Look Recreation–Eye Candy

Last month, my friend (and makeup-addiction enabler) gave me a makeup book called ‘Eye Candy.’ by Linda Mason. I paged through it and was immediately inspired by many of the bright, fun looks. As soon as I saw one particular look, I showed it to her and proclaimed that I was going to recreate it the next day. And that I did. (I just was very slow at getting it up here. Whoops.) I can’t find a picture of this online and the book and I are in different states currently, but I’ll try to update this with a picture of what I was going off of eventually.


I thought this was really fun. I would probably do this look again. It wasn’t too challenging apart from trying to get the colors to be about the same on both eyes. I’m not entirely sure which products I used for everything, but if you’re curious about any in particular, ask me and I’ll see if I can remember.

Nail Polish Haul and Swatches

Here are the nail polishes I've gotten recently. Mostly holiday colors. I got China Glaze Sacred Heart for $1.99 and Orly Halley's Comet for #3.99 in the clearance bin at my Sally's. 

L-R: Milani Ruby Jewels, China Glaze Sacred Heart, China Glaze Mrs. Claus

 Sacred Heart is a lovely opaque creme classic red polish. It's called a neon on the bottle, but it isn't matte. I wish Mrs. Claus was more red than pink, but it's still a nice polish and I think it has some potential for interesting layering combinations. It's very sheer.

L-R: China Glaze Party Hearty, Milani Silver Dazzle

These Milani "one coat glitters" all look AMAZING. I decided to just get this one. This is two coats, but it's totally opaque. It's hard to tell in the picture, but it is totally matte and you can feel the glitters, so you may want to use a topcoat with it.

L-R: Milani Hi-Tech, China Glaze Mistletoe Kisses, Finger Paints Mistletoe Mischief

 Mistletoe kisses is definitely one of the coolest polishes I've seen lately and the one I'm most excited to use for the holidays. Mistletoe Mischief is sheerer than I hoped - this is 3 coats - but it's still a lovely green.

Orly Halley's Comet

I could NOT get this one to photograph well at all. It's an amazing color. It goes on fairly sheer but after 2-3  coats it's just fantastic. It looks mostly blue in this picture, but it has a lot more of a teal effect in person, and it's much more glittery looking in person as well.
Scrangie has a much better looking photo of this on her blog : http://www.scrangie.com/2010/09/orly-cosmic-fx-collection-fall-2010.html

Overall I'm very excited about all of these! It'll make for some interesting Christmas manicures!

Nails of the Day : Lubu Heels Dupe

In experimenting with layering my nail polishes, I found this combination:

with flash

without flash

I used 1-2 coats of Wet n Wild nail polish in Black Creme as the base and Milani Ruby Jewels on top. I really like how it turned out. I realized that this combination is actually a pretty good dupe of China Glaze Lubu Heels. Here is a picture of that on Scrangie's blog.

Halloween!

Halloween is probably my favorite holiday. I decided to get all festive for the few days preceding the actual holiday.

Halloween themed nails! Very simple; just using the colors. Finger Paints in Original Orange and a Claire’s art nail polish in black.

I wore these awesome spider earrings from Claire’s very frequently throughout most of the month. I think they’re just so cool..I may keep wearing them even though Halloween season is over.

The Saturday before Halloween I decided to do candy-corn themed eyeshadow. I used corresponding NYX Jumbo eyeshadow pencils as a base for each color. I can’t remember which white I used, but the yellow is a matte yellow from NYX and the orange is from Jordana. I used Ardell fashion lashes #116, which are ridiculously long and awesome looking.

Nails of the Day : White and Black Dots

Here are my current nails! The base is 2-3 coats of Sally Hansen "White On" with Claire's matte top coat. 

I did the dots using the pen part of a Claire's two way nail art pen and brush in black. I decided to leave the dots shiny for a bit of texture contrast as well as the color. 

This is the second time I have used the Claire's matte topcoat, and I'm really impressed with it. It mattifies better than the Orly Nails for Males, and it lasts a long time without chipping. I would definitely recommend it. 

I found Essie's Matte About You at my Marshall's this weekend for $3, but I haven't tried it yet, so I can't compare it to the Orly or Claire's versions. 

Sonia Kashuk "Lend a Hand" Nail Trio

Even after telling myself "no more nail polish!", I could not resist this trio of polishes after I passed them in Target. First of all, it was $9.99 for 3 polishes, which is a good deal, PLUS 15% of the purchase price supporting breast cancer research. Secondly, these are some of the most beautiful and unique colors I've seen lately. So good for fall, too!

The packaging is so cute. I actually keep them in the box. (Though this is partly due to the fact that I have too many nail polished to fit in one bin)

Swatched with flash (above) and without flash (below)

The sparkly polish goes on so opaque! If you can get it on evenly enough, I think this could easily be worn as one coat. The other two are a bit thinner and require two, maybe three to get the most even layer. I put a matte topcoat on the darkest shade earlier this week and LOVED it. It looks almost black, but in light you can tell it's not. 

In general, love these colors, highly recommend the set. :)

Nails of the Day

I tried something different (again) with my nails today, so I figured I'd make a quick post.

Base color is Sally Hansen in Gunmetal

Tips are Milani Nail Art Lacquer in Draw in Pink

The Sally Hansen has a really wide brush so the color goes on really evenly. The long, skinny brush on the Milani polish made doing tips really easy. My left and right hands turned out pretty much the same! I think it would be pretty hard to seriously mess up using this type of nail polish. Plus, the color payoff (on both polishes) is fantastic! 

Multicolored French Tips

I know. This is a terrible picture. It's not even a little bit focused. But that's what I get for being too lazy to get out my real camera and only documenting these nails with my phone's camera. Despite this being a horrible representation, I felt like these nails were cool enough to still post about it. I did these much earlier in the summer. Basically, I wanted to do something crazy but still somewhat low-key. 

Orange(Thumb): ELF Polish in Fire Coral
Pink: Covergirl Polish in Fuchsia Girl
Purple: China Glaze Polish in Spontaneous
Blue: Sally Hansen Polish in Blue Me Away
Green: ORLY Polish in Green With Envy
Pinky French Base Color: China Glaze Polish in Innocence

When I do French tips, I don't have too much trouble making the line fairly straight. My problem is in getting nail polish all over the finger as well as the nail. To combat this, I spread Vaseline all around my nails (NOT on them!!) before I start to paint them. The polish will dry onto the Vaseline, but the Vaseline just rubs right off. Just a little tip.

Mark. magalog inspired makeup look

Recently, one of my friends gave me this mark cosmetics "magalog." As soon as I saw the cover, I decided that I needed to try to recreate the look on myself.

Here is the actual cover:

And here is my attempt to create something similar:

You probably think I'm lying, but mine did actually look brighter in real life than the way it appears in the pictures I took. I know it isn't perfect, but I really liked how it turned out. It's more "inspired by" the cover of the magalog than actually duplicating it. 

Products used:

Palladio Herbal Eye Primer

NYX Eyeshadow Base in White

NYX Single Eyeshadow in Yellow Funk

Purple is from the Tarte Treasure Chest, color names aren't listed (There is a very similar purple in a L'Oreal HIP duo, but I'm not sure the name of that either. Basically a vibrant, matte purple)

Reddish/burgundy color from Covergirl Drama Eyes Quad

NYX Jumbo Eye Pencil in Yellow

Maybelline The Colossal Volum' Express Mascara

Plaid!

Yeah...I did plaid nails today. Inspired by this video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aw1s_mhE0O0 I randomly chose to watch. 

Blue base : Sally Hansen Blue Me Away

Pink stripes : Covergirl Fuchsia Girl

White stripes : Claire's two way nail art and pen brush (no name)

I used the brush end of my two-sided tool with the dotter on the other end for the pink, so it's much thicker than the white. I would've liked it better if I could see more of the blue, but since it's such a bright color it still shows up alright. Although I'm still getting used to doing something more interesting than just one color on my nails, I'm pretty happy with how this turned out. Hopefully it lasts more than a day! 

Collective Haul: Summer

Here's some stuff I acquired over the summer. Most of it is from Ulta, but a few items I picked up at Target.

 

I was attracted to the Essence products at Ulta because they were so cheap. I liked the yellow and salmon-colored nail polishes since they were so unlike the other colors in my collection. The yellow (Sundancer) is more opaque than the salmon (What Do U Think?) but they both have decent color payoff. They chip very quickly, though. They were only $0.99, after all. I was attracted to the "Nail Stampy Set" because it looked like a cheap dupe for the Konad stamper. It was only $2.99 and seems to work pretty well. I don't love the images on the plate, but I could easily get some actual Konad plates to go with this set. The mini Orly nail polishes were right at the checkout, and I just couldn't resist. The dark navy blue (Witch's Blue) was also different from other colors I already had. 

I picked up the top two items in the photo at Target. Both were in those two-for-one packs. I've liked Maybelline's The Colossal Volum' Express for quite awhile, but the Almay was a new one for me. I'd never tried any of the products available for specific eye colors before (I have green eyes), and I figured I could use a neutral-but not black- shade of mascara. It's a nice reddish brown color. I like the mascara's formula pretty well, too. Everything else was picked up at Ulta: NYX Jumbo Eye Pencil in Purple (love these. I have 10 colors), Essence eyeliner pen (felt-tipped kind...not very black and seems to dry up quickly, but only $1.99), Ulta eyeliner in Raisin (good color, not too long wearing), Ulta lipliner in Beet (love this color), NYX brow pencil/brush in Dark Brown (LOVE this. best eyebrow pencil I've tried). 

Last two items: this Ulta blending sponge looked almost identical to the Sonia Kashuk version (http://www.target.com/Sonia-Kashuk-237-Blending-Sponge/dp/B00149XKOY) but $5 cheaper. I really like the finish and coverage it offers, plus the shape makes it easy to get every little area of the face. The Physician's Formula Shimmer Strips Gel Creamliner (again, for green eyes) I got at Target. I LOVE THESE. The colors show up really well and last a very long time. This is also by far the creamiest cream liner I've used. The one for green eyes has a green, a purple, and black with fairly unnoticeable green glitter.

That's all for now. In general, pretty successful. The only items I didn't love were very cheap, so it's hard to complain.

Orange Nails

Here's another random idea for nails. I knew I wanted to do orange, but after having bought the double-ended dotting tool/brush I was in a mood to try new things, so I decided to add the stripes.
Base color : Revlon Craving Coral
Orange Stripe : Finger Paints Original Orange
Yellow Stripe : Essence Sundancer

Walgreen's Haul/Review

A few weeks ago, I got off work early and decided to stop at Walgreen's on the way home. In addition to a magazine, I also picked up a few beauty items. 

This is my second bottle of the L'Oreal go 360 Clean cleanser. I had a coupon so I figured I'd pick up another one, since I like it so much. Even though I have oily skin, I got the cream cleanser rather than the gel. Not sure why I picked that one up in the first place, but I liked it enough to buy it again. It leaves a refreshing, clean feeling unlike one I've had with any other cleanser I've used. 

The got2b hair products, which usually are about $6.50 each, were on sale for $5.50 AND buy one get one free. Naturally, I had to give them a try. I was curious about the Guardian Angel heat protector/blow dry lotion after seeing Beauty Broadcasts/Emily's (http://www.beautybroadcast.net/2010/08/another-review-thon.html, http://www.youtube.com/user/emilynoel83#p/u/12/82cfyi39NQ0) review on it, so that was my first choice. Because the second one was essentially free, I chose a product I've never tried anything like before: a root-lifting spray.

 I've used each only once, but I really liked the results I got from using the Guardian Angel blow out lotion. My hair seemed to dry pretty quickly, didn't look frizzy, and felt really soft afterwards. Plus, I enjoy the smell of the product, although it is kind of strong, at least it is pleasant. I was less pleased with the root-lifter, however. I really didn't notice any difference. It smelled nice, so I guess nothing bad happened, but I didn't notice any "lift" either. My hair is fine and has no volume at all, so I was really hoping this would change that. Oh well, it was basically free so I'm not complaining. 

I had been wanting one of the eos (evolution of smooth) lip balms for awhile - I had also seen these on Emily's  YouTube channel (BeautyBroadcast) a few times. I had tried their shaving lotion, which I also really like, so I figured these would be worth a shot. The one I got is Summer Fruit scented. I'm not exactly sure what fruit it is, but it smells very nice. It actually kind of tastes like it smells, too, which is nice. Plus, the packaging is just too cute.
I also randomly picked up a few wet n'wild eyeshadows. I hadn't tried their products in awhile, and they're so cheap. These colors looked pretty, so I figured I'd try them. I haven't really had a chance to try these out yet, since I've been in the process of moving and most of my makeup has been packed up. I did swatch them right away, and they seem pretty decently pigmented, at least for the price. (If I remember correctly, these were both under $3).
That's all for this haul. Until next time. :)

Pink Flower Nails

I'm not really sure where the idea for these nails came from, I just kind of...did it.

Nail color : China Glaze - Sugar High (Up and Away Collection)
Flower petals : China Glaze - Something Sweet (Up and Away Collection)
Flower center : Essence - Sundancer

I used this tool from Sally Beauty Supply to make the dots. I had always shied away from doing any kind of nail art because I assumed it would be too challenging, but this dotting tool is seriously so easy to use. It's really handy that the brush is connected to it, too. And it's really affordable!

I had already had this on for a few days before I decided to photograph it, so my nails are a little worn away...whoops.

Hello.

I decided that, due to my (mild? more than mild?) obsession with beauty products that has rather exploded in the last year, I may as well start contributing to the beauty blogging world. Everything I know comes from: other bloggers/YouTube, magazines/books, and personal experience.

In theory, I'll post a variety of things including: product reviews, photos of nails or makeup I've worn, and maybe even inspiration-type pictures. Of course, that all could change once I actually get going. Mostly, I'm just going let this blog go where it wants to.