China Glaze Haul and Nails of the Week

Hey, everyone!

So I placed an order at transdesign.com over the weekend, and it came in on Wednesday! All of the colors I purchased were from the China Glaze Spring 2010 Up & Away Collection - which I had been wanting for months!

The colors, from left to right, are Grape Pop, Flyin' High, Four Leaf Clover, Peachy keen, High Hopes, Heli-Yum, and Sugar High. They are very bright, but not neons (so they do not dry matte). All of them are cremes without any shimmer, which is arguably my favorite finish. I had a hard time deciding which shade to wear first, but I settled on Fylin' High, since I have never worn a color like this before.

This is two coats with Seche Vite Topcoat. It's a little bright for February, but Spring Break is only a week for me! I'm already in complete senioritis/vacation mode, so it fits my mood. I will post the others as I wear them!

Nails of the Week: Parlez-vous OPI?

Hello again!

Recently, I have gotten back into the habit of wearing nail polish all of the time. I know it isn't the best thing for your nails, but I can't help it. I frequent many nail polish blogs, especially for swatches, and Parlez-vous OPI? was one of the colors I was interested in. Even though I love OPI polishes because they last forever - they are still too expensive for me to buy at full price (at least not regularly). I was looking into ordering from one of those nail discount sites, like transdesign.com, but I kept holding myself back from spending the money for some reason.

Luckily, I found this polish in the clearance bin at a local hair salon for 30% off!! The price was just as good as buying it online once I factored in the shipping costs, so I couldn't say no. This color is a beautiful, light purplely, mauvey, slightly grayish creme. Mushroomy, taupey colors have been really popular lately, and I already own another well-known color, Sephora by OPI' s Metro Chic.

As you can see, Metro Chic is slightly darker and much more gray than the Parlez-vous OPI? It's interesting how Metro Chic looks fairly purple on its own, but doesn't next to the OPI shade. As far as formula is concerned, Parlez-vous OPI? has a great consistency. It is not too thick, so it doesn't glob up, yet it's thick enough to be opaque in two coats.

 

 

This is two coats with Seche Vite topcoat (I will surely review this later). The second photo is with flash, but I think both photos are pretty accurate to color, depending on what kind of lighting you are in. Pardon my dry cuticles and lack of manicure skills. I don't claim to be good at doing my nails...I just appreciate how changing the color of my polish can totally change my look. Let me know if you have any questions or if you have tried any mushroomy or purple colors recently that you love!

Review: Coastal Scents Camo Quad

Hey everyone,

The weather has been awful lately - it's been too dim and dark to take good pictures! Today I wanted to talk about the Coastal Scents Camo Quad, which I got for Christmas.

As the winter season has progressed, I have become paler and paler, so my usual concealer for around my eyes, Maybelline Dream Matte Mousse Foundation in 2.5 medium beige, has been a bit too dark for me. I know it seems strange to use a foundation as a concealer, but the color match was perfect for me and so much product comes in the jar (18 grams!).

I decided to start using the CS Camo Quad in medium (which retails from CS for $7.95 and contains 12.5 grams of product) instead to see if it would be a better match. Like many others have said, this concealer quad is super creamy. Even though the compact is not air tight, it doesn't seem like it will dry out anytime soon. I like that is contains a decent amount of product and a range of colors. However, I was surprised at how light they were. You can really see the difference in the image above between the CS colors and my Maybelline one. My skin so much more yellow than these shades!

As you can see from the swatches, the coverage is opaque for all four colors, which is great. The second image has a swatch of the Dream Matte Mousse on the left of the lightest shade for reference. I guess since my undertones are so yellow (my veins in my arms look green and not blue), the colors look a little ashy on me. Overall, I think this would be an amazing product for someone who has more neutral undertones. I know CS has a corrector version of this quad, so maybe if I mixed the yellow with these more neutral colors I might get a better color match for myself? Also, I want to try to use this palette to contour and highlight - creams set with powders last much longer than powders alone. Let me know if you have any additional questions about this product. Have any of you tried contouring with creams? Also if any of you have tried the corrector quad from CS, let me know what you think of it.

RIP Alexander McQueen

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Alexander McQueen was one of my favorite fashion designers, and it breaks my heart to hear of his passing today. I was very intrigued by his black, white, and red Fall 2009 collection - from the makeup to the extravagant hats to the play on hounds tooth print, I couldn't take my eyes off of it. As soon as I heard his Spring 2010 collection was streaming from his website, I had to watch. I was mesmerized. To this day, I think it was one of the most inspiring, fascinating, beautiful, creative collections I have ever seen. I loved how humans had de-evolved into sea creature-like beings, with gills and scales. The shoes blew my mind....

 

...The entire collection was a masterpiece in my eyes. I probably watched the whole thing half a dozen times, and showed all of my friends images or video of the show. To top it off, his collaboration with Lady Gaga was perfect. No other musician could have shown his clothes in a better way. I loved how "Bad Romance" premiered to the world during the finale of his show and how she wore several of his pieces in the video. I was really looking forward to fashion week to see what he had come up with next. As an amateur lover of fashion, I will truly miss Alexander McQueen's genius for years to come.

Sephora Beauty Insider 2010 Birthday Gift

Hey everyone!

It was my birthday a few weeks ago, and when I went to Sephora to pick up my free birthday gift, I was expecting the 3-pack of lip glosses they gave out last year. Apparently, Sephora changes the gift each year, but my Sephora had not received the 2010 ones by the time my birthday came around. A week or so later, they called me, and I went to pick it up...

...and this cute little box is what I got! The box is really small and thin, and contained a sample of eyeshadow, eyeliner, and mascara. The actual products look a little different than on the package, but it was free so I'm not complaining.

The eyeshadow, named Aspen Snow, has a screw top, and looks much larger once it's opened. It contains 0.053 oz, and is larger than the size of a quarter. It is a shimmery white color with fairly good pigmentation. For me with my medium skin, this shadow will basically become an inner corner highlight because it's too shimmery and light for me on the lid or browbone. Regardless, I understand why Sephora would pick such a simple color, since the colors in the box are the same for everyone.

 

The color of the eyeliner is "silver green," which I think is a more odd surprising color choice than the eye shadow. More on that in a minute. I placed it next to one of my unsharpened Sephora brand Nano liners so you could see the difference in size. The gifted liner is made to look the same as the regular Nano liners, especially on the gift box, but it's a bit shorter in length.

Here is the mascara. The brush seems fairly large, but still fluffy with bristles. Sephora calls this a volumizing mascara, and hopefully I will be able to check this out once I use up some other mascaras. (By the way, my nail polish is Conquistadorable Color by OPI, and this is after 6 days of wear!)

 

I swatched the eye shadow and liner on my forearm. The eyeshadow is very shimmery, but does not have glitter. The liner is soft and creamy, like other Nano liners, but the color is not my favorite. It is a bit greener in real life than in the picture. For me, I think it is a bit too light for really defining my eye, so I will use it more for lower liner or as a colored eye shadow base.

Overall, I like that this gift allows a Beauty Insider to try more than just one type of product, but I may have chosen different colors if I was putting the gift together. Let me know if you have any questions about anything and I'll be back soon!

I finally caved in....

...and made a blog! This is something I have been thinking about starting for a while, but I couldn't commit to it. I had a LiveJournal way back in the day, but I have not used it in years. Anyway, what finally inspired me to start this blog was the new VIVA GLAM Lady Gaga lipstick that just went up for sale on the MAC website a few hours ago. I have never made a purchase from MAC online or in a store...all I have is the Intriguing Scarlet: 6 Warm Eyes palette from the 2008 holiday collection that I got at a CCO back home a few months ago (pathetic, I know).  

So I went onto Specktra to look at what people were saying about some of the new color collections, and I wanted to see what everyone had to say about the new Cyndi Lauper and Lady Gaga VIVA GLAM Campaign. I had already seen the promo image and loved it - but I wasn't sure if I would actually buy the lipstick. Luckily (or unluckily for my wallet), there were already swatches up! Also, one of the girls on there put up a coupon code for free shipping and a free sample of Zoom Lash in black (the code is lash210, I have no idea how long it's good for). For some reason, I find it much more difficult to resist a new purchase when free shipping is involved, you know?

Hopefully I can post a swatch once I receive it. I have a bunch of mascaras I am trying to finish, so I don't think I will get to the Zoom Lash for a while. I am not 100 % sure what I want this blog to be, but I know I want to focus on makeup, beauty products, reviews, swatches, and once I get the hang of things, I may even post looks of the day. I used to be a tomboy/athlete in middle and high school, and I only started getting into makeup this past summer. I have never gotten into something so deeply and quickly! I guess makep appeals to me because of how personal and creative it is...which is sooo different to my pre-med lifestyle, in a very good way.