Rabu, 23 Februari 2011

Nubar Spring Garden Collection



Have you seen this yet? If not, I'll post it here...

I can't help but think of this Chinese restaurant I used to go to when I see the name! Now I'm hungry!

Click to enlarge, of course...

The Spring Garden Collection


Take a leisurely stroll down the Earthen path through The Spring Garden, the scent of Pink Lily in the air. The fresh colors of early Spring abound, with the soft green of the Baby Sprout, gentle shade of Blue Hydrangea, delicate Yellow Primrose, silky Purple Aster, fresh White Peony, and the lively Honeysuckle, each enhanced with the elegant sparkle of Dewdrop.


Always free of formaldehyde, phthalate and toluene, the nail lacquers in nubar's The Spring Garden Collection are:


1. Pink Lily – vibrant pink creme

2. Earthen – subdued earthen grey creme

3. Baby Sprout – soft pastel green

4. Blue Hydrangea – muted pastel blue

5. White Peony – ivory creme

6. Yellow Primrose – delicate pale yellow

7. Purple Aster – dusty pastel purple

8. Honeysuckle – cheerful honeysuckle

9. Dewdrop – fine glitter top coat


nubar nail lacquers feature an ergonomically designed cap and a 299 bristle brush built for comfort and performance.




Essie Spring 2011 Collection

Essie's spring collection is pretty nice this year. Take look:


Essie Coat Azure. This is closer to bottle color in real life; my camera makes it look more vibrant than it really is. It's a soft, dusty looking sky blue with some subtle silvery shimmer. It's in the same vein as Rescue Beauty Lounge Catherine H finish-wise, with the light blue dustiness and subtle shimmer, but the colors are quite different.


Essie French Affair. You've seen this one on me a few times now! A pink that I actually like. This one is different because it has a bit of lavender in it, it's not too warm like a lot of pinks, but it's also not so cool that it just looks purple. Pretty close to my idea of a perfect pastel pink creme.


Essie Kisses And Bisses. This one is hard to capture because it's so sheer, but I can describe it. It's a sheer ivory tinted base with a duochrome pearl shimmer. The shimmer flashes between red and pink at one angle to gold, orange and even a tiny bit of green at an extreme angle. It is sheer, I'm wearing four coats here, but it's amazing for layering:


Left to right (pinkie to index):
Essie Kisses and Bisses, two coats, over Essie French Affair
Essie Kisses and Bisses, two coats, over Essie Sand Tropez
Essie Kisses and Bisses, two coats, over Essie Nice is Nice
Essie Kisses and Bisses, two coats, over Essie Coat Azure

It looks awesome over all the colors in this collection. It turns the cremes into red-pearl duochromes! I think it looks especially incredible over Sand Tropez. This is my new favorite layering polish. Love this color.


Essie Nice is Nice. This one was a little hard to capture, it's not as blue as it looks here. It's closer to the sunlight picture. It's a pastel lavender creme. Very soft and flattering.


Essie Sand Tropez. This shade is a beige sandy nude creme. It has a little bit of grey, a little bit of taupe, very much a 'mushroom' type of shade. It's lighter than a lot of the taupey putty mushroom shades in my collection and I'm very fond of it. Especially layered with Kisses and Bisses!

Essie Topless and Barefoot. This one is similar in feel to Sand Tropez, but it's a pink, fleshy nude instead of beige. It's putty colored. Like someone said about Borghese Almondine, this totally reminds me of Silly Putty! Now I have the urge to play with Silly Putty. Especially since it looks so nice on my nails!

The formula on these was nice and even. I didn't have any issues with the formula itself, but the opacity isn't what I was expecting. They're not sheer, but lately when you see colors like this, they're one-coaters. These needed two at the very least, but I did three just because. They do look best with three. Drying time is quick and these wear pretty well, too.

Overall, strong spring collection. Are the colors totally unique? No, we've all seen these before. Despite not being completely unique, the colors are all perfect. They're just really great pastels. They all look good on and they're all even better layered with Kisses and Bisses. I would wear every single one of these (and I have worn them all but Topless and Barefoot!), they go perfectly with my skintone, none of the dreaded lobster hands. They all have a soft, creamy look instead of a chalky white-out look. I don't mind the chalky look at all, but the creamier finish of these is easier to pull off for most people.

I like 'em. Do you?

(These were sent to me for review.)


Selasa, 22 Februari 2011

Apology (and a request)


It has come to my attention that there have been some pretty freaky ads being displayed on my blog. I am really, really sorry if you happened to see that last one. It was a surprise to me, too!

In regards to this, I have a request. If you see any more, uh, interesting or objectionable ads being displayed, could you please email me with the details so I can block them from appearing again? I already try to filter out any of the questionable ones I catch, like all those sites that sell counterfeit MAC and stuff, but I don't see all of the ones that get displayed.

Hopefully my blog will be unexpected-wang free from now on...

Quick Duochrome Eyeshadow Comparison



Speaking again of Lorac... One of you commented (though, now I can't seem to find the comment) that the peachy gold/pink duochrome in the Multiplex 3D shadow palette looked like MAC Motif. I completely forgot I had Motif! I was comparing the brown/green shade to MAC Club so I figured I'd do a Motif comparison while I was at it.


On the left is MAC Motif and on the right is the top left shade in the LORAC Multiplex 3D Eyeshadow Palette. They're similar in theme- peachy-gold with pink-coral pearl/duochrome, but they're definitely different. The LORAC shade seems to have better payoff but the MAC is more duochrome.


Left to right: MAC Club, Too Faced Label Whore, L'Oreal HIP Intrepid, LORAC top right shade, Wet n Wild Comfort Zone Definer shade. Two unnamed shadows in one comparison, how about that? Out of all, the L'Oreal HIP Intrepid is the most duochrome and the MAC is the least. But they're all really, really close.

LORAC 3D Liquid Lustre Spring 2011

This is the other item from the LORAC spring collection that had me intrigued. It's a rather unique item- a liquid that adds sparkle to your makeup. And it truly is a liquid, not a cream or a gel or a lotion- it's watery and somewhat customizable...

See how it settles in the bottle? It's like Northern Lights topcoat, the more you shake it, the more dense the glitter will be. It's a white gold flake and pearlescent powder suspended in a thin liquid.


Enlarge this to see the detail in the shimmer. It has a white shimmery pearly base with light gold flakes that reflect green at certain angles.




Here it is fully shaken, one drop's worth, blended on bare skin. You can see that the base is very white and has lots of glimmering gold flecks of glitter (it's smooth glitter, not rough or chunky, it's more like flakes) with subtle greenish reflection.

You can use this in several different ways.... Two of the ways you can use it are:

To make eyeliner out of shadow, or to use over liner. Here I used it over black shadow as liner. You can see that it makes the black appear green and gives it a subtle sparkle metallic effect. The liquid can also be mixed with loose pigment to make a shimmery liner instead of layering it like I did.


Here I layered it over my existing shadow to change the look. In this instance, I tried it just barely shaken and gently patted on the eyelid only. I wanted to see how subtle you could make it. If you shake it more, it adds a white-gold cast to whatever you layer it over, but if you shake it less, it's more sheer and you get more of a sparkly veil than a dense white-gold topcoat.

It is quite easy to use, but can be a little awkward. The dropper is good for dispensing an appropriate amount of product, but the fact that it's such a thin liquid can be troublesome. It can run and drip if you're not careful. I find that just placing a drop on the back of my hand and using my fingertip to apply it is the least messy way. You can use a brush, but the brush tends to soak up the liquid part too quickly and makes the shimmer a little clumpy.

It also dries very fast, so you have to work quickly if you're using it for liner. The fast drying formula is really nice, though, because you don't have to worry about the glitter transferring or creasing while it dries like you do with glitter gel.

After using it a few times, I have found two flaws with the 3D Liquid Lustre. The first one may not be so much of a flaw as it is a misunderstanding on my part. It's not very iridescent or duochrome or '3D' like I assumed it would be. Yes, there's a slight green flash, but I had honestly expected something a little more dimensional. The second flaw is in the packaging. The tube is small and long, you have to remove the cap to use it and the liquid inside is very watery. If you knock over this tiny, awkward tube while using it, you're going to lose all the liquid inside! And it's pretty easy to knock over because of the glass dropper and the light weight and tall shape of the tube. You have to be very conscious of yourself while the tube is open, one stray motion of the hand and you'll be covered in shiny gold fluid!

But, other than the precarious packaging choice, the 3D Liquid Lustre is a pretty fun item. It allows you to add glitter and sparkle with zero fallout so you can transform your eyeshadow look from matte to glittery in seconds. You could also use this to add a highlight on the skin, which may look especially cool if you're into dramatic or theatrical looks- I can see it being really fairy-like applied on the cheekbones and around the temples. Or, maybe a little dab of it on the center of the bottom lip?

Has anyone else tried this? I want to know what you did with it! I'm still trying to think of ways to use this.

(This was sent to me for review.)

Sabtu, 19 Februari 2011

Wet n Wild Fast Dry Nail Color in Teal of Fortune

I was going through my nail pictures folder and I saw this in there... I completely forgot to post this color when I did my post on the Wet n Wild FastDry polishes! I suppose it is pretty enough to get its own post...


Teal Of Fortune. It's a lot more green toned than my picture shows, but I have a feeling you already know what this looks like. It's a teal-blue jelly base with duochrome glass fleck/borderline foil shimmer. Very similar to Zoya Charla and her army of clones. I wouldn't call it a duplicate, but it's definitely in the same vein as all those other colors. Very pretty. Also very inexpensive. Too bad the brush isn't better!

Jumat, 18 Februari 2011

Borghese Almondine... What do you think?


I'm not that much of a nude/neutral polish wearer (except for the funky ones like Rescue Beauty Lounge Grunge), but for some reason this shade really caught my eye. It's Borghese Almondine.

It's a creamy, putty-like, nude-ish beigey funky kinda color (Mmm, creamy... soft creamy beige!) with little metallic microglitter particles. It's a really unusual color, sort of like a fleshy nude version of Zoya Harley. And I love looking at it in the bottle.... but I'm not so sure about it when it's actually on me.

Is it funky and pretty, or is it washed out and creepy? I can't decide. Yay or nay?

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