NOTD: Lilac Pastelle Fauxnad

The base is Lilac Pastelle, yet another Revlon pastel I have trouble with. It takes at least four-five coats to be opaque. And it's much too pink to be called lilac. Anyway, I used China Glaze Hyper Haute to stamp. Even for those of you who hate the Tronicas, they are great for stamping. I used one of the floral images from Born Pretty's Hello Kitty image plate (M71). Lately, I've been obsessed with off-center fauxnads. So I placed two or three flowers randomly over each nail.

I also added tiny purple rhinestones on a few of the flowers. I found these rhinestones at the grocery store, of all places, but they're the perfect size.

Swatch: Evil Queen

Earlier, I shared Claire's Poison Apple. Now, I have my other polish from that release: Evil Queen. (I didn't get the Space Cadet dupe since I already have the Orly version. But I'll try to do a comparison with my sister's bottle.) Evil Queen is similar to Orly Galaxy Girl and MAC Formidable.

Evil Queen is a dark purple-plum base with duochrome shimmer that shifts from a blue-aqua in direct light to magenta that pretty much disappears into the base colour. Three coats covered perfectly. This was another tough one to photograph, so here's some pic spam.

 The blue shimmer in this polish is stunning. The bottle shows it really well in this picture.

Swatch: Poison Apple

Today I have Claire's Poison Apple. My sister found this and the other two "dupes" for the MAC Venomous Villains polishes that were released last year. Ten for $10! Poison Apple has been compared to MAC Bad Fairy, which I don't have so I'm not sure if they are identical. Dupe or not, this polish is a beauty.

The base is a sheer reddish plum and it's filled with duochrome flaky glitter. Depending on the light, I've seen it shift from a pinky-red through copper to a murky yellow-orange. I've heard some complaints about it being too sheer, but the glitter is dense enough that I had no problem with that. I used three coats, which is fairly standard for me.

I had some trouble capturing the duochrome effect, although it is visible in the bottle. These show the shift from pink-red to coppery-orange better than the above picture.

Does anyone have Poison Apple and Bad Fairy? Dupes or not?

NOTD: Stamping with BM10

Here's Color Club Wild at Heart over Revlon Peach Petal using Bundle Monster plate BM10. I finished it with a coat of Hidden Treasure because I just can't leave anything alone. As much as I love the colour of Peach Petal, it's a pain to use. This is four coats and it's still patchy but I pretty much gave up at that point because I knew I could cover most of it by stamping. I had to overlap the images to cover my nails. I can't wait until I can buy the new Bundle Monster plates with larger designs. Has anyone tried them yet? And are they definitely worth buying?

First Attempt at Nail Foils

A couple months ago, I made a Dollar Nail Art haul. One of the things I was most excited about were the nail foils, but they were also the only thing I was really nervous about. I thought they might not work or I would struggle too much and they would just look awful. So they've sat in a drawer taunting me since my order arrived. I chose six patterns and they all look gorgeous on the transfer paper, but I doubted I could make them look good on my nails. 

Yesterday, I finally decided to just go for it. After all, the great thing about nail art is you can always take it off and start over. And who knows, maybe I just happen to have a great talent for applying nail foils. Turns out, I don't. But I want to show you my first attempt anyway.

Not too bad overall. I had a little trouble getting it all the way to my cuticles and there are a few spots where the pattern didn't transfer completely, but there's definitely potential with these. I'll have to try again and let you guys know how it goes. This pattern is called Fifth Avenue and it's over one coat of Wet n Wild Black Creme.

For anyone who hasn't heard of Dollar Nail Art before, it's an e-tailer that has tons of nail art supplies and each item is (you guessed it) a dollar. For some of their products, the amount you get for a buck is pretty tiny but some are a great deal. The nail foils are one of the better deals. For a dollar, you get a roll that will do several manicures at least, even with a few practice attempts. Their minimum order is $25 though, so it might be a good idea to do a group buy with a few friends.

If anyone has any tips on how to make the nail foils work, I'd love to hear them.

Fyrinnae Arcane Magic Swatches

What was I thinking, waiting so long to try Fyrinnae's Arcane Magic shadows? The four I chose are all stunning, and the colour change is just the icing on the cake. The effect is hard to capture, but I tried to get a photo closer to(top) and farther from (bottom)  light. Enlarge these pics to see the differences for each.

Dragon Magic, Faerie Glamour, Futuristic Glamrock, Madame & Eve's

Dragon Magic

Dark, almost black, green with bright blue-green shimmer. Colour change is less obvious than others, becomes more green, less blackened.

Faerie Glamour

Vibrant purple base with light blue and pink shimmer. Another less obvious change. Shifts from mostly pink to mostly blue shimmer.

Futuristic Glamrock

Icy blue filled with light blue and sparse pink shimmer. Pink sparkle becomes much more obvious closer to the light.

Madam & Eve's

Dark purple, leaning brown, base with blue-green shimmer. Shifts from purple-brown to turquoise.

Fyrinnae Shadow Swatches

As promised, here are the rest of the swatches for my new Fyrinnae eye shadows. 

Eternal Innocence

Dark shimmery green. I've been looking for a good dark green for a while, and I think I want something just a little brighter than this. So, I'd love to hear any suggestions, whether from Fyrinnae or any mineral makeup company.

Kamikaze

Bright red with red sparkle. On me, anyway, this seems to have slight orange tones.

Meerkat

This is one of the shadows I bought mostly for the name. I think meerkats are one of the cutest animals around. Maybe not the best way to choose eye shadows, but I wasn't at all disappointed with this one. Pink-purple with tons of gold sparkle.

Orangutan

Coppery-peach with an almost metallic look to it. I actually didn't think I would really like this one as much as I do. It's another one I bought for the name. Orangutans are my absolute favourite animals in the whole world. How can you not love a baby this cute?

Hesty the Orangutan (Denver Zoo)

And last but not least,

Tapir

Rich purple-based burgundy. This looked more of a wine red in the jar, but the purple tones came out against my skin. Nearly matte, with only a slight shimmer.

Fyrinnae Haul and Swatches

Those of you who follow me on twitter got a sneak peek at my recent Fyrinnae haul. I'd been planning what to buy for ages, but the site has had a lot of down time lately. So once the site was up again (temporarily) I went all out on samples. And once again, they do not disappoint. Even colours that I was a little iffy about or bought just for the name *Orangutan* are gorgeous. And they're are more than a few that I would buy the full size of if the samples weren't so generous. Anyway, let's get to the haul, shall we?

After reading Phyrra's rave reviews about the Velvet-Gel Silica Primer, I needed to try the dry skin version. I'll have a review up for that after I try it out a bit. Onto the samples: top row is Glow Blushes, then Arcane Magic shadows, and the last three rows are the loose eye shadows. I also got a sample of Pixie Epoxy for my sister. The lashes were a freebie included with my order. I can never get enough false lashes, so these are perfect for me.

For today I have swatches of the loose shadows; Arcane Magics and Glow Blushes should be up later this week. All swatches are patted on over Elf Studio primer. And as always, click on any pic to enlarge it.

Banana Mochi

Light shimmery yellow. Much softer than Bifrost and without the contrasting sparkle.

Biker Chic

Black base filled with aqua sparkle. This looks a little patchy in the photo, but I didn't notice any problems when swatching. You definitely want to enlarge this one to see the sparkle.

Bite Me

Somewhat dark, but still bright red with red shimmer. Fyrinnae describes it as "the hue of fresh blood" and that's entirely true. Darker than Kamikaze and more of a true red.

Chaotic Evil

Bright pink filled with silver shimmer. Actually reminds me quite a bit of the new Revlon, Sublime Strawberry. The base colour isn't identical, but overall they're pretty similar.

Curiouser and Curiouser!

Bright blue filled with blue/turquoise shimmer. This is much lighter and brighter than 1.22 Gigawatts as well as more aqua-leaning.

Damn Paladins

I'm not much of a neutral eye fan, but I saw a swatch of this taupe on a blog and became obsessed with it. The base is a fairly basic medium taupe but it has an amazing light blue hidden shimmer that makes this a must-have.

More shadow swatches coming! What are your favourite Fyrinnae shades?

St Patrick's Day: NOTD 3

I wanted to do a leprechaun for St Patrick's Day. This one definitely didn't turn out as well as I had pictured it in my mind. I like how his hat looks, and the beard seems okay, but it kinda goes downhill from there. Anyway, here it is:

I did the hat with these dots from Dollar Nail Art. I used Elf Innocent for his skin, a mix of SH Xtreme Wear in Sun Kissed and So Sexy Red for the beard, clothes are Xtreme Wear Emerald City, shoes are Xtreme Wear Black Out, and China Glaze Midnight Kiss for his belt. The background is Elf Mint Cream.

St Patrick's Day: NOTD 2

My second NOTD for St Patrick's Day is the pot of gold at the end of a rainbow. So I could get more designs done, I switched to using false nails for this series, but my original plan for this one was to have the rainbow would continue from the thumb over to the ring finger. The design below with the pot of gold would then be on my pinkie nail.

I used bullion beads from Dollar Nail Art for the gold. The pot is Color Club Revvvolution and the background is OPI What's With the Cattitude?. For the rainbow I used (in order red to violet) SH Xtreme Wear in Cherry Red, Sun Kissed, Mellow Yellow, Green with Envy, and Blue Me Away, and Sally Girl in Your Majesty.

March Greens: Layering Lime Lights

Today's green is Sally Hansen Xtreme Wear in Lime Lights. This is an iridescent pale green. My index finger shows three coats and it's still incredibly sheer, so this one is made for layering. 

Left to Right: 3 coats Lime Lights; LL over SH Xtreme Wear in Green With Envy, LL over China Glaze Jolly Holly, LL over SH Xtreme Wear in Black Out.

I love how this polish adds a little unexpected shimmer to lighter cremes and totally transforms black.

St Patrick's Day: NOTD 1

Here's the first in my series of St Patrick's Day nail art. I'm not sure how many I'll end up doing. It all depends on how many ideas I can come up with.

The green is Sally Hansen Xtreme Wear in Emerald City and the gold is China Glaze Midnight Kiss. The heart rhinestones are from Born Pretty. The tiny balls I found at Dollarama, but the colour bleeds out of them. Born Pretty has similar balls, which I plan on reviewing soon.

Heart Rhinestones (Click image to go to Born Pretty Store)

March Greens: Emerald City

Sally Hansen Xtreme Wear in Emerald City is a true medium-dark emerald green shimmer. Not too yellow or too blue. This is two coats, but it could use a third to even out a bit of patchiness. It's just slightly darker than the photo shows.

I'll have my first St Patrick's Day nail art up later today so check back in a few hours for that.

March Greens: Edyta

I don't share the green obsession that a lot of bloggers seem to have. I prefer greens that either have a lot of blue or have contrasting shimmer or something else going on in them. So here's another green that's not just green. Zoya Edyta is a dark grayed green base filled with green and bronzy-gold glitter/shimmer. I think this one was two coats. Maybe three?

Color Club Untamed Luxury

I'll post more March Greens this week, but I wanted to take a break from that to share a Color Club collection from Fall 2010 that I found recently at Winners.  Here are the seven polishes from Color Club Untamed Luxury: Every Shade of Indulgence. 

Pretty in Platinum

Light, pearl gray. I don't have anything like this in my collection. This was three coats. The formula seemed thick but runny and every flaw in my nails showed through the polish. The color is gorgeous though, so it'll be worth a good base coat and some patience. This was the only one of the set that gave me problems with application.

Wild Orchid

Shimmery medium gray, with blue/lavender tones. Two coats, great application. Another shade without dupes in my collection. I'm starting to think I'm lacking in the gray department.

Positively Posh

A great medium brown creme. Three coats but two might be enough. I have a few similar shades but this is a bit darker than the others; maybe I should do a comparison post for this one.

Soft As Cashmere

Greige, how I love you. Three coats on this one, too. 

Nothing But Truffle

Coppery brown shimmer in a dark chocolate base. Two coats. Similar to SH Xtreme Wear Chocolate Nut or NYC Canal Street but darker than either of those.

Jewel of a Girl

Metallic burgundy-wine shimmer in a blackened red base. Two coats. I have a Wet n Wild that's pretty similar-Under Your Spell. 

Ready to Royal

Dark, almost black, eggplant. This seems like almost a jelly finish. Two coats. Plenty of dupes for this one out there. I have a mini Funky Fingers (no name) that is close, Rimmel Deliciously Dark is pretty close too, and NYC Lincoln Park is just a little more burgundy than purple.

March Greens: Object of Envy

Our next March Green is from Color Club's Fall 2008 Glitter Vixen collection. I just got my first Color Clubs a few months ago and they're already becoming one of my favourite brands. Application is generally great and they have some amazing colours. Today's polish is no different. This is Object of Envy, a green glitter in clear base. This is the perfect, true green. And the glitter is just dense enough that you could use one coat over another colour, or it looks amazing with a few coats of this alone. So, I wanted to show how it looks after one, two, and four coats, without anything underneath.

Color Club Object of Envy 1 coat

Color Club Object of Envy 2 coats

Color Club Object of Envy 4 coats Flash

 

 

Color Club Object of Envy 4 coats No Flash

Speaking of Color Club, I was at Winners the other day and bought Untamed Luxury: Every Shade of Indulgence Collection. It was only thirteen bucks! Not bad for seven polishes. I didn't really *need* any of these colours. Never mind that I have near dupes for pretty much all of them. I just love greyish neutrals and dark vampy colours. Now that I know this location gets Color Club sets, I'm gonna have to start stalking them.

March Greens: Mint Cream and Layering

Here's Elf Mint Cream, a pale mint green creme. (Don't you just love those painfully obvious names?) This is four (or five?) coats. It went on fairly smoothly, for a pastel, but was a little too sheer. I love this polish. Perfect mint green that doesn't give me insane lobster hands. (They're a lot redder in the pic than in real life but the polish colour is accurate.) Elf polishes are available on their website for a dollar, but they always have great discount codes.

I wanted to try some layering with this one so I pulled out Orly Love Each Other. It's one of my all-time favourite layering polishes. Over dark colours, the pink shimmer is really visible but over pale colours like this one it's a more subtle, hidden shimmer that just adds a bit of interest.

March Greens: Hi-Tech

This is four coats of Milani 3D Holographic in Hi-Tech. The first two coats went on patchy but it eventually evened out. Light grass green (very yellow-leaning) dispersed holo. Photo is without flash, indoor lighting.

Milani Hi-Tech 4 coats No flash

March Greens: Zombie Zest

I want to share some green polishes leading up to St Patrick's Day. The first is China Glaze Zombie Zest from their 2010 Halloween collection. (It's only about four months late.) My sister found this on clearance a couple weeks ago, along with Ick-a-Body, and picked them up for me.

China Glaze Zombie Zest 3 Coats Indoor Light

My first thought when I saw this colour in the bottle was that it looks like slime. The base is a murky olive green, somewhat sheer but buildable. And it's packed with golden green shimmer. Definitely not my every day type of colour, but I absolutely love it for the one or two days I'll wear it each October. 

This went on smoothly and dried pretty quickly. The only downside was the major case of lobster hands it gave me. Zombie Zest is discontinued but still available on Amazon.com and some other etailers.

NYX Ultra Pearl Mania Swatches

HauteLook has NYX on sale this Thursday. You have to sign up to use the site if you aren't already a member, but the deals are worth it. So I thought this would be the perfect time to swatch their loose eye shadows. I also have swatches of NYX Glitter Mania loose glitter.

Here are the Ultra Pearl Mania loose shadows. The top row has no base, middle is Elf Studio Eye Primer, and bottom is a white cream base. Some of these colours work well without any base, but most do need a primer to help them stick. As always, click any picture to enlarge it.

L to R: White, Pearl, Nude, Baby Blue, Baby Pink, Lilac, Fanta, Grass

White is actually a true white, even though it looks more cream here. Pearl is a very soft pink-beige. All the others are colour accurate.

L to R: Lime, Very Pink, Yellow, Orange, Mink, Sky Pink, Yellow Gold

NOTD: Patchwork using SH HD Laser

I haven't been posting very often. I was determined to do better in the new year, but I underestimated how little time I would have to blog with the new puppy. I spend all day chasing after Rosie and keeping her out of trouble. Then, I go to work and by the time I get home, the last thing I have time or energy for is sitting at the computer. But one look at her cute little face and it's all worth it. And once she grows up a bit, I'll have more time to focus on posting here. 

Rosie loves playing in (and eating) the snow.

Rosie and our older boxer, Sarge

Anyway, back to the nails. I was wearing SH HD in Laser the other day and I wanted to change my nails but was too lazy to remove it and start over. So I figured this was the perfect time to finally do a patchwork design. I used SH Xtreme Wear in Ocean View and NYC in Midtown to pick up the blue and purple/fuchsia duochrome of Laser. This was super easy to do with painter's tape, although you can see a couple spots where the polish leaked under the tape. I think it's straightforward enough that I don't have step-by-step pics, but if anyone wants to see a tutorial for this look, let me know in the comments.