Today's NOTD is Diamond Cosmetic's site (closeout section). It's not quite as warm as depicted above, but there was no sun today so the picture was taken in indoor lighting. Picture above is 3 coats, after food, shower, a full morning of Black Friday Shopping, and more food. I chipped the polish on my thumb pretty badly somehow at DSW, but the polish on the other fingers is perfectly fine.
Friday, November 27, 2009
NOTD Diamond Cosmetics Sitka Sable
Today's NOTD is Diamond Cosmetic's site (closeout section). It's not quite as warm as depicted above, but there was no sun today so the picture was taken in indoor lighting. Picture above is 3 coats, after food, shower, a full morning of Black Friday Shopping, and more food. I chipped the polish on my thumb pretty badly somehow at DSW, but the polish on the other fingers is perfectly fine.
Thursday, November 26, 2009
Diamond Cosmetics Haul and NOTD DC Cherry Tobacco
How's everyone's Thanksgiving weekend going? I got my Diamond Cosmetics order a couple days ago. Diamond Cosmetics is a small brand that carries a small line of polish and makeup online. Their polish retails between $1-$3 with the majority of them being priced at $2. Unfortunately, they didn't package too well and one of the polishes I ordered came beheaded, making a rather huge mess inside the package and 4 polishes not including the broken one stuck to the box. Luckily, they have great CS and they told me that they'd resend my order to me at no cost to me.
These were the ones that easily survived:
These were the ones I salvaged after a little more than an hour involving scissors, tweezers, felt, and a lot of nail polish remover.
and here's my NOTD involving Cherry Tobacco. This was after almost 2 days of wear..so there's some dullness and minor tipwear. Please excuse the lint on my nail and the unmanaged cuticles..I've been lazy and the weather is dry. Cherry Tobacco is a really pretty dark brown shade with a lot of deep red shimmer. In sunlight it shines a deep vampy red, while indoors, it is more of a chocolaty color. It's a very nice, unique color imo and well worth the $2 it cost. It's nice and opaque and applies without problems. The formula dries very fast. I used 2 coats
I already changed my mani to Sitka Sable, so you can expect pictures of that tomorrow
These were the ones that easily survived:
These were the ones I salvaged after a little more than an hour involving scissors, tweezers, felt, and a lot of nail polish remover.
and here's my NOTD involving Cherry Tobacco. This was after almost 2 days of wear..so there's some dullness and minor tipwear. Please excuse the lint on my nail and the unmanaged cuticles..I've been lazy and the weather is dry. Cherry Tobacco is a really pretty dark brown shade with a lot of deep red shimmer. In sunlight it shines a deep vampy red, while indoors, it is more of a chocolaty color. It's a very nice, unique color imo and well worth the $2 it cost. It's nice and opaque and applies without problems. The formula dries very fast. I used 2 coats
I already changed my mani to Sitka Sable, so you can expect pictures of that tomorrow
Tuesday, November 24, 2009
Guerlain Holiday and NOTD China Glaze DV8
This holiday season, Guerlain was the one that took my money...partially due to pushy sales ladies. I bought the holiday Bal de Minuit (retail $58) and the new holiday meteorites Perles Imperiales (retail $53). Bal de Minuit was pushed on me by the sales ladies at my local Guerlain counter. I was extremely hesitant to buy this because they had made a really awful muddy mess with it when they applied it on me, and I was less than enthusiastic to purchase it for that reason. However they finally pushed it on me telling me just to try it at home and to return it if I still hated it afterwards. At this point I didn't feel like arguing with them anymore (and I would never have made as bad a mess as they had), so I brought the quad home with me. In the end, I like it enough not to take it back at this point. It's a nice quad of shimmering neutral colors reminiscent of Chanel Dunes. However, unlike Chanel Dunes, it's much more shimmery and pigmented, which is a plus as Chanel Dunes didn't show up on my lids. The quad contains a shimmery white beige, a shimmering pink-champagne, a shimmery taupe, and a warm dark brown.
Perles Imperiales comes in a nice black glitter adorned case with rhinestones on top. Despite the aesthetics of this year's release, the packaging is still, unfortunately, made of cardboard. Comparing it to the 3 types of balls that Guerlain carries permanently, it's as sparkly as Pink Fresh, but the effect on the face is in between that of Mythic and Beige Chic. Basically speaking..it just sort of comes across as sparkle on the face. I'll have to play with these a bit more to decide whether or not they're worth keeping.
Today's NOTD is China glaze DV8. It's a great turqoise holo that in real life looks a lot more green than what shows up depicted below on my monitor.. I bought this baby last night for $2.75 at a local shop. For anybody that may be in the (South) Bay Area (California) there's a great little shop called US Nails Supply (you can look them up on Yelp) that carries China Glaze, ORLY, and OPI for discount pricing. The store is really tiny and somewhat cramped, but the pricing is excellent and doesn't come with high shipping fees. The selection is definitely more limited than say, if you bought of Transdesign or any other etailer, but still worth checking out as there are still some nice goodies.
This post was brought to you while battling a set of tiny jaws clamped to the corner of my netbook screen
Perles Imperiales comes in a nice black glitter adorned case with rhinestones on top. Despite the aesthetics of this year's release, the packaging is still, unfortunately, made of cardboard. Comparing it to the 3 types of balls that Guerlain carries permanently, it's as sparkly as Pink Fresh, but the effect on the face is in between that of Mythic and Beige Chic. Basically speaking..it just sort of comes across as sparkle on the face. I'll have to play with these a bit more to decide whether or not they're worth keeping.
Today's NOTD is China glaze DV8. It's a great turqoise holo that in real life looks a lot more green than what shows up depicted below on my monitor.. I bought this baby last night for $2.75 at a local shop. For anybody that may be in the (South) Bay Area (California) there's a great little shop called US Nails Supply (you can look them up on Yelp) that carries China Glaze, ORLY, and OPI for discount pricing. The store is really tiny and somewhat cramped, but the pricing is excellent and doesn't come with high shipping fees. The selection is definitely more limited than say, if you bought of Transdesign or any other etailer, but still worth checking out as there are still some nice goodies.
This post was brought to you while battling a set of tiny jaws clamped to the corner of my netbook screen
Monday, November 23, 2009
Flirt! 40 eyeshadow set
So this is my favorite release this season; the Flirt! Limited Edition 40 eyeshadow set; available at Kohl's for $29.99, but I got it on sale for $23.99 ..though it's currently on sale for $24.99. All 40 colors have great pigmentation, and most of them are soft. Packaging is pretty crappy...all 40 pans sit in a flimsy plastic tray in a cardboard box that closes with a magnet and ties shut with a bright pink ribbon. The plastic tray pops out easily, in case you want to depot the shadows...which I'm considering doing since the packaging is pretty bulky and the clear window seems like it could fall out at any time. I swatched them in columns because it was easier. Natural, slightly cool lighting.
There isn't a whole lot to say about the palette this time except that I really like it and highly recommend them for both your personal collection and as gifts.
Global Goddess Blushes and Bronzer
I'm finally awake during the day so I thought I'd put myself back on track by swatching my Global Goddess Cheek products as I promised you guys months ago. Global Goddess is a line mostly intended for women of color; it's meant to match middle eastern and Indian skin tones, as well as darker ladies. There are 3 blushes in the Global Goddess line;
Mirik- a peach colored blush, matte
Chowrasta- light pink. There's no shimmer to this, but it still manages to be slightly glowy
Sattva- matte plum
Despite looking somewhat scary in the pan, all 3 are sheer and look nice and natural applied with a blush brush
The bronzer is 3 colored and has a pattern stamped on top in a shimmer overspray. The overspray is very sparkly and was dusted off before I used it. It is eye safe and can also be used as eyeshadow. It's not a bronzer I'd normally choose though; on my face it's just a slight golden glow. It's really nice, but strikes me as more of a highlighter than a bronzer on my skin. On lighter skin tones I'd imagine it might be nice as a bronzer
Here are the swatches of all 4 products. I had to layer these several times to get them this pigmented..my camera, unfortunately doesn't like picking up anything subtle. They're much more natural looking when applied to the face, b ut easily layered depending on your skin tone. I wouldn't particularly recommend Chowrasta on darker skin tones or Sattva on really light skin tones, but all 3 are quite nice.
Friday, November 20, 2009
Tarte Treasure Chest
So I have to admit with a certain degree of difficulty that I've fallen pretty far behind on swatching..the problem being that I'm pretty much not awake during the day anymore except at odd hours like this where the sun really hasn't risen out of the sky yet...so I've made you guys promises I have yet to keep...the last big thing I swatched was the Tarte Treasure chest close to a month ago and just let sit for a while as laziness overtook me...my bad, and my apologies...
Anyways, today's topic is one of the more decent sets this holiday, the Tarte Treasure Chest. This baby retails for $52 at Sephora and unlike Tarte's more recent palettes and last year's failure of a holiday palette, the quality's actually pretty good (Though I will admit that the blushes in last year's holiday palette were so nice I almost kept the darned thing just for those) This year's palette is also a lot bigger than last years; with 32 full sized eyeshadows instead of 16.
The palette comes in bejeweled casing that imo, is somewhat cute, but in a tacky way. (I find it kinda festive...it reminds me of Christmas tree ornaments) There's unfortunately a near fatal flaw to this packaging; if you tilt this forward at all, the "drawer" like design of the palette sends the lipgloss and cheek color layers flying out at you at a somewhat alarming speed. Luckily, this palette has some redeeming qualities, so it missed getting the axe. Nevertheless, this is definitely not a travel friendly palette.
Here's the palette all opened up...it's certainly a lot of makeup in one go...
There are two layers of eyeshadows in this palette. The top layer contains the more colorful, shimmery shades. I swatched these in columns this time. Pictures were taken in warm indoor lighting. All shades were fairly soft and buttery. Pigmentation of the shadows is excellent and they swatch pretty close to what they are in the pan on my arm, but turn muddy on my eyelids for some reason. I know one other person with the same problem, while others have no issues with them
column 1 contains a shimmery, slightly bronzy gold, a brown with gold shimmer, a peachy pink with gold shimmer, and a dark taupey color with gold shimmer.
column 2 contains a warm brown with gold shimmer, a shimmer gold, a light, frosty peachy pink, and a lightish purple with gold shimmer
Column 3 contains a shimmery red, a black based dark gren, a slightly olive green with gold shimmer, and a black based blue
Column 4 contains a black based wine color with lighter burgandy shimmer, a light turquoise with gold shimmer, a red based purple with purple shimmer, and a somewhat sparkly light silver
Layer 2 contains the most buttery matte shadows I've ever come across and are IMO the highlight of this palette. These, unlike the layer above it, do not turn muddy on me. They're also the reason why I keep this palette despite my disappointment with the layer above.
Column 1 contains a matte beige, a dark purple taupe, a matte peachy pink, and a warm brown shade
Column 2 contains a purpley taupe, a warm taupe, a blackish purplem and a tan eyeshadow
Column 3 contains a matte light pink, a pinkish purple, a warm grey taupe and a dark blue that looks slightly greyish in the pan
Column 4 contains a pinkish tan taupe, a red based brown, a matte white, and a matte grey
The 3rd layer contains 16 potted lip glosses and are the top layer of the pull out drawer. These apply easily with a lip brush and are a lot nicer than the ones in last year's palette. They are harder to apply with your fingers. I chose not to swatch these. They few that I've tried have been fairly nonsticky and nondrying. Because of how the palette is designed this year, it is possible to access this drawer without opening the powder layers, or keeping just this section closed while you access the powder layers, making it easy to keep the powder products from mucking up the lip products.
The last layer contains the cheek products; 4 blushes, a bronzer, and a luminizer/highlighter
All 4 blushes are shimmery. From left to right the colors are a light, slightly peachy pink with gold shimmer, a mauvy pink with silver sparkle, an orangey peach with gold shimmer, and a red/rust colored blush with gold shimmer. The luminizer is light pink. It's ok, but I don't care for it it much myself. The bronzer is Park Ave Princess, which I usually like, but I feel like the one I own separate from the palette is a slightly different color.
Overall, the palette is pretty nice, though I wish that at least 1 of the blushes had been matte. Either way, it's a great buy for the price and I feel like it'd make a nice gift for someone without a lot of makeup.
Anyways, today's topic is one of the more decent sets this holiday, the Tarte Treasure Chest. This baby retails for $52 at Sephora and unlike Tarte's more recent palettes and last year's failure of a holiday palette, the quality's actually pretty good (Though I will admit that the blushes in last year's holiday palette were so nice I almost kept the darned thing just for those) This year's palette is also a lot bigger than last years; with 32 full sized eyeshadows instead of 16.
The palette comes in bejeweled casing that imo, is somewhat cute, but in a tacky way. (I find it kinda festive...it reminds me of Christmas tree ornaments) There's unfortunately a near fatal flaw to this packaging; if you tilt this forward at all, the "drawer" like design of the palette sends the lipgloss and cheek color layers flying out at you at a somewhat alarming speed. Luckily, this palette has some redeeming qualities, so it missed getting the axe. Nevertheless, this is definitely not a travel friendly palette.
Here's the palette all opened up...it's certainly a lot of makeup in one go...
There are two layers of eyeshadows in this palette. The top layer contains the more colorful, shimmery shades. I swatched these in columns this time. Pictures were taken in warm indoor lighting. All shades were fairly soft and buttery. Pigmentation of the shadows is excellent and they swatch pretty close to what they are in the pan on my arm, but turn muddy on my eyelids for some reason. I know one other person with the same problem, while others have no issues with them
column 1 contains a shimmery, slightly bronzy gold, a brown with gold shimmer, a peachy pink with gold shimmer, and a dark taupey color with gold shimmer.
column 2 contains a warm brown with gold shimmer, a shimmer gold, a light, frosty peachy pink, and a lightish purple with gold shimmer
Column 3 contains a shimmery red, a black based dark gren, a slightly olive green with gold shimmer, and a black based blue
Column 4 contains a black based wine color with lighter burgandy shimmer, a light turquoise with gold shimmer, a red based purple with purple shimmer, and a somewhat sparkly light silver
Layer 2 contains the most buttery matte shadows I've ever come across and are IMO the highlight of this palette. These, unlike the layer above it, do not turn muddy on me. They're also the reason why I keep this palette despite my disappointment with the layer above.
Column 1 contains a matte beige, a dark purple taupe, a matte peachy pink, and a warm brown shade
Column 2 contains a purpley taupe, a warm taupe, a blackish purplem and a tan eyeshadow
Column 3 contains a matte light pink, a pinkish purple, a warm grey taupe and a dark blue that looks slightly greyish in the pan
Column 4 contains a pinkish tan taupe, a red based brown, a matte white, and a matte grey
The 3rd layer contains 16 potted lip glosses and are the top layer of the pull out drawer. These apply easily with a lip brush and are a lot nicer than the ones in last year's palette. They are harder to apply with your fingers. I chose not to swatch these. They few that I've tried have been fairly nonsticky and nondrying. Because of how the palette is designed this year, it is possible to access this drawer without opening the powder layers, or keeping just this section closed while you access the powder layers, making it easy to keep the powder products from mucking up the lip products.
The last layer contains the cheek products; 4 blushes, a bronzer, and a luminizer/highlighter
All 4 blushes are shimmery. From left to right the colors are a light, slightly peachy pink with gold shimmer, a mauvy pink with silver sparkle, an orangey peach with gold shimmer, and a red/rust colored blush with gold shimmer. The luminizer is light pink. It's ok, but I don't care for it it much myself. The bronzer is Park Ave Princess, which I usually like, but I feel like the one I own separate from the palette is a slightly different color.
Overall, the palette is pretty nice, though I wish that at least 1 of the blushes had been matte. Either way, it's a great buy for the price and I feel like it'd make a nice gift for someone without a lot of makeup.
I definitely have issues...
After a long period of time, I'm back on a polish stint. The last one ended when I got a job and therefore had way less time to worry about my nails (Why would you when you have to crawl out of bed at 3:30 in the morning?) The result was that I neglected my rather large stash of polishes, maybe changing my polish 1x a week max. Since I'm back in a polish hauling mood (It might be because all the holiday collections have been somewhat disappointing) I'm hauling polishes again. Today, since I just got the Nubar Going Green Collection for my birthday, I decided to go through and mark which polishes I haven't tried yet (I put little red dots on them with my computer so you could see it better) and this was the result...over 100 polishes that I haven't yet done a full mani or pedi yet...that's right...100! (I think the actual count was 126) The number is probably lower than this, but I put dots over polishes I don't remember using before too. There were two I marked because I didn't remember which of the two I'd used.. I also got rid of quite a few that I did try and like... Still it feels like most of that drawer's red. Add that onto the fact that I have 10 pretties coming from Diamond Cosmetics and whatever my friend's sending me for my birthday (She said she has TWO packages coming for me and mailed out 1 today) I think I definitely have issues...
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