FOTD: Apricot, White & Russet

Sunday, September 29, 2013
 A simple FOTD using warmer colors today. I wanted to use some russet on my eyes so I used that in the outer crease. I used white on my lid and stark black liner to create barriers to avoid the conjunctivitis looks. Skipped mascara since my allergies have been acting up.

Brows: NARS Bali
Eyes: LORAC Behind The Scenes Primer, NYX Jumbo Pencil in Milk, Mehron INtense Pro Pressed Pigment in Pure Lightning, Sigma Creme de Couture Palette, Rock & Republic Fatalistic, La Femme Eye Liner Sealer
Face: Giorgio Armani Luminous Silk + Revlon Colorstay, NARS Pressed Light Reflecting Powder, Catrice Lip & Cheek Colour in Blossom Me, Blossom You, Chanel Notorious, Becca Pressed Shimmer Powder in Nymph
Lips: Catrice Lip & Cheek Colour in Blossom Me, Blossom You



Alanna Renee It's a Girl! and Sugar & Spice & Everything Nice

Friday, September 27, 2013

Good evening! This week has pretty much been international indie week on my blog. I've shown you polishes from three Brazilian brands and tonight you'll see my first Australian indie polishes from Alanna Renee!

These two shades are from the Bundle of Joy Collection. One is called It's a Girl, which is a soft pink creme with a hint of pearly shimmer. The second is Sugar & Spice & Everything Nice. 

Sugar & Spice & Everything Nice is a clear topper filled with pink and lavender holographic hexes and micro glitter. It twinkles beautifully, especially when layered. 


These two shades look so sweet together! The formula on It's a Girl! was more fluid than your average creme polish but still completely opaque in three coats. S&S&EN applied with no effort at all.

Both shades as well as other colors from the Alanna Renee line are available at Color4Nails.

Products feature were sent to me for review. For additional information, please refer to my Disclosure Policy. 


Brazilian Indies: Vermelho Acessories Esmaltes by Marcia Lima

Thursday, September 26, 2013

Hi folks!

As I promised, here's post number two for the night, featuring another two polishes from a Brazilian brand. This time it is Vermelho Acessories Esmaltes which was a brand that was new to me, also carried by Color4Nails.


Dorothy Shoes. A classic red jelly with pinky-red holographic glitter. Here I have applied two coats on its own. Simple but always stunning.


Heart of the Ocean. A perfect royal blue jelly with fine holographic glitter.Dorothy Shoes' blue brother. It looked great in two coats, complete coverage. 

Here's another shot of it in the sun, the holographic glitter comes to life! I also took a shot of Dorothy Shoes outside but I seem to have misplaced it.

Application on both was great, no issues at all. I liked how the coverage of these shades were with just two coats but they weren't thick, formula wise. Heart of the Ocean and Dorothy Shoes are just really great classic shades that look good on everyone.

You can purchase Vermelho Acessories Esmaltes by Marcia Lima through Color4Nails, who not only stocks Brazilian indies but also Australian ones as well!

Products featured were press samples. For additional information, please refer to my Disclosure Policy. 

Brazilian Indies: Esmaltes da Kelly

Hello folks! Today I have a double dose of more Brazillian indies for you in the form of two posts (or maybe a quadruple dose?) with two polishes each. First we have Esmaltes Da Kelly. The two shades I have here are Centauro and The Forgotten.

Both come in really cute bottles with black satin bows on the handles. The bottles are 8 ml, smaller than your typical nail polish.

Centauro is a clear base filled with tons of purple micro glitter and medium sized gold and smaller holo teal hexes. I'm wearing two coats of it here over American Apparel Imperial Purple.


The Forgotten is a clear base with orange, gold and black glitter accented with tons of gold shimmer. Here, I layered one coat of it over American Apparel Lopez Canyon. I also added some black tips for fun.

Both were very dense with glitter, which is really nice. They would also both look great layered over a range of colors because while they do look predominately purple and gold, they are in clear bases. Centauro was a bit stringy, but a few drops of thinner sorted that out.

Esmaltes da Kelly is one of many international indie brands carried by Color4Nails here in the US. Color4Nails also carries a-england, Glam Polish, Femme Fatale Cosmetics Polishes, Alanna Renee and many, many other brands.

Products featured were sent to me for review. For additional information, please refer to my Disclosure Policy.

Sigma Creme de Couture Palette

Wednesday, September 25, 2013
 So I must have been living under a rock because I hadn't heard of the Sigma Creme de Couture Palette until recently. For some unknown reason, I kept thinking that this palette was made up of all creme products so I didn't really have any interest. It wasn't until someone informed me that I was entirely mistaken that I found myself genuinely interested in acquiring this pretty palette.

 I googled a few swatches and next thing I knew, this sweet little thing was on its way to me. The packaging is really adorable, inspired by macarons! How sweet (literally) is that? The lid comes off completely from the palette, like a box. I'm a sucker for mattes and a lot of these shades looked absolutely incredible. That is, until I swatched them.

So the thing is, I had stumbled upon a blog where the blogger had these incredible swatches over bare skin. I was amazed, that's what made me pull the trigger. However when I actually had this palette in my hands, it didn't swatch nearly as intense. Granted a lot of these shades are softer pastel colors, but the pigmentation just wasn't there.
 Swatched very, very heavily over bare skin. I know I usually do really neat swatches that run the width of my arm but I just didn't have the heart to do it for this palette.

 It wasn't until I swatched these over both primer and NYX Jumbo Pencil in Milk that the colors appeared true to pan.

 The texture of these was nice, very finely milled and smooth. None, save for Meyer Lemon, was chalky at all (and Meyer Lemon is only a bit chalky, not really too bad).




Here's a look I did with Cafe au Lait, Ginger Pumpkin, Violet Whip, Almond Pear and Creme de Menthe. They weren't bad to work with, but they definitely need primer and a creamy white base to show up.

One last thing worth noting, the pans in this palette are small. In between the size of a dime and a nickel.

So overall I'm feeling rather lukewarm about this palette. The packaging, the concept, the colors themselves... all fantastic and just really beautiful. The pigmentation of the shades leaves a lot to be desired, but at least they are all consistently mediocre (is that a plus? Not really, I suppose). I'm sort of kicking myself for letting a single blog sway my decision to buy this.

The Sigma Creme de Couture Palette is $32 and available on the Sigma website.

Products featured were purchased by me, for my own use. For additional information, please refer to my Disclosure Policy.

Brazilian Indies: Penelope Luz

Tuesday, September 24, 2013
Hello!


Today I'd like to show you my first Brazilian indies, courtesy of Color4Nilas! I've long admired international indie brands but until recently, they were somewhat hard to get unless you did a swap or had friends/family that could help you get them. Luckily Color4Nails now stocks a lot of indies from other countries, including Brazil and Australia.

These two polishes are from Penelope Luz.

First we have Sarcasm. Sarcasm is matte bright mini hexes and black micro glitter in a slightly tinted base. The base looks like it is tinted orange in the bottle but applies pretty sheer. I wore two coats of Sarcasm over white on my nails and as you can see there is only the faintest tint of peach. This is one polish you really need to apply to see the full potential! It look so great on the nails.


Next we have Happy Day. Happy Day has a milky grey base that is quite sheer fulled with rainbow glitter that are predominately secondary colors. As far as rainbow glitters go, this one really stands out to me! Rather than try to wear it by itself, I applied one coat over a nude base of ibd Cashmere Blush. I really love the unique chartreuse glitter in this polish, I can't say that I have every seen anything like it.

Both polish were nice and fluid, applying very easily. You can get Penelope Luz and other fine brands at Color4Nails.

What's your favorite rainbow glitter polish?

Eyes on Indie Event- San Jose, CA

Monday, September 23, 2013
Hi folks!

The weekend before last there was a really nifty event at Black Cat Collective in downtown San Jose. Katherine of Polished by KPT and Thoey of Ecomonster hosted a nail party that focused on indie polish makers in the area including Shirley Ann Lacquer, Illume Lacquer, Wicked Polish, PolishTBH, Mentality Polish and of course Polished by KPT!

There were free DIY activities like a manicure station and a hand scrub making station. There were also tasty cocktails
 Polished by KPT's setup was French inspired, complete with macarons!

 Illume Lacquer had so many different glitter toppers.

 My pal Christian representing PolishTBH!

A brand that was new to me, Shirley Ann Nail Lacquer.

 These were all taken before the event started. So many people came! I was so surprised to see that there were so many nail polish lovers that were local. The building felt like it was packed the whole time, it was pretty hot in there.
Take a look at this fabulous gift basket that one lucky winner of the raffle received. Is that a basket loaded with loot or what?

Other vendors included Jewels by Daisy and Mac Ahh Run. Macarons? You bet your sweet bottom that I bought some!

My favorite were the green tea ones. Flavor wise I loved the salted caramel but the shells on that flavor were very airy.

It was a fantastic event, I met a lot of fun people! If you're in the Bay area, be sure to follow @eyesonindie on Instagram for future polish events.

Different Dimension Halloween & Fall Collections

Saturday, September 21, 2013
Hi folks! I have a super long post for you today. I decided to combine both Different Dimension Fall Collection and Halloween Collection into one because they release tomorrow so I wanted you to see swatches! Both of these collections are just absolutely amazing. I love every single shade, and that's pretty rare.

Let's start off with the Fall 2013, shown above. Note: shown are the smaller press samples sizes, full sized bottles are larger. I'm holding an empty bottle of top coat because my fingers are awkward and I'm easier at holding larger bottles.

Fall 2013 contains four holographic shades and four glitters, two of which are toppers.

 Lucky. A bright magenta linear holo, three coats. Super strong holo effect, super intense and pretty color.

Dueling Unicorns. Violet linear holo, three coats. Strong rainbow effect.

Nessie's Revenge. A grass green holo, three coats. This might just be the most perfect green holo ever. The rainbow effect is so strong and so linear and the shade of green is quite unique.

Chocolaté. A gorgeous rich brown linear holo, three coats. More metallic looking than the other holos, a bit more scattered as well. A really sumptuous color! I'm kinda obsessed with brown holos right now.


Lucid Dreams. A soft eggshell color filled with various holographic gold glitter. Three coats.


Scarlet & Grey Remix. A clear topper filled with matte grey, matte white and red metallic glitter in various sizes and shapes. This is one of my favorites out of the whole collection! The red really pops and I love the unusual use of grey matte glitter. One coat over black creme.


Mystified. A glitter topper with caramel, brown and soft lavender glitter. It looks good over lots of shades but I opted to wear it on top of a light nude shade, one coat. This shade strikes me as just really yummy looking with those delicious looking chocolate and caramel glitters.


Cranfairy. Another favorite for me. A super squishy raspberry jelly with burgundy, hot pink and fuchsia glitter. Here, I'm wearing two coats but I also needed an extra coat of topcoat to really smooth it over.

I absolutely adored every single Fall 2013 shade. A lot of fall collections get hung up on burnt, somber colors but these shades are so beautiful, they'd be gorgeous any time of the year!

Now let's look at Silenced the Lambs Halloween 2013 shades! Ok, I was so excited when I saw that this theme. I'm a huge fan of Silence of the Lambs! There are four shades in this collection.


 Good Evening Clarice. A pale jade glow in the dark, faintly holographic with this sublime iridescent green shimmer. The glow in the dark effect was really intense! I had to use my phone to try to capture it. There's something eerie about my hand posing in the dark like that. Three coats was a bit sheer- I could see the nail line- so I opted for four.


I Ate His Liver With Some Fava Beans And A Nice Chianti. Lengthy name for a beautiful polish! Green, purple and black glitter accented with a bit of holo dust. I'm wearing one coat of it here over Color Club Wicker Park.


It Rubs The Lotion On Its Skin. I literally accidentally snorted my drink when I unwrapped this polish and saw the name. Hilariously macabre, I think everyone knows that famous line! A blackened texture polish with orange and a hint of gold glitter. It actually dried really quite smooth for me, so I'm showing it here with topcoat, two coats. I think it looks pretty stunning glossy!


Have The Lambs Stopped Screaming? A clear topper with black, white, yellow, orange glitter and a bit of holo dust. A really fun mix of your Halloween colors. I'm wearing one coat of it here over LeChat Dare to Wear Violetta.

Overall, I really, really loved the Halloween Collection. The names were clever and fun, the color mixes were really beautiful. This was my first time trying Different Dimension polishes and I'm hooked! These two collections just hit an absolute home run with me.

Different Dimension Fall 2013 and Silenced the Lambs Halloween 2013 Collections will release Sept. 21st at 12pm. Click here to check out the shop and acquire these beauties for yourself! Be sure to follow @missibarry on Instagram for the latest news and updates.

Which of these shades do you like the best?

Products featured were sent to me for review. For additional information, please refer to my Disclosure Policy.