[Review+Swatch] Zoya Entice Collection for Fall 2014

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It's Monday again! Seems like the days are just flying by. Today I have the new fall creme collection from Zoya - Entice!

[Review+Swatch] Zoya Naturel Deux Collection

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Hey guys! It looks like we're already getting into fall collections. But what if you're not in the mood for dark, rich colors yet? Then you might want to look into Zoya's newest collection: Naturel Deux. Complementing the original Naturel collection, this set features a range of browns and plums to help you seamlessly transition into fall.

[Review+Swatch] Nicole by OPI Better After Dark & Promises In The Dark

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Happy Saturday! Hope everyone's weekend is going well! Today I'm showing you two chocolate-y shades inspired by Dove Chocolate. Nicole by OPI is currently doing a promotion with Dove to celebrate the launch of a new year and their new line of dark chocolates. You can enter their sweepstakes for a chance to win a bar of Dove chocolate and the lacquers shown above. They're giving away 25,000 of these kits, and you have till Feb 5 to enter. :D

I actually got a sample of Dove's regular dark chocolate, as well their new salted caramel version. Oh my gosh, you guys. These are so good. I was already a fan of Dove chocolate, but I think the salted caramel is my new favorite.♥

But enough about the chocolate, let's talk about the nail polish!

Current Affairs v.02

Book: Catch-22 - Joseph Heller

Nails: Skinfood BR610 Rich Mocha

Show: How I Met Your Mother Season 8 (finally caught up!)

  

Quick post today!  I started Catch-22 last weekend, but haven't gotten very far.  Hopefully, I'll be able to finish it over the weekend.  On my nails I'm wearing Rich Mocha, which is like a metallic brown/bronze.  Isn't it pretty?  It kind of matches the book... :P

Until tomorrow!

Liz 

Butter London All Hail The Queen

All Hail The Queen (aka All Hail McQueen), 3 coats: medium beige brown with holographic and red shimmer.  AHTQ is opaque in 2 coats, but I did 3 for pics.  It has exceptional formula and glides on flawlessly.  The holographic particles are very finely milled and only come alive in the sun.  They sparkle like multicolored shimmer rather than creating any prisms. 

You can also see this gorgeous red shimmer at certain angles.  It was really hard to capture, but you can see it best on my ring finger (where the light hits it).  I would say the above pic is the most accurate.  It's a bit darker in real life.

Do you own All Hail The Queen?  What are your thoughts on it?





Liz

Milani Spring 2012 Swatches

Hello hello. :)  Today I have for you my picks from the Milani Spring 2012 collection.  The line in general looks great, but these were the colors I was most interested in.  All the colors I reviewed had great pigmentation and consistency.  A lot of these can be one-coaters if you use a medium to thick coat.  In my swatches I used thin coats.

Beach Front, 2 coats: a dusty blue with silver shimmer that falls somewhere between periwinkle and baby blue.  My camera shows this as sky blue, but it's closer to how it looks in the bottle.

Signature Gold, 3 coats: a warm metallic gold.  This is a nice warm gold with a hint of bronze.  I like that this is not a yellow gold.  It's a tad brush strokey, but not blatantly so.  This could have been a 2 coater, but I had some issues with drag, which can be avoided with sufficient dry time between coats.

Teddy Brown, 2 coats: a light brown with warm undertones.  A very nice neutral brown.  It's light enough to wear during spring and summer.

Orchidia, 3 coats: orchid with silver shimmer.  It's surprisingly darker than I expected.  I love the silver shimmer in this.  Orchidia was also the sheerest.  It needed the third coat, but may cover well in 2 if applied in thicker coats.  Also, please excuse my uneven middle tip.  I had some peeling there and forgot to buff it out. :(  People are always asking me how my nails are so strong and healthy.  It's not always true!  I have problems with peeling now and then as well.  My best remedy for it thus far is to buff and moisturize.  Nails need moisture too! :)

Sail Away, 2 coats: a dusty indigo blue with silver shimmer.  Saved the best for last!  The silver keeps it from being too dark and makes this color glow.  Omgosh, it's so gorgeous!  In my opinion, this is definitely the star of the collection.  It's my favorite of the bunch. :)

Which color is your favorite?


Liz

*The polishes reviewed in this post were sent to me for my honest review.
Please view my Disclosure Policy for more info.

Kardashian Kolors Pretty Petites: Sophisti-cuties

Hello! :)  Today I have the second set of Kardashian Kolors minis.  This one's called Sophisti-cuties and contains (from top to bottom): My Empire...My Rules, Follow Me on Glitter, Khloé Had a Little Lam-Lam, and Hard-Kourt Fashionista.

3 coats, My Empire...My Rules: a mushroom taupe creme.
3 coats, My Follow Me on Glitter: a black base with fine and small silver glitter.  There are also multi-colored glitters in bright blue, fuchsia, red, green, and yellow.

2 coats, Khloé Had a Little Lam-Lam: a dark teal-green creme.  Love this one!  I did 2 coats for pics, but it can definitely be a one-coater. :)
3 coats, Hard-Court Fashionista: a chocolate brown creme.  Very shiny!

Like the Celeb-bities set, I found the formulas for all of these flawless.  If anything, Khloé Had a Little Lam-Lam was a little more on the watery side, but nothing unmanageable.  Overall, a pretty solid set.  I think the colors in this set work very well together and can easily be worn together like in my pictures.


Pretty Petites will be available July 2012 for $10 each at Duane Reade, H-E-Butt, Fred Meyer, Meijer, Rite Aid, Sears and ULTA. In Canada, each set will be available for $15 at Katz Group, Loblaw, Shoppers Drug Mart, select Sears locations, and Walmart Canada. 
 


Liz

*The polishes reviewed in this post were sent to me for my honest review.
Please view my Disclosure Policy for more info.

Sally Hansen Oxblood

Today I have for you another polish from the Alexander Wang Spring 2012 line.  This one's a gorgeous vampy red creme.

Oxblood, 2 coats.  Is it red?  Or is it brown?  This is one of those deliciously dark, vampy reds that look brown in certain lightings.  Maybe it doesn't fit in a spring collection, but I like it anyway.  It's very glossy and kind of squishy looking.  My only gripe about this polish is the brush.  I think I got a bad brush. :(  It wasn't cut very evenly.  Combine that with a flat, large brush and it spelled disaster with such a dark, pigmented color like Oxblood.  I think I'm going to trim my brush a bit to even it out.  I'm pretty sure all the brushes aren't like this, since I've never had problems with my other Sally Hansen Complete Salon Manicure brushes.  If anything, you can always check the brush at the store before you buy it.

Currently, I'm still craving soft colors, but Oxblood is definitely a polish I'll revisit in the fall.


Liz

*The polishes reviewed in this post were sent to me for my honest review.
Please view my Disclosure Policy for more info.

SinfulColors Bare

SinfulColors Bare, 2 coats, Heartbreaker collection.  Bare is a lovely rose nude.  Depending on the lighting it can lean more tan-pink or brown.  It has very fine white shimmer that gives the color a soft glow in the sunlight.  It doesn't scream shimmer, but just softens the color.  I love how this looks on me and can see this color working well with any skin tone.





This last one was taken in the shade, while the previous two were taken in direct sunlight.  You can see how the shimmer isn't too prevalent, giving the color a soft shine.

What do you think? :)


Liz

Pink Wednesday: Pink Icing and Cupcakes!

Yay it's Wednesday, and on Wednesdays we wear pink!  I've been looking forward to this one because I missed the last one due to finals. :)  So without further ado, I present you... cupcake nails! :)

I'm so glad I raced out to take pics of this mani yesterday before the sun set, because there's no sun out today!  But that also means my cuticles were a bit dry, and there was still some residue from the blue BYS color change polish.  Eek!

For the cupcakes I used 2 coats of Warm Cocoa by Love & Beauty.  The pink icing is 3 coats of Revlon Sheer Cotton, which was one of the polishes I won from Steph's giveaway.  I'll review that later on in this post.  For the sprinkles, I used a coat of Milani Gems.  I finished off by using China Glaze Ahoy for the cherry and Milani White nail art polish for the stripes.  Ah I was so careful not to smear the white stripes while putting on Seche Vite top coat, but alas Ahoy wasn't dry yet and it smeared onto the icing.  I can't really tell in person though, and the cupcakes are super cute. :)

For the other nails I used 5 coats of Revlon Sheer Cotton, .  Sheer Cotton is sheer but not streaky in my opinion.  Which is good!  I think 3 coats is fine, but 4 would be ideal for full coverage if you have long nails.  Initially, I was going to do brown polka dots over Sheer Cotton on the other nails.  But since I didn't have time, I used 1 coat of Milani Gems instead.  Then I applied another coat of Sheer Cotton over it (this coat will be the fourth, so do only 3 in the beginning).  Does it remind you of anything?  Well it's not supposed to be anything like Deborah Lippman Glitter in the Air, but it was definitely inspired by that polish.  I also wanted to add a little bit of sparkle on top, so I added a coat of Wet n Wild Party of Five Glitters.  Next time, I think I'll use Party of Five instead of Gems, since I want the glitter to be more sparse and spread apart.

What do you think?  Would you do this mani?  I'm wearing it right now, and it's so cute!  :3


Liz

Zoya Faye wants some sunshine! (and some giveaways)

Hey all~

It's almost the weekend again.  Are the days flying by or what?  Yesterday I painted my nails with Zoya Faye.  It's been pretty sunny out lately, so I thought I'd take some pics after class today.  I noticed that Zoya Rica's base color was more visible in sunlight, and the shimmer looked like fire.  So I kind of regretted not getting pics of her in sunlight.  But now I know why it's called the Sunshine collection!  As luck would have it, there was not a hint of sun today.  So here are my pics of Faye indoors.  Not very happy with them, but oh well.  Hopefully, there will more sunny days soon.

Faye is a red toned purple base with a complex array of shimmers: copper, gold, orange, green, red.  The coppery gold shimmer is more dominant, but within it you can see some orange, green, and red.  I used 3 coats and application was good.  As you can see, you can see my tips.  I know I made sure to cover them, so I think that's result of shrinkage from Seche Vite. Boo :(  Drying time was a little long too.  I don't know if it was because I used 3 coats, but I accidentally crinkled one of my fingers about an hour after application.  It was like the top was dry but the inside was not.  The good thing is I was able to smooth it out, and it looked like it never happened.  I think this polish also chips a bit easily.  I don't know if that's because of the shrinkage or not.  Overall, I really love this as a color.  It's very complex and unique.

Hopefully, I'll be able to get some better pics of Faye once the sun decides to come back out again. ^ ^

Love, beauty, peach, and cocoa

It's almost the weekend! :)

While I was at Forever21, I picked up two polishes in peach and cocoa.  I mostly bought them for the bottles, because who doesn't love leopard prints?  I wish Love & Beauty would change their polish bottles to this, because I would buy them all.

This one is called Georgia Peach.  Love & Beauty doesn't really name their polishes.  Instead they give them rather ordinary color labels, that may or may not be accurate.  This one was really an orange in disguise.  It's kind of sheer, I'm wearing four coats here to cover my VNL.  If you don't have long nails, 2 coats should be fine.  It has a lot of fine silver and peach glitter.  The silver glitter reminds me of the metallic gel pens I used to use in middle school.  It's also hard to remove if you're using normal nail polish remover.  The polish comes off in gluey clumps and the glitter gets everywhere, giving you the Edward Cullen syndrome.  I didn't like this one because of removal, and the orange wasn't flattering for my skin tone.

This is two coats of Warm Cocoa.  This is my first time trying Love & Beauty, so the peach gave me a rather disappointing first impression of this nail line.  However, Warm Cocoa was able to redeem it.  The formula was good and the color is so rich and delicious.  I would say this color is a perfect representation of a warm cup of cocoa.  The finish was smooth and shiny, and the shimmer subtle.  Yum.

You can buy these at Forever21 (in store or online) for $2.80 each.

As you can see I've been playing around with the watermark.  I don't think anyone would steal my pictures at this point in my blogging career, but I like doing it. :P  So you'll see those on my pictures from now on. :)


Also there are a few giveaways going on if you want to check those out.  Here are the links:
Mirannie's Nails
Life and Polish
Nail Polish Obsession
Varnish Vixen


Liz