Revlon Selects - Nail Art Moon Candy in Orbit swatches and review

Hey guys! Today it was sunny and I was like "Sweet, I'm totally going to have a swatching day!" So I get all my stuff ready and before I even get the first coat of the first polish put on... clouds. Honestly.

Anyway, today I have for you one of the polishes Revlon Canada kindly sent me for the Revlon Selects program! The Moon Candy collection is a series of double ended polishes. One end is a creme polish and the other end is an irregular shaped mylar flake in a coordinated colour. The one I have for you today is Orbit, a purple duo.

The creme side of Orbit is a deep, blue toned purple. It's a stereotypical grape purple, if that makes sense. Application of the creme side was nice. It was a little thin but nothing that couldn't be handled with careful application. The opacity was great; it was fully opaque in one coat! However, because this polish is so thin, it showed every ridge and imperfection in my nail. I would either use a ridge filler or more than one coat with this polish.

The flakie side of this polish is interesting. It's shards of mylar that flash blue and purple in a purple tinted clear base. I have seen mixed reviews of this, mostly leaning toward the negative, so I was anxious to try it out for myself. The flakes are sparse, that is for sure, but I like it. It is not too difficult to fish around in the bottle for more and place them where you want, which allows you to control the look of your manicure. The only thing I can say about this is that I would definitely put more than one coat of the creme under the flakie coat, because I had issues with some of the creme becoming patchy. The flakes also dry with a lot of texture. This doesn't bother me too much but if you need your nails to be smooth, you will need to use a thicker top coat. In these pictures I have the flakies on my index and middle finger, and just the creme on my ring finger and pinkie. One coat of each!

Oh my goodness I didn't realise how dry my hands were until after. Sorry guys!

I like this combination together, I think the blue flash of the mylar brings out the blue tone of the creme underneath. It is nice for this time of year when I tend to gravitate toward darker colours, but it is also nice that I can add a little sparkle too! I am definitely a sparkly girl.

Now I will speak to the bottle shape issue. Some people find the bottle top heavy while they are using a colour. It is obviously heavier than a regular polish cap because you are holding another entire bottle of polish, but I quickly got used to it and had no problems with application. All you need is a little patience and practice!

Overall? I think this is a very awesome idea that was mostly very well executed. I wish that the creme were just a little bit thicker so I could use just one coat and still have my nail ridges and imperfections hidden. I also wish that the flakie sizes were just a liiiiittle bit smaller. I think that if they were smaller, they would curve to the nail a little more and maybe wouldn't leave so much texture. I also think a more uniform size of flakie would look neater. The big pieces just look messy or sloppy to me.

Would I buy one of these independently? Well... yes and no. It would be price dependent. I like most of the other colour combinations that Moon Candy comes in, I just am not the biggest fan of slightly sloppy look of the mylar top coat.

Thank you again Revlon Canada! I'm having so much fun doing this!

Bonus: My girl kitty Molly wanted to be in a picture! Here she is!

xo

*This product was provided for review. I have given my 100% honest opinion! :)

Color Club Halo-Graphic!!!!

Hey guys! Only two weeks until Christmas! I'm so excited because my boyfriend will be coming and staying for a whole week!! I'm counting down the days for sure.

So today I have Halo-Graphic for you from Color Club's 2012 Halo-Graphic collection! I actually received this a few weeks ago and have been dying to post it, but I wanted some sun to take some proper pictures of the holo. I waited and waited and it has just been cloudy. Sooo I tried to improvise as much as possible with my camera flash. Here we go!

Halo-Graphic is a pale pink with a very strong linear holo. The formula is just excellent! Not too thick or thin and not at all patchy! I used two coats with no top coat, because I have heard that most top coats dull the holo effect.

Here it is in the bottle and then a swatch just in some normal cloudy daylight! It's pretty and feminine, and you can just see a wink of the holo.

And here it is with flash (aka pretend sunlight)! It's so crazy! The first time I put it on I just kept staring at my nails all day!

So obviously I love this! This is my first holo polish. I had seen so many on other blogs where it was said that application was a nightmare and they show every nail imperfection. If that was true then Color Club really reinvented the wheel, because this is awesome!

In other news, I received my Revlon Selects package the other day! I am super excited to try out all the lovely things in there! Keep your eyes peeled for some reviews of that stuff, plus I may or may not have a couple more holo polishes in the sidelines... ;)

xo

Quick NOTD and some exciting news!

Hey guys!  Today is my mom's work Christmas party and I'm her date! Free dinner and drinks, yesss! I wanted to do something a little festive on my nails, so I chose to use OPI's Danke Shiny Red from the Germany collection earlier this year with OPI's Goldeneye from the Skyfall collection as my accent nail. I really love this combo, it is so glowy and nice! This picture was taken with my phone as it is dark out now and my camera has an aneurysm in low light. Anyway!

Now for the exciting news! A couple of posts back I mentioned the Revlon Canada Selects program. I applied and crossed my fingers, and earlier today I received an email saying I had been chosen! I am so so excited! They will be sending a package soon and then I will have awesome new goodies to review for you all. Thank you so much Revlon Canada!

Have a great weekend guys! I'm off to stuff myself with prime rib. Mmmm.

Color Club Holiday 2012 Winter Affair Collection and inadvertent NOTD

Hey guys! The other day I got my very first nail mail (that I didn't buy myself)!!! My lovely friend Brenna sent me some lovely holographic polishes! I would love to show them to you but there hasn't been enough sun for me to take pictures to do them justice. So while I am waiting for a nice sunny day, I have the Color Club Winter Affair collection to show you!

I first saw these in Sally's just after Halloween and fell in love with the colours, but I couldn't bring myself to spend knowing that I could buy whole Color Club collections in Ross in the States for $8. But then! I was reading another blog by a Canadian (I can't remember which, I am so sorry!) and heard that Winners has those collections. I went with my mom and luckily found it for $15! A bit of a price increase but still better than $8/polish. My mom actually bought it for me for Christmas, but I wanted to show you guys so I snuck it away for swatches! Anyway! On to the good stuff!

Berry & Bright is a gorgeous red polish which is somewhere between a shimmer and a glass fleck. I think this is so pretty and festive! It's a nice change from the billion red cremes that come out around this time of year. This is two easy and beautiful coats with a perfect formula! So pretty.

Next up we have Glitter Wonderland, which is a shimmery purple. The base is pink toned but the shimmer is lovely and blue toned to give this colour a lot of depth. This is two coats. The formula was alright. I found it to be a little patchy but perhaps I just didn't wait long enough between coats. It's still pretty! Not something you would expect in a holiday collection, but I like that! It's refreshing.

Moving on, we have Ho Ho Holly. I LOVE this one! It's a gorgeous warm toned green packed with gold shimmer. Oh man I just love it. Two lovely and perfect coats. It just glows! Enjoy this one!

Next up is Glitter Sparkle. This polish is a warm toned purple just jam packed with purple and holo glitter. I don't really have much to say, I will let the pictures do the talking. I love it! This is two coats.

Two more to go! Next we have Winter Affair. This is a sort of maroon shimmer. It's beautiful! Perfect for the cold and dark winter weather. Not much else to say! This is two easy coats.

Last up is Snow Flakes, which is a flakie top coat. It flashes green, orange, and red. It is awesome! The flakies are nice and small and lie nice and flat. I put it over top of Winter Affair to show you guys and I ended up loving it so much that I made it my full manicure! This is one coat of Snow Flakes over two coats of Winter Affair. :)

Well, that's about it! I really liked this collection. There were some colours that are definitely expected of a holiday collection but some surprises as well! The standouts for me for sure are Ho Ho Holly and Snow Flakes. Which ones do you guys like? Also, I heard the rumour that some people have found a scented version of this collection? Weird!

Revlon Colorstay Rain Forest and Coastal Blue... and a comparison!

Hey guys! I know I've been gone for a long time and I will have a nice long rambly explanation at the end of the post, but for now I will get the good stuff out of the way!

Just today Revlon Canada posted on on Facebook that they are starting a program called Revlon Selects! If you tweet or have a youtube channel or a blog, like their page here and check out the program! You could be selected to test and review new products!

In honour of that, I have two colours from the Colorstay line to show you. First up is Rain Forest. I picked this up a while ago when I was staying in NC. It is a gorgeous yellow toned green with large glass flecks! I used two coats here and they were just so easy. No flooding, no dragging. Beautiful. :)

Next up is Coastal Surf. I love love love this colour! I was browsing Imperfectly Painted earlier in the summer and she said that everyone needs to own this polish. I love a good blue creme so I didn't need much persuading, but I was convinced I already had something similar to this. I was wrong! This is a beautiful bright creme that is just plain old blue. No purple or green tones to be found, which makes it a unique addition to my collection. I will agree that everyone needs this! Also, my hands didn't change colours from the first pictures... my camera is just awful at picking up colours properly a lot of the time so I have to do a lot of fiddling to make them colour accurate. Sorry!

When I saw Rain Forest I was immediately reminded of Glittering Garland from the 2011 holiday collection from China Glaze, so I decided to do a comparison! On my index and ring fingers I have Rain Forest and on my middle and pinkie fingers I have Glittering Garland. They are similar, but not exactly the same! Rain Forest is more yellow toned and the glass flecks are larger than in Glittering Garland. Do you need both? Well, I do! A more sane person might do with one, though. If you missed Glittering Garland and are kicking yourself for it, I think Rain Forest would be a fine substitute.

Now for the boring part: the reason I was gone. There are several, actually. The biggest one I guess was my move back home. I was in NC and got used to a whole different life down there, only to have to leave and readjust to my normal life back at home. I was lucky enough to be hired back at my old job so that was nice, but I did and still do miss my boyfriend and it makes me sad and unmotivated... blogs are a lot of work! But I feel pretty well adjusted now. Back to the grind.

The second biggest reason would be my job. Not only do I work a lot and mostly during the day (I don't really have good enough lighting to take pictures at night, working on a light box), I work in retail. Anyone else who does knows that it is unforgiving to your nails. Broken nails, torn cuticles... basically any nail horror you can think of can and will happen. When you are trying to keep your nails and cuticles somewhat nice to show the world, it is near impossible with a retail job! I just decided that I don't care though. I will do my best and that is all I can do.

I'm back now, and that's the important part. I missed all two of you who follow me! :P

Returning to action!

So a whole bunch of stuff has happened lately. I moved back home, got settled back in, started up work again... and now I think I am to the point where I am ready to start posting again! Get excited! :)

Posh by Revlon

Once upon a time (it was the end of June), I took a trip back to Canada. When boyfriend and I boarded the plane, we found a rogue fashion magazine, which I, of course, picked up. While flipping through, I found an ad for some new Revlon colours. My eyes fell upon Posh, and from that moment I knew it was a colour I needed.

Posh is an amazingly beautiful emerald green creme. I have two coats on here plus one coat of Seche Vite, but it does dry very very shiny on its own! The formula was just amazing, went on smooth and was so easy to control!

I'm in love.

Conclusion? You absolutely need this.

China Glaze Bohemian Luster Chrome Collection Swatches and Review.

Helloooo! After breaking my heart all week, the mailman finally delivered the package I had been waiting for - the new China Glaze Bohemian collection! This collection consists of six different metallic duochromes. So, of course, I ripped open the package and immediately got to swatching! What did I think? You'll have to wait until after the delicious picture goodness! For all of these pictures I used two coats and no top coat. Also, all of these pictures were taken indoors. The duochrome effect doesn't like to come out to play as much in the sun. :)

CG describes Swanky Silk as "brilliant beige with peach undertones." I agree except for two things. First, instead of peach, I'd say that the colour is a light pinky purple. Second, there is no way that it's an undertone. The duochrome in this is just absolutely ridiculous! In a good way! Unfortunately, when I asked my camera nicely to photograph it, it said "HAHAHAHAHAHAHA NO." You can see a bit of that pink flash in my pictures but it is SO much more obvious in real life.

 Here is my bottle picture! 

China Glaze's official press release picture is way closer to how it actually looks!

Again, hints of duochrome but way more obvious in person!

Next up we have Rare & Radiant, which is an "extraordinarily rich gold" that has a deeper teal duochrome. The effect is very strong in this polish too. Even better is that it comes out to play in pictures!

 Bottle picture! You can see how strong the duochrome is!

 All the colours out to play

A nice shot of the gold that is the main colour of this polish.

Here we have Unpredictable, a "multidimensional gorgeous green." It is a lighter green with a teal duochrome. The duochrome is strong in this one too! Not much else to say, here's some pictures. :)

 Obligatory bottle picture. Pretty!

Nice duochrome effect on the nails.

I must warn you that we are coming to the part where I stopped being impressed.

No Plain Jane is next on our list. It's purple with a green/grey/gold duochrome. The effect in this polish is a lot more subtle than the previous three, but it can still be coaxed out at the right angles! This one isn't my favourite, but it's definitely not my least favourite either.

Bottle

 Pretty purple

The duochrome payoff!

Next up we have Deviantly Daring, which China Glaze describes as "adventurously bold peacock teal." I'll buy that for the colour. This colour has a fairly strong duochrome in the bottle, but it doesn't really translate to the nail. It's a shame, because I really really like it in the bottle!

 The bottle! Isn't it pretty?

 The most duochrome I could get this polish to show

Full frontal, baby.

Finally, we have my least favourite of the colours: Want My Bawdy. I hate the name and I hate that it's really not that much of a duochrome at all. It's a ballpoint pen ink blue. You know how pen ink has that purple flash to it under some lights? I feel like that's what they were trying to go for with this one. The blue on its own is nice, I guess I'm just disappointed that something like this is in a collection full of fabulous duochrome yumminess. It reminds me of Blue Year's Eve. Anyway, this, like all other blues, did not want to photograph the right colour so keep in mind that it is deeper than what you see here. Also, my camera took all the purple tone out of the pictures. I tried my best to alter them (which is my my hands suddenly look purple), but yeah. Let's just stick with the ballpoint pen ink analogy. :)

 Bottle picture. Actually a little more purple than this in person.

On the nail. Nice blue, just meh everywhere else.

Now, I wasn't ready to give up on these. They are fairly opaque but I wanted to see if layering them over black would make the colours pop a little more. Short answer is yes, yes it did. I have on one coat of each colour over one coat of black.

 Left to right: Deviantly Daring, Unpredictable, Rare & Radiant, Swanky Silk

Pinky and ring finger: Want My Bawdy. Middle and index finger: No Plain Jane

Okay, so let's get into how I feel about this collection. I have mixed feelings.

What I liked: 

- Most of the colours are gorgeous and have a vivid duochrome effect. My fingernails looked like beetles! 

- There is the option of wearing these on their own because they are opaque enough, or over black for that extra pop of colour.

What I didn't like:

- These were SO brush strokey. They sort of settled and I guess that is to be expected from a chrome, but I spent a lot of time trying to get my brush strokes juuuust perfect. I like my manicures to be quick and pretty.

- The duochromes weren't very strong in a few of the colours. I understand that a strong duochrome might not be everyone's thing, and that China Glaze probably wants there to be something for everybody in their collections, but I was just a little disappointed.

- The colour range. Honestly. There are way too many variations of green/blue/teal here for my liking. They had the chance to do anything, something awesome that the world hasn't seen before... and there are three colours that are just basically the same. Disappointing.

At any rate, this collection will be out in August, but you can find it on Amazon or ebay right now! What do you guys think of this one?

My skin story and how proactiv changed it all.

Hey guys! I'm going to do something a little different today. In my first post I mentioned how terrible my skin used to be. Here's a little bit more on that.

This is totally going to sound like proactiv paid me to write a commercial for them, but I swear they didn't! Anyway.

When I was in high school, my skin was awesome. I had a very occasional pimple, but it was honestly so rare. I thought I was in the clear! Then, when I was 18 or 19, my skin failed me. My cheeks and nose got really red and angry little bumps started popping up EVERYWHERE on my face. Honestly, everywhere, though it was by far the worst on my chin. At first I thought that it would just go away, but they were determined to stay. For years.

Of course, this didn't help my self-confidence. I hid from pictures. Actually, I wanted to find one to show you guys how bad it was, but I honestly can't. I tried to position my hair strategically so no one could see the worst of it. One time I even sat down and circled every blemish with eyeliner and my face ended up mostly black. Not only did I hate looking in the mirror, but these angry red bumps were painful!

Let me tell you, I tried everything. For years I experimented with every toner, every cleanser, every calming cleanser, every exfoliating cleanser, every moisturizer. I spent a lot of money trying to find something that worked, but nothing did. Disheartened, I eventually went to my doctor and asked for help. I was prescribed a cream that didn't work, and then a gel that actually sort of did! I cleared up some, but had weird patches of skin peeling off my cheeks that would then start to weep. At one point I stopped using the gel for a week. When I started again, my eyes got really itchy and were swollen shut when I woke up the next morning! I guessed that I had developed some sort of allergy to something in it, so I stopped using it altogether. By this point I had pretty much accepted that I was going to have crappy skin for a long, long time.

Of course, I had seen the proactiv commercials on TV, but many years and a long string of failures had made me very skeptical and I just brushed it off assuming it wouldn't work for me. By this point, I was well out of university. That's right, I had been suffering for five years at least. I'm not sure what made me change my mind. Maybe I just decided that just one more attempt wouldn't hurt, or that another $75 was a drop in the pool compared to what I had spent before. For whatever reason, I tried it. I got the starter kit and gave it a go.

Wouldn't you know it, I had another allergic reaction (it must be benzoyl peroxide). Instead of not using it anymore like any sane person should do, I told my body to shut up and get used to it. After only a few days of following the steps (cleanser, toner, cream), my skin looked a lot lot lot better and the swelling had gone down. The only problem was that it was dry. Like, skin-flaking-off-my-face dry. I decided to see if I could get away with just using the cleanser, and sho'nuff I could!

Now, I won't claim that my skin is perfect. I get tiny little whitehead zits sometimes, like when I put sunscreen on my face or before that awful time of the month. I have also stopped using proactiv for the past couple of months to see what my skin would do, and it's fine. But guys, this stuff works. Trust me. After many tears and many dollars down the drain, I haven't had a single want or need when it comes to my skin after using proactiv. I am a much happier and confident person because of this. If you are anything like I was and unsure about giving it a shot, you absolutely should.

A little polish haul + NOTD

Hey guys! Just in case you weren't aware, Sally is having their red tag clearance sale! All red tag items are an additional 50% off! This is on in stores until July 22nd, so hurry up and check it out! I picked up six things from the clearance section and two other things just on regular sale.

The first clearance things I got are four Finger Paints polishes. This brand is pretty new to me, but I have loved what I have tried so far! I picked up Go Van Gogh!, Art You Blue?, Bauhaus Burgundy, and Picasso's Puce. Art You Blue? and Picasso's Puce are shimmers; the other two are cremes. These were only $1.65 each! Crazy!

Go Van Gogh!, Art You Blue?, Bauhaus Burgundy, Picasso's Puce

Next up are two China Glaze polishes. I try to avoid buying single bottles of China Glaze because I pretty much know that I will eventually buy the entire collection they belong to. How can I resist when they are only $1.65 each, though?? I ended up taking Unplugged and Ingrid home with me.

Unplugged, Ingrid

The last things I got aren't that exciting. One was my first bottle of Seche Vite, which was on sale for $6.99. To give you an idea of the price discrepancies between USA and Canada, Seche Vite is on sale for $8.99 north of the border. Anyway, another bottle of top coat caught my eye simply because it is enormous and only had a $4.99 price tag! Since I go through top coat like water, I had to give it a try. It is Rush 60 Second High Speed Top Coat. The $4.99 I paid got me 1 Fl. Oz.! I still think it's funny that the two top coats I bought cost more than the six nail polishes!

Exciting top coat picture

My next stop was CVS, where I was on a Milani hunt. I was hoping I could find some of the 3D holographic colours and I was not disappointed. I found Hi-Tech, Cyberspace, and HD in the clearance bin! I don't know what I paid individually but when it was all said and done, I paid just over $6 for all three!

Hi-Tech, Cyberspace, HD

Of course, when got home, I immediately wanted to try them. I put one on each finger and was surprised to find that I liked Hi-Tech the best, so I went ahead and did a full manicure with it aaand even took some pictures for your (and my) amusement. This colour (as with the other two) took three coats to build up to fully opaque. I did put Seche Vite on top but I found that it changed the colour! I don't know if it's because the polish dries to a different colour than it is wet, but I didn't have the patience to find out. I left my ring finger free of top coat for you to see the difference.

Indoor natural light. Pretty, but doesn't look like much...

...until you get outside in the sun, and then holy holo explosion!

More yummy holo in artificial light

Nom nom nom

As you can see, I loved this and took way too many pictures. Now to hunt for the other three from the collection!