Showing posts with label Metallics. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Metallics. Show all posts

Friday, March 23, 2012

OPI Lucerne-tainly Look Marvelous!

Wee!  Hope you all are doing well!

I finally got my hands on OPI's Lucerne-tainly Look Marvelous recently from a polish-swap group I'm in on Facebook called Polished Panda!  It's been on my wishlist for quite some time, so I was lucky to get it!  I believe it's part of the permanent line, though!



Artificial Lighting

Artificial Lighting

Lucerne-tainly Look Marveous is a dark charcoal metallic polish that went on perfectly in 2 coats.  The formula is excellent, like most OPI polishes.  I was surprised how shimmery this polish looked in certain lighting, rather than metallic.  I really liked it!  Thanks Wendy for getting this great polish to add to my collection ;)

Do you guys have this polish??

<3 Whitney

Sunday, March 4, 2012

China Glaze Capitol Colors: Harvest Moon and Fast Track!

Ahhhh I am SO excited for the China Glaze Capitol Colors Collection which is based on the book/movie Hunger Games, one of my favorite series of all time!

Initially I was going to pre-order this whole collection since I love the books so much, but my wallet is sad since I've spent so much money on frankening supplies, so I poured over swatches and decided I only needed 7 of the 12, haha!

Howeverrrrrrr when I went to Sally's the day it was supposed to be released, the display had been nearly wiped out and the only two they had I wanted were Harvest Moon and Fast Track!  I grabbed those and ordered the rest online...so when I get the others that I want, I'll post those as well!

So here we go, first up Harvest Moon.

The first four pics are in natural lighting:




Artificial Lighting
Harvest Moon is a beautiful bronze/brown metallic polish.  Initially when I put on the first coat, I was quite disappointed because it seemed streaky and runny.  However, it evened out beautifully after the second coat and turned completely opaque!  I ended up really liking this color, even though metallic polishes aren't my favorite.  I heard great things about it and I'm very glad I listened and picked it up!

Next up: Fast Track!



Artificial Lighting
Artificial Lighting
Wow, okay, I think this may be my next go-to polish!  It only took two coats to become opaque, which is great for a nude!  Fast track is a great nude color packed with a dense gold shimmer.  Nudes don't really appeal to me much, I don't really have any nudes because you have to match them with your skin tone and I'm just iffy about it.  This one, however, ended up looking great with my undertones, and the gold shimmer gave it a great amount of unique-ness to it.  Even though it's got a shimmer to it, I'd be totally comfortable wearing this to work...or pretty much anywhere!

Have you guys picked up any of the Capitol Colors yet?!

<3 Whitney

Wednesday, February 1, 2012

Pink Wednesday! Color Club Hot. Like. Lava.

Woo I'm so bad at keeping up with Pink Wednesday, but it just so happens I had a pink swatch for this week!

Sooo I thought since I had such luck with the Color Club Cold Metal from the Foil'd collection, that I'd reach into my "selling" pile and use Hot Like Lava. 

I don't often do that, but I haven't had much traffic to the blog sale page lately, and I'd been eying it in the basket for a while so I thought I'd try it. 

This is two coats of Hot Like Lava:




Overall, I loved the application and the formula...but I just don't know how I feel about metallics/foils.  I loved the blue, but I think I'll put this back on the sale page as used 1x.  It is a pretty color, I just don't see myself wearing it, and I still do a decent amount of clean up and the metals don't clean up as well as creams.  SO if any of you ladies have been looking for this (or any of the other CC foils), check out my blog sale, hah.  I hear they're good for stamping, which almost makes me want to keep them...but I don't do that too often either, since I'm so bad at it :)

Did you guys pick up the Foil'd collection?

<3 Whitney

Saturday, May 7, 2011

Pink Ruffian!

Oh. My. Gosh. Guys.  I could not be more in love with the manicure I just did.  AH!  So like I said in my post a little while ago, I looked all day for matte polishes because I wanted to try a ruffian manicure.  I didn't find any so I'm like, screw it, I'll just rock a bright shiny colored one.

So I took ORLY's "Shine" as the metallic base (non-frost, which I love), and China Glaze's 108 degrees and here's what I came up with...sorry sort of picture heavy.  I literally took 20+ pictures and couldn't decide which ones to use.

I'm impressed with how good this pic came out...and it's inside!

Up close, super flash.  This is what the pink actually looks like, though!




Ahh, I LOVE it.  I could've been more patient and taken more time to clean up and smooth my lines, but this was my first ruffian and I'm pretty satisfied with how I did.  If it's sunny maybe I'll do pics again tomorrow.

What do you think?  Have you tried the ruffian before?

I got tagged for the Kreativ Blogger award...but I'm going to wait until tomorrow to do that.  Also if you look back a few posts I had a reader survey...you should fill it out!

<3 Whitney

Monday, April 4, 2011

Bare Minerals Eye Shadow

Hey everyone, I wanted to update again today because I'm going to be busy working on my thesis this week and may not have time to post again (although I do get distracted easily, so it's possible I'll still be on here!).

Anyway, if you've checked out my favorite products page you'll have figured out that I'm all about my Bare Minerals make up!  So while I was bored at my hotel last night, I decided to get some pictures of my make up routine so I could review some of the products I use on the regular.

Today I'm going to be reviewing two of their eye shadows: Kudos, a gold, and Idol, a plum color.  Both of these came in kits and aren't available for purchase alone, at least not on THEIR website, but they are very similar to the True Gold (glimmer) and Heart (glimmer).  You can, however, find the original colors online elsewhere and possibly in stores.

Idol (left) and Kudos (right) Eye Shadows
As you can see, they're both lovely, shimmery colors.  What I like to do for my "everyday" look is use the gold as my base color (sometimes even using it to highlight under my brows) and then use the plum in the crease and the corners.  It sounds a little odd but the purple isn't dark enough to clash with the gold so I think it ends up looking quite nice.

A few sweeps of both on my hand
Here's a picture of my eye, open and closed, with just the Kudos (gold) applied. 

Gold only, pretty subtle and good for work!
A little more added, you can apply more for a darker color
Like the caption says, you can generally apply a nice coating if you want a little bit darker color.  It's decently sheer and if you like wearing metallic colors but don't want them to be too loud, this is perfect color for you.

The cool thing about Bare Minerals make up is that you add a few drops of water it for a slightly different color that lasts a bit longer.  I usually don't have a problem getting my makeup to last all day, but I like having that option!  All of my images are of the dry application, though--I was getting ready to go out last night and didn't want my eyes looking too different!

Here is a picture of JUST the idol on my other eye. 
Idol
Like I said, it's pretty transparent and not "in your face" purple.  I like that it's a more subtle brownish plum color that blends well with the gold (see below).

Idol on Kudos
I was very disappointed with my pictures of the purple and gold together.  You can't really see it, which is unfortunate.  This is my best photo out of about ten or twenty, so I apologize!  It even actually looks like the Idol is on the inside crease of my eye when really I applied it to the outer edge!  Hopefully you can see a little difference between just the Kudos and this picture, though.  Like I said, the plum blends pretty well.

During the day I don't like to have too much of a "shadow" or too dark of a color in the crease of my eye, so this combo works well for me when I'm going to work.  If you're going out at night and want to rock the smoky eye then these colors probably aren't as dramatic for you!  But like I said, I love it for the daytime!  They shine in the sun, which is also a plus.

Let me mention real quick what brushes I use for these shadows:

Brushes!
They both are Bare Minerals brushes but you can use the colors easily with any brush.  The one I use for the gold is actually their Max Coverage Concealer brush and not an eye brush!  I like it because it's really wide and flat which makes for a quick application!  It's pretty thin at the end so I can get the shadow in the spots I want pretty easily!  I like larger brushes for eyeshadow, but that's just my preference.

For the crease and corners of my eye I use their Wet/Dry Eyeshadow brush.  It's small and chunky which helps if you don't want the color all the way across your eye.

Overall, I love these colors!  And the brushes.  Generally their eye shadows run about $13-$18 each in stores and the brushes are $6-$30.  I think that's semi ridiculous, especially because I'm a poor college student, so I highly recommend getting one of their kits!  I've collected about 10 brushes from buying kids which probably saved me something like $200.  Don't buy their brushes alone unless you're desperate!

Their nice concealer brushes and usually an eye brush comes in their starter kit so start with something like that if you've never tried the make up before.  I guess I should also mention that if you can get your kits either online (although then you can't see the stuff in person) or at an outlet mall!

I saved SO much money buying kits from outlet malls, if you get them at the end of the season you still get great stuff for a low price.  I got a $40 kit for something like $13 a few months ago at an outlet store in Maryland!  Love it.

So if you think you can't afford Bare Minerals, I promise you, there are good deals out there.  If you just go in and buy a foundation or eye shadow alone, you're going to spend so much more money.

If you don't already know, Bare Escentuals make up is available at their store, Sephora, online.  Sometimes you can find it at JC Penny if they have a Sephora make up counter!

Anyway, hope you enjoyed! Have a great next couple of days :)


"It's Possible" from Nicole by OPI

I'm posting from a lovely hotel in Tennessee today!  The weather is much nicer here than it is in Ohio, so I'm pretty excited to be here.  I'm interviewing for jobs...third one in two weeks, I'm hoping I get an offer from one of them!

Anyway, since I didn't have anything to do last night after dinner I decided to run to the store near my hotel and get some nail polish and do my nails for my interview.  Unfortunately that store was Walmart and they didn't even have a normal OPI polish section.  They did, however, have some Nicole by OPI but it was very small and I didn't really see any of the spring collection there.  Well, okay, I lied, they had a few...specifically these three:

Brilliant Idea, Iceberg Lotus, and Nicole's Nickel

Now, these aren't exactly {engineering} interview appropriate.  Nor is this little gem by Essie I desperately wanted:
Watermelon--isn't it awesome?
So I had to choose something a little more subtle.  I went with "It's Possible" from Nicole by OPI.  Even though it's not by any means a newer color, I'd never tried it before, and it looked like a fun spin on a neutral color.  Not to mention it had a positive name and I thought I could use the motto for this interview.

It's Possible
The bottle makes it look like a metallic rose, but really it's actually more of a shiny bronze .  I thought it would go on a little more transparent, but I was mistaken.  The photo is in hotel bathroom lighting which is actually pretty similar to how it looks outside. 

Ignore my stubby nails and lazy polish application :)
This next image is how the color looks in indoor lighting.  I really don't see how they could assume this color is anything remotely close to a rose because it looks very brown to me.  I guess I chose a good color because the bronze compliments my brown suit quite nicely!
 
Indoor lighting
Overall I am pretty satisfied with the color although I'm not used to wearing such metallic colors so it would've been nice if it was a little more transparent.  The images above show my nails with two coats of polish and honestly, the opacity didn't change too much with the application of a second coat.  I probably didn't really need it but it's habit and I messed up my right hand a bit and needed to cover it up!

I guess I should mention, if you don't already know, that Nicole by OPI has a new applicator brush.  It is really different and I'm not sure if I like it.  It's much wider and rounded than normal which I guess is supposed to make application easier.  However my nails aren't very wide so I had trouble keeping polish away from the edges. 

This was a bigger problem than normal because I also had issues with a lot of polish coming off of the sides of the rounded brush and ending up very thick near the edges of my nails as well.  Since I'm out of town I didn't have my supplies to sufficiently fix that problem, so it was a little frustrating.  If your nails are wider, this would probably be beneficial to you.  I've also found that the flatter brushes also tend to leak more polish onto your nails if you don't apply fast enough. 

If you're into metallic shades or get too impatient to apply second coats of nail polish, I would definitely recommend this!  Overall I really like the color and I plan on keeping it on for a few more days.  If you've tried this, leave me a comment and let me know what you thought of it!

Have a great day!!