon Garden Nail Art

Hey guys. :)

So, I have a long weekend starting today which means I did my nails immediately when I got home from work. It's also my boyfriend's birthday today so I get to get all dressed up and go out to supper with his folks. I did these nails to match a new dress I got for the occasion and I'm rather pleased with how they turned out.



Products:

• Orly "Orlon Basecoat"
• China Glaze "Lemon Fizz"
• Revlon "Chocolate Truffle"
• L.A. Colors Art Deco "Forest Green"
• L.A. Colors Art Deco "Mint Green"
• Fimo flowers from eBay
• Nail rhinestones from eBay
• Orly "Sealon Topcoat"

Note: I saw a tutorial for a this nail design on youtube a while back but I don't remember whose design it is, I came across it randomly. Anyway, credit is for the design is theirs, not mine.

Edit: It's 's design. Check her out, she's amazing!!

Sunday, July 04, 2010

Cute Cupcake Nails

Ok, so it's not my true notd since I did this about 2 weeks ago (while a couple of my nails were growing out from some breakage, as you can see) but it's one of my absolute favourites that I've done so I just had to post it.




Products used:

• Orly "Orlon Basecoat"
• Revlon "Grey Suede"
• China Glaze "White on White"
*I mixed the above 2 polishes to get the beige-y color of the cupcake wrapper
• China Glaze "Sugar High"
• OPI "What's With the Cattitude?"
• China Glaze "Lemon Fizz"
• China Glaze "Heli-yum"
• Orly "Sealon Topcoat"

Link Love - Volume 2

Welcome to the second instalment of "Weekly Link Love".

• Head on over to Lacquerized to see a very useful and detailed post about pretty much all the nail polish collections being released for Fall 2010.

• Scrangie swatched and reviewed Zoya's fall "Wicked and Wonderful" Collection - check it out here. I know that I'm seriously looking forward to this collection and the colour "Kelly" has really caught my attention.

• temptalia has photos and swatches of the new pigments being released with the MAC Alice + Olivia collection. She also has swatches of the other products being released with this collection but I'm most excited about the pigments, especially after seeing the swatches.

• Check out this great post over at Little Music Boxes. It's a "Brush Picture Rolodex" that catalogues many, many different nail polish brands and their respective brushes. This will come in real handy for those who are really particular about brush size/shape but don't always have the chance to check it out before purchasing (ie: those who purchase online a lot, such as myself since I don't have that many brands readily available where I live). This is definitely a post worth being placed in my favourites.

• MissChievous posted an Eclipse themed makeup tutorial and she does an absolutely fantastic job at recreating Jane's (Dakota Fanning's character) look from the movie. In fact, I actually think hers is better than the makeup done for the movie!

That's it for this week. :)

Saturday, July 03, 2010

Sally Hansen - Hidden Treasure

This gem finally started showing up here in Canada and I was lucky enough to grab a few (I managed 3 so far, 1 of which I'm going to use for a blog giveaway sometime in the near future).

Here it is over "OPI "Dating a Royal".
It was difficult to get the true colour of the OPI colour underneath so I included 2 pictures - one with flash (on the left) and one without (on the right). Luckily, both pictures show how awesome "Hidden Treasure" is.


(Click on the photos for a larger view)


Alright, that's all for today. :)

Haul Saturdays

I talked in an earlier post about having weekly features and "Haul Saturdays" is going to be another of those. Every Saturday I will post anything beauty related that I purchased in the past week. I may still do separate haul posts for individual collections but most everything else will be included in Haul Saturdays posts.

This past week I got:
• Sigma Complete Brush Kit (review to come soon)
• Zoya polishes in "Robyn" and Perrie"
• LUSH Sole Survival Foot Kit (7 foot care products for only $20!)
• MAC "Carbon" eyeshadow (I ordered this well over a month ago but it was on back order and I finally got it in the mail yesterday)

That's it for this week! I'm sure the list will be bigger next week with MAC's Alice + Olivia and In The Groove Collection being released. :D

Review and Swatches - OPI Summer Flutter Collection

Last month OPI released a butterfly themed collection called "Summer Flutter". I happened to be at my local Chatter's Salon the day they got the collection in so luckily I was able to grab all 4 colours.


Review and swatches after the jump.

June Favourites

Here are my favourite/most used makeup and nail products for the month of June.

MAC "Pinch O' Peach" Blush

This blush has become my number one go-to blush since I got it a couple of weeks ago. It's a beautiful pink colour with a touch of peach. It's a perfect colour for super pale folk like me who just want a wash of subtle colour. This is also the perfect colour for the summer month; it's not very coral-y which you see a lot of during the summer and it's light enough that it just provides the perfect amount of colour so that your look is still fresh and it doesn't even look like you're wearing blush.

Price: $18.50 CND (in pan form) / $22.00 CND (in pot form)
Where to buy: MAC

Wilaverde Nail Polish Remover

I posted about this in Part 1 of my series on great drugstore finds but I must reiterate the awesomeness that is this nail polish remover. My cuticles are currently in the best shape that they have ever been in and that is because of this polish remover! Up until using this stuff, I was using generic drugstore brand nail polish remover and it was drying the crap out of my poor cuticles. Nothing was helping to get them moisturized either, not even my LUSH Lemony Flutter Cuticle Butter (although, it was doing a rather good job, it just wasn't enough to save my cuticles from the acetone damage I had put them through). So, I have been using this polish remover for about 3 weeks and the change in my cuticles is rather significant. In hindsight, I wish I had taken a photo of my dry, damaged cuticles so that I could demonstrate just how much this polish has helped.
Anyway, the long and short of it is that this polish remover has become a holy grail product for me and I would recommend it 100% If you want to know more about the product, check out my slightly more in depth review on it here.

Price: $5.97 CND for 8 fl. oz
Where to buy: Wal-Mart

MAC "All That Glitters" Eyeshadow

This is another MAC permanent item that has recently become a staple of my collection. This is a veluxe pearl and it's described on the MAC website as a "midtone beige with gold reflects". I think that this is the perfect everyday colour that provides just a sheer wash of beautiful shimmery gold without being overpowering. I work at a restaurant and since I don't want to go all-out with my makeuo like I usually would, I like to wear this colour to work. I usually just prime my lid with painterly paint pot, sweep this on my lid with a MAC 224 brush, add some mascara, a little blacktrack fluidline on my waterline and I'm good to go. This colour is a must-have in my books.

Price: $13.00 CND (in pan form) / $17.50 CND (in pot form)
Where to buy: MAC

I know it's not much this month but I have been working a lot so I haven't had a chance to play around with makeup/nail polish as much as I would have liked.

Friday, July 02, 2010

Nails of the Day - Blue Sky

Although I am not very pleased with today's NOTD, I decided to post it anyways. I'll probably end up removing it tonight so I'll most likely have a new one up tomorrow.


Products:

• Orly "Orlon Basecoat"
• OPI "What's With the Cattitude?"
• China Glaze "White on White"
• China Glaze "Liquid Leather"
• China Glaze "Heli-yum"
• China Glaze "Sugar High"
• Orly "Coffee Break"
• Orly "Sealon Topcoat"

Thursday, July 01, 2010

Review - LUSH Herbalism Cleanser

  • Candeo Colors - Sprouse
  • Labels


    Archive