Archive for October 2011

Happy Halloween! Demise of Autumn Nails

Monday, October 31, 2011

Happy Halloween!
I hope that if you and your family celebrate anything today, that you have a safe and happy holiday.
A lot of people had Halloween nails, with ghosts, pumpkins, candy corn etc but I decided to do something a little different today.
To me, this day marks the end of Autumn, at least here in Minnesota. From here on out, it gets super chilly and rather gloomy, with only occasional tolerable weather. Today however, I cherish the vivid colored trees and the taste of spiced cider.
The giant picture above is from my backyard where I have a beautiful maple tree.
I decided to do a manicure inspired by the beautiful colors I saw in that tree. Predominately scarlet with winks of tangerine and flashes of goldenrod.

I added a matte top coat, because I felt like it better represented the dry texture of leaves fallen to the ground, ready to be raked.
This is what it looked like, shiny.

The flaked topcoat is from the now discontinued Maybelline Colorama line. It's #23 called Ruby Rays. It has the same sort of flakies as found in Sally Hansen Hidden Treasure suspended in a bright translucent coral base.

I used Essie Lollipop underneath and topped with Hard Candy Matte-ly In Love.

Have a great night, everyone! Can't wait to see everyone's Halloween costumes, makeup and nails.

Love,
Mimi

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

EOTD With Fyr Purgatory and Te Amo

Sunday, October 30, 2011

I had an amazing day off yesterday and did absolutely nothing, much to my delight. I'm good at relaxing. This morning I used a few of my new Fyrinnae shadows, including a shade from their 2011 Halloween collection, Purgatory.
I loved it. Something about red sparkles in a blackened base really appeals to me (speaking of which, Color Club Red Velvet is one of my all time favorite polishes).
The other shade I used, Te Amo made for a great blending out shade/highlight. Something about the soft opalescent shift of Te Amo softened up the stark black of Purgatory.
I also used Pumpkinfire, along with La Femme Eye Liner Sealer to line. All around Fyrinnae.

Here's the post I did with swatches of all three shadows- Purgatory, Te Amo, Pumpkinfire.

I used:
Brows: NARS Bali shadow, NYX Brow Shaper
Eyes: UDPP, Fyrinnae Pixie Epoxy, Fyrinnae shadows in Purgatory, Te Amo and Pumpkinfire. La Femme Eye Liner Sealer, Rimmel Lycra Lash Extender

Did you buy any Halloween collections, or themed makeup or polishes this year?

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

Sinful Colors Dream On

Saturday, October 29, 2011

I apologize in advance that my skin looks really odd in this picture. I was trying to color correct the picture so that the color of the polish would be accurate. This is Dream On, from Sinful Colors. It's a bit darker than shown, partly because I took this picture close to a light source.
I love Dream On. In fact, it's a polish many of my friends own. It's a neon purple- fuchsia, so beautiful outdoors under the sun, somewhat darker indoors.
For me, it takes a full three coats because of the odd matte-ish way that neons dry and mess with my brush strokes. Top it off with a super shiny top coat, and all the brush strokes disappear. Thank goodness.

Truly, one of my favorite Sinful Colors. By the way, this is my last installment of Sinful for a while. I'm all polished out, I need to go back to reviewing other products and EOTDs.

Have a wonderful Saturday night!

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

Sinful Colors Rich In Heart + Stamping

Friday, October 28, 2011

Hullo! Here's today's installment of Sinful Colors polish. This shade is called Rich In Heart, a blackened red shimmer. It looks brownish or maroon sometimes, depending on the lighting and how you look at it. I love this sort of shade, it comes alive under sunlight and glows.

I stamped BM206 on top of it, I chose a design that looked kinda like Christmas tree ornaments. I used China Glaze Mega Bite, one of my Tronica collection shades that I've been dying to stamp with. I think the bit of holo sparkles adds a little something extra.

Not too bad! Remember, sale ends this Saturday. Walgreens is the place to go for 99cent Sinful Colors!

Have a great night!

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

Sinful Colors Timbleberry

Thursday, October 27, 2011

Another Sinful Colors polish installment! Today's color, Timbleberry is another creme but so bright, I suspect there's a touch of neon in there. It's hot pink. Or coral. Somewhere in between. Hot coral.

I love it a lot. It's flashy, but it's just such a lovely pop of color without being tacky. I'm definitely going to be wearing this on my toes next summer.
I do declare, Sinful Colors makes darn good cremes. Here's another reminder, Walgreens has these on sale until Saturday! Try a few colors, let me know how they turn out.

Have a great night!

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

Sinful Colors Envy

Wednesday, October 26, 2011

I'm going to have a Sinful Colors week, to show you some of the shades that are on sale at Walgreens through Saturday.

This is Envy, an absolutely beautiful green creme. From some angles it looks jade green, and other times it looks hunter green to me. I'm not sure. I think it's a tad more yellow than it shows in these pictures, it photographed on the cool side.

It's just a perfect, smooth green. Lovely formula, self leveled really well.

It can be worn as a two coat polish, though here in my pictures I used three because my camera likes to make everything see through even if they're not.

I think this may be the best $.99 I ever parted with. Good work, Sinful.

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

New vs. Old Sinful Colors Nail Junkie

Tuesday, October 25, 2011

A few weeks ago, I was at Walgreens (hmm, quite a few of my stories are starting out this way) when out of the corner of my eye I spotted a bottle of polish on the Sinful Colors display. I picked it up and thought that it looked similar to my bottle of Nail Junkie at home. It was Nail Junkie- but according to my memory, this new bottle didn't quite seem right. So to prove a point to myself (that my memory IS fairly accurate) I bought this new bottle to compare to my old one.
Aha! As I held it side by side to my new bottle, I realized I was right. Old Nail Junkie had an even ratio of small and big glitter particles, but this new bottle was darker in color and had predominately large glitter pieces.
Here's three coats of each.

As you can see, Old Nail Junkie is really sheer. Ideal for layering perhaps, but not really that great on its own. New Nail Junkie looks better by itself, nice glittery jelly.

On top of black, they look almost the same. The Old version is slightly more dense with small glitter particles. How do you tell them apart? The New Nail Junkie has "SC" on the top of the cap.

Why am I telling you about a Sinful Colors polish? Well, this week at Walgreens, they're on sale for 99cents. So if you happen to stop by, I'd recommend picking up the new Nail Junkie.

Have a great night!

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

Look #1 With Wet'n'Wild I ❤ Matte Palette

I couldn't wait to use this palette, so this morning I did a quick EOTD with the right side. This is a more neutral-colored, I know some of you were scared off by the bright mattes on the left hand side. (See swatches of the palette HERE)
On the outer corner of my eye, I used the peachy-orange shade. I blended it out toward the inner corner with the nude color. I then placed the dark brown shade in the outer V, and blended it really well. I took the white color and high lighted my brow and inner corner. After applying eye liner, I set it with the matte black shade on top.
Lots of blending, really easy. Less than five minutes.

I used:
Brows: NARS Bali shadow
Eyes: LORAC Behind The Scenes Eye Primer, Wet'n'Wild I [Heart] Matte Palette (right hand side shades), Milani Liquif'Eye liner, Rimmel Lyrca Lash Extender

Have a great Tuesday!

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

New Wet'n'Wild I ❤ Matte Palette

Sunday, October 23, 2011

Good afternoon! Today I went on an adventure with a friend. We went to six different drug stores in search of limited edition Wet'n'Wild products. Nutty, yes. Successful? Also yes.

Behold! The fruit of my laborious journey! The new Wet'n'Wild I [Heart] Matte palette.

Let's let the swatches speak for themselves.

All of these are over primer, photo was taken indoors under my light box without flash (not that great of sunlight by the time I got home).

The colors from left to right:

Copy-paper white.

A nude shade (very similar to Brulee single) that closely matches my inner arm skin tone.

Jade green.

Raw sienna/ peachy color.

A bright blue.

A dark maroon tinged brown.

Vivid purple.

Flat black.

They are all finely milled and have a great smooth texture, with respectable pigmentation. All of the shades really adhered well to my skin as I was swatching. I'm impressed by this palette because I think the jade green, the interesting orange-peachy color and the purple are not common drugstore shades. I would have paid $5 for the green shade alone, it's just an absolutely lovely color.

I also appreciate the quality white, nude, dark brown and black. Though I may have these colors already elsewhere in my stash, any makeup lover knows how important these staple shades are to enhance a variety of looks.

In short, this a fabulous palette. There's bright colors right alongside classic neutrals and all the shadows have a great consistency. I would highly recommend picking one up if you see it at Walgreens.

Note: This week all Wet'n'Wild is B1GO 1/2 off, including the 8 pan palettes. Make good use of this sale!

Have you seen this palette yet in person? Will you be buying it if you do?

Love,

-Mimi

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

A Small Fyrinnae Order- Swatches

Saturday, October 22, 2011

Good evening! I placed a small Fyrinnae order about a week ago. I was surprised that it got to me so quickly, considering that their Halloween collection just came out and I bet they are swamped with orders. I guess my order was rather small (all minis) and had all old shades, perhaps that's why.
I bought eight shades- Boytoy, Madame & Eve's, Pumpkinfire, Fire Opal, Te Amo, Trickery, Conjurer, Mephisto and received Purgatory as my free sample. It's like they read my mind- I had been meaning to add Purgatory to my cart but forgot and submitted my order without it. Awesome.

Top Row, l-r: Boytoy, Madame & Eve's, Pumpkinfire
Middle Row: Fire Opal, Te Amo, Trickery
Bottom Row: Conjurer, Mephisto, Purgatory

Here's my outdoors swatches. Top row is using Pixie Epoxy, bottom row is on bare skin.

Boytoy- a blackened, glittering evergreen
Madame & Eve's (Arcane Magic)- a darkened eggplant with teal sparkle
Pumpkinfire- a matte black with orange sparks
Fire Opal- a warm tawny bronze shimer
Te Amo- a pink-coppery shifting shimmer in a muted, shadowy base. So hard to describe, so complex, so beautiful.
Conjurer (Arcane Magic)- teal shimmer in a magenta base
Mephisto- fuchsia shimmer in a matte indigo base, causing it to look like all sorts of stunning at different angles
Purgatory-a red in a blackened base, very velvety looking
I really like most of the shades- though I find that some of the Arcane Magics are hard for me to work with. For instance the sparkles in Madame & Eve's (similarly, Warrior Mage) move around on me as I'm applying, like the shadow isn't cohesive and not all the ingredients want to work together. Not that big of a deal, since I usually apply over a sticky base like MAC Mixing Medium Gel or Fyrinnae Pixie Epoxy.
My favorites from this bunch are Mephisto and Te Amo. Stunning doesn't even begin to describe them! For some reason, I expected Fire Opal to look more... opal- like. The way Te Amo does. Silly me.
Last but not least, I'm storing my mini loose shadows in a new way now- taking a page out of Joey's (Beauty, Bacon, Bunnies) book. Thanks, Joey for the simple yet effective storage idea!

I bought a small bead organizer for $5. Filled it with 22 shadows. Each of my mini Fyr shadows has a home now, before they were all bangin' around in my drawer, getting everything messy.

However, to my horror I discovered that I'm missing my Polar Bear shadow. ARGH! Let the hair pulling and head banging ensue, that is one of my all time favorite shadows.

Have a great rest of the weekend!
Love,

-Mimi

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

New Bundle Monster Plates!

Friday, October 21, 2011

Hello dear readers!

I hope you're having a wonderful week so far. I had the last two days off of school and have been busy relaxing. Yesterday, I received a present in the mail- the new Bundle Monster stamping plates! I lost my first set of plates in New Jersey during my move, but someone super cute ordered them for me as a gift. .

I was going to take pictures of all the plates, but their shiny surfaces are really hard to capture. So here is the link to the Bundle Monster site, where there are really accurate pictures. There are 25 plates, each with six designs. What a value!

Each plate is numbered, with a three digit number (201-225).

I like these plates A LOT more than the original set. The images are larger, which works out since the first set's images were too small for a lot of my fingernails.

Here's my first design! I used Orly Blue Suede as the base color and Sally Hansen Metallic Momentum to stamp. This is a design from plate BM203.

Then I decided to top it off with a matte top coat, Hard Candy Matte-ly In Love because originally, Blue Suede was matte.

I'm quite pleased! Though it took me a few tries because I hadn't stamped in such a long time. I had actually lost my scraper, but Jana from Jeweled Tips was nice enough to give me a new one! How awesome is she?

I highly recommend these plates over the first Bundle Monster set of plates (21 in that pack). The good thing is that if you do have the first pack, no designs are repeated. You luck out if you have smaller nail beds!

These were ordered from Amazon and had free shipping.

Have a great weekend.

Love,

-Mimi

Product featured was given to me as a gift. For additional information, please refer to my Disclosure Policy.

Shiro Cosmetics Sudowoodo Shadow EOTD + Swatches

Wednesday, October 19, 2011

In an effort to use all the shadows I've been neglecting, I've been slowly trying to use every one at least once for my EOTDs. Today I rediscovered Shiro Cosmetics Sudowoodo.
In my original assessment of this shade, I thought it was a dusty matte brown with just a hint of olive shimmer. Boy was I wrong!
The more I applied to my eyelid, the more the shadow revealed its true nature. What looked like chocolate powder in the container turned out to be olive, khaki, light brown shimmer all at the same time.

Take a look at swatches to see what I mean.

No flash, under lightbox

It's a lovely color and it's a team player. Goes well with a variety of earth toned shades.

I used:
Brows: NARS Bali shadow
Eyes: LORAC Behind The Scenes Eye Primer, e.l.f. Cream Eyeliner in Ivory as the base, Shiro Cosmetics Sudowoodo, LORAC Smokin' shadow, NARS All About Eve duo, Wet'n'Wild creme eyeliner, L'oreal Lash Out mascara

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

L.A. Girl Rockstar- Crowd Surfing

Tuesday, October 18, 2011

Good evening!
First, I'd like to say thank you and welcome to the many new followers that starting reading my blog in the last few days. Hi there! I really hope to get to know you all, I love making new friends. I don't bite at all, honest! So feel free to say hi on Twitter or shoot me an email.
I've seen this polish pop up a lot lately, and I'm thrilled. Why? For the last year or so, this polish has sat in one of my boxes, completely unloved. Now that lots of people have been using it, they've come up with lots of really attractive ways to wear this polish which I had never discovered.
L.A. Girl Rockstar polishes are all spectacular in their own way, every shade has glitter, flakes, duochrome shimmer, something that makes it extra badass. This is no exception. Crowd Surfing is a sheer pistachio green has both flakes and fine shimmer in it.

Too sheer to wear on its own. Pretty neat for layering or frankening.
I saw it on NailPolishForum or MakeupAlley layered on top of a mint green and liked it quite a bit*. So I duplicated this look by layering two coats of Crowd Surfing on top of Funky Fingers Southampton Seafoam.

I like it much better like this, subtle winks of flakes much more than I like it on top of black. I think it's because layered on black, the shimmer bits show up more... and I'm kinda anti-shimmer+flakes being friends (blasphemy of the worst kind, I know). That's why I don't own OPI Merry Midnight or that new Orly look-a-like.

I also saw a really cool franken on NailPolishForum of Crowd Surfing mixed with Funky Fingers/Color Club 220 Volts*.

Also- I'd like to mention that Forever 21 carries this color too, under their Love & Beauty brand if I'm not mistaken.

*indicates that I read a lot of posts, and sometimes I forget who or where I saw these cool ideas being displayed. If it was you, don't be shy! Let me know so that I can give proper credit where it's due.

Do you own this interesting and unique color? What have you done with it so far?

Love,

-Mimi

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

A Closer Look At Wet'n'Wild Ice Baby Collection

Sunday, October 16, 2011

Good afternoon!
As promised yesterday, here's some better pictures of the Wet'n'Wild Ice Baby collection. Extra large pictures today. I want you to drool over every inch of your screen.

All the polishes have a clear base. In the following pictures, I did three coats of each polish. They probably could have been done with one coat of underwear + two coats of glitter polish, whatever your preference may be. Formula wasn't too bad, or too good (it's chock full of glitter, I've never had a super easy experience with glitters in a clear base) and the big brush top was kinda awkward to use at first.

Rockin' Rubies

Red micro glitter and pink opalescent glitter.

24 Carats
Orange and gold thin bar glitter with gold micro glitter.

Give Me A Price Quote
Yellow-green thin bar glitter and micro glitter.

Cost Is No Issue
Micro teal glitter with blue round glitter

Believe Me, It's Real
Blue micro glitter with purple round glitter.

Back Alley Deals
Purple micro glitter with magenta round glitter.

It's All In The Cut

Lavender micro glitter with pink round glitter.

Diamond In The Rough
Silver and black micro glitter with round silver holographic-ish round glitter. I say 'holographic-ish' because I feel like the rainbow of colors these glitter particles reflect are softer, more muted than most holo glitters. Almost opalescent?

They all dried quite rough, and I used one coat of Gelous and another of Barielle Quick Drying Topcoat on top.
Here they are, on top of black (Wet'n'Wild Black Creme).

Left to right: Rockin' Rubies, 24 Carats, Give Me A Price Quote, Cost Is No Issue

Left to right: Believe Me It's Real, Back Alley Deals, It's All In The Cut, Diamond In The Rough

I felt like most of these were too dense to get an even coat across the black. However, Believe Me It's Real, Back Alley Deals and Diamond in the Rough looked quite stunning! Speaking of these three, I think they look quite familiar, hmm?

If you look at VampyVarnish's swatches of Nails Inc. Special Effects 3D Glitter polishes in Connaught Square and Sloane Square (click HERE) they look quite similar to Believe Me It's Real and Diamond In The Rough. Also check out Polishtopia's pics of Bloomsbury Square (here), very much like Back Alley Deals, right? Therefore, I submit to you that I have found three close (perhaps not perfect, I don't have all of them to compare) dupes for Nail Inc. Special Effects 3D Glitters.

These polishes were $2.99 each for 0.34 fl. oz each. Yes, a dollar more expensive than previous Wet'n'Wild ColorIcon polishes but I would like to point out that they are crammed full of glitter. Well worth the cost I think (except you know... if you hate glitter...).

Special thanks to Kimberly of Libby's Pink Vanity. If she hadn't written a post about looking for things above shelves, I might have never known that those things could be purchased! I had always been aware of merchandise up there but had never reached for them.

I also wanted to add (I'll shut up after this, last thing I swear!)- if you've been one of those people who've been driving around, entering drugstores hoping to find an LE polish or other makeup item and have been shy or worried that that the salespeople might think you're weird... I say dagnabbit, do as you please! I've been THAT weird polish lady and I'm past the point of caring. Sure, I used to get weird looks when I asked about collections and left empty handed when the store didn't carry it but the truth is, it doesn't matter what the salespeople think. In five minutes, when they're helping a crotchety old lady find Polident, they will have forgotten all about you. It's about the thrill of the hunt (or perhaps the frustration) and finding that item that brings YOU joy to clutch it in your hands. YOU pay for the item, YOU get to enjoy it!

So hold your head high when asking salespeople if they'll get down displays or check in the back for collections that haven't been brought out yet. Enjoy your great find. (But perhaps keep yourself from screeching with happiness, I can't really rationalize that one for you.)

Have a great week and happy hunting.
Love,

Mimi

Any of these catch your eye?

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