MAC Haul - Disney Edition

Here’s a sneak peek of my MAC haul today! The long awaited Disney and MAC collaboration was finally released in stores today and I was so excited I had trouble falling asleep. MAC Venomous Villains line is split into four parts, each corresponding to a specific Disney Villain. The colors were derived from the original Disney sketches and the original sketches are seen on the packaging box. MAC featured Maleficient from Sleeping Beauty, Evil Queen from Snow White and the Seven Dwarves, Cruella de Vil from 101 Dalmatians, and Dr. Facilier from The Princess and the Frog. Along with great makeup colors, lip glosses and powders, they also released 3 new limited edition nail polishes. Stay tune for swatches and review!

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Gradient Tutorial

Here is my mini tutorial on how to do gradients. Thanks for being so patient! I’ve been caught up with work and finally found some time today to put it together. I’ve tried sponge gradients before, but this time I decided to try a wet brush gradient. So let’s start!

Prep: Find 3 to 4 similar looking colors to start with, with at least 1 being sparkly; put on base coat

Here are the colors I used:

From left to right: OPI Princesses Rule, Daiso Pink, Anna Sui 307

Procedure:

Step 1: Paint on one layer of the lightest nail polish – I used OPI Princesses Rule!

Step 2: Before the first layer is completely dry, paint the 3/5 of the nail with a darker polish – I used a Japanese one from the dollar store

Step 3: Now paint the top 1/3 of the nail with the same polish, after allowing a little bit of time (1 min) for the bottom layer to dry.

Step 4: Use your sparkly nail polish and paint on top of your last layer, you can repeat of you want a more intense color or more sparkles – I used Anna Sui 307

Finishing touches:

To give the gradient a more cohesive look, quickly use a top coat and drag it from top to bottom. This will ensure that the color will “blend” better with one another. Now you are done!

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Commander in Chic

Commander in Chic is a pretty purple with a heavier grey undertone. This is the second nail polish I have tried from the Sally Hansen complete SALON Manicure line and I am relieved to say that this one fully met my expectations. Click here or scroll down for the refresher of the first one, it was a definitely a challenge because of the sheerness of the color. However, Commander in Chic presented no problems with pigmentation and it was opaque in two coats. I’m wearing three in the picture because I think it looks better. Once again, the polish applied flawlessly and I’m falling more and more in love with the brush. I wish other companies would start making brushes like this! It makes applying polishes so much easier.

It’s another random gorgeous sunny day here! Out in the sun I go! Thanks for dropping by.

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Shall We Dance

I have heard good things about the Sally Hansen complete SALON Manicure line, so I was curious to try it. One of my best friends was kind enough to pick up 2 of the colors for me so here’s the first one! Shall We Dance is a very pretty sheer baby pink color that I thought would be nice for French manicures. However, when I say sheer, I mean REALLY SHEER. I’m not sure if I had to leave more time in between coats or perhaps used a white base coat beforehand because I could not achieve opacity. I’m wearing 5 (or 6? I lost count) coats in the picture, and even though I thought I had let it dry enough, I still managed to somehow scratch my middle finger. I was too frustrated to start over, so please forgive me. Although the sheerness of the nail color disappointed me, the formulation and the brush did not. The formulation applied very smoothly and evenly and I was quite happy with it. The brush itself was fantastic. It may even be one of my favourite polish brushes! It has a slighted pointed middle part which makes it easier to stay on the nail and not paint outside the cuticle, making clean-up a lot easier. It’s a shame that the color was so sheer; hopefully the other color will be more pigmented. Fingers crossed.

Thanks for dropping by!

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Floral Design

The flowers in my backyard just bloomed and they are gorgeous. I love flowers, especially roses and gerbera daisies. It’s another sunny day here, so I decided to take advantage of it and do another swatch. I used Revlon 185 Lilac as my base coat. I am wearing three coats in the pictures and it took that many to be opaque. The handling on Revlon’s brushes are not the best and the formulation is streakier than I would like. It may not look like it in the picture but close up I can still see streaks. However, the color is really pretty although it has more of a pink undertone than most of my lilacs.

Due to the streaks, I decided to add some designs and watched some tutorials on youtube on how to make roses. I used OPI Hoodoo Voodoo and ArtClub Lilac as my pinks for the roses. For the leaves, I combined Misa Dirty, Sexy, Money and China Glaze For Audrey together. I thought that drawing roses on all five fingers would be a little much; therefore I kept the design on my middle finger simple. I painted a white French tip and lined the smile line with jewels. I used CND Super Shiney (not a spelling mistake, that’s what it’s called!) Top Coat on top and it gives a great shine to all my nails.

Hope you enjoy the pictures! I’m going to go enjoy some more sun. Thanks for reading J

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Glee

These are my glee inspired nails! Season 2 kicks off today and I cannot wait. I love this show and the music is just wonderful. I picked the closest colors I have to their promo picture backgrounds and tried to copy the cheerleader uniform design for the middle finger. For the index and fourth finger, I sponged on a darker shade near the tips to get the "slushie" splash effect.

From thumb to pinkie: OPI Whats with the Cattitude, OPI Banana Bandanna, SkinFood OR 004, Essie Really Red, SkinFood OR 005, OPI Orange you glad it's Summer, China Glaze Tree Hugger

Text: Sally Hansen black 02 nail art pen

Going to get ready to go watch glee! Thanks for dropping by!

PS- In case you were wondering, I did read the article about SkinFood nail polishes and the how they might be toxic. However, as with all studies, just because it's valid does not mean it's reliable. Therefore, I will wait for more studies to come out before I cast a judgement on whether I should throw these polishes away.

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Midnight Ride

I was supposed to post this up yesterday, but due to a little accident which took a lot of time to clean up, I couldn't post it up until today. Midnight Ride is from China Glaze fall 2008 Rodeo Diva collection. I had accidently bought this online instead of First Class Ticket so when it arrived, I was a little confused to why it was so much darker. Nevertheless, Midnight Ride is still a really nice dark purple that looks semi-black indoors and more purple and sparkly outdoors. I'm wearing 2 coats for this polish because it is very pigmented which is quite nice. This polish aside from the sparkles remind me a lot of my OPI Licoln Park After Dark - what do you think? I will do a comparison soon. The first was taken outdoors in semi-sunshine without flash and the second is taken indoors with flash.

I decided to add a design to them before I went out for the night yesterday so I did a simple decorative French tip. I used OPI Alpine Snow as the base for the tips and OPI Black Onyx on top as an added design. I used Konad Plate M44 for the tip design and I really liked the results.

Hope you enjoyed all the pictures! Thanks for dropping by~

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Lapis of Luxury

When I went down to the states last week, I had the opportunity to finally visit a Ulta store. My friend drove me there (thanks! :D) and with the promise that I would refrain myself and rethink all my purchases before shopping, I ran in. The first thing on my list was the new Orly Cosmic FX Collection. There were a couple colors that I was lemming for but to my huge disappointment they were already sold out of the whole collection. It also did not help matters when the salesperson rubbed it in and told me she had bought a couple. However, there were still some great sales on, including a buy 2 get 1 free of Essie nail polish so obviously it was an offer I could not refuse. Lapis of Luxury is a beautiful baby blue cream and I have already gotten compliments from wearing it. It reminds me of the spa for some reason. Lapis of Luxury is from Essie's resort collection that came out this spring. My blue nail polish collection is quite small, so I have no dupes - but this was definitely worth buying to add to my blue collection. The application for this was pretty smooth but it required 4 thin coats for this polish to be opaque. I also had to redo two of my nails as it needed more time in between coats to try and even when I thought it was try, I scratched it again 0_o. However, I love the jelly consistency and would be willing to spend more time letting it dry because it's so worth it.

Thanks for reading!

PS- Can you believe it? I'm almost at 100 followers. When I do reach there, there will be a surprise!

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Across the universe

I went down to the states last week and was fortunate enough to pick up Lippman Across the Universe. Across the universe was released for this fall, along with Bad Romance (which was sold out). This nail polish is a gorgeous deep blue with jelly consistency with awesome glitter and sequins. The application for this nail polish was quite smooth and it took 3 coats for the polish to be opaque. I found that 3 coats also worked well with even distribution of the gorgeous glitter flakes as well. Although the nail polish is on the higher price point (US $18), I think it's definitely worth it as it is a gorgeous nail color for the fall.

Happy polishing!

PS - sorry for the bad picture, it's rainy hard outside and I still need to buy a tripod.

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Pink Batch 2

It's been awhile since I've posted these, but here is the second batch of the pinks! The first is with flash and the second is without. Enjoy!

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IDK

I tried to capture the true color of this polish but it was really hard. The first one was taken outdoors and because of the clouds it looks sort of grey. The second one depicts the color more as it was taken indoors with flash. However the true color is even more amazing as this light purple looks great in sunlight. I really love holographic nail polishes and China Glaze makes them so well. IDK is from the China Glaze OMG collection and some of the collection can still be found in stores.I've read that the application for this would be hard, but for me it went pretty smoothly. If you give it a little longer to dry between coats, you should have no problem. IDK was opaque in two coats and that's how many coats I'm wearing in the picture. The wear on this nail polish seems to be quite good as I've worn this for a couple days now and still no chips! I would definitely buy this again if I used it up.

Happy Labor Day and thanks for reading!

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I'm Indi-a Mood For Love

This is one of my favorite pinks and I think the pictures show why! It's a great summer color and it's one of the few nail polishes that I have used half of. OPI I'm Indi-A Mood for Love was part of their Spring 2008 India Collection but is still purchasable everywhere. The application was really smooth for this polish, and it was opaque in 2 coats. I'm wearing 2 coats with no top coat in the pictures and it still looks amazing. I took both pictures indoors as it was dark and rainy outdoors. The first one is with flash and the second is without. Sorry for the scarcity of posts this week, it's been pretty hectic :)

Thanks for reading!

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