Wednesday, September 28, 2011

Review: CoverGirl LashBlast Volume

Last year almost a year ago I picked up a couple of mascaras when I was on vacation in Hawaii. This was one of them, CoverGirl Lashblast Volume. I have wanted to try this mascara for such a long time. I have heard a lot of good things from beauty gurus on Youtube about the mascara so my expectations was quite high.

The nail polish that I 'm wearing in the picture is a Nail Paint from
Barry M
in the color 161 Vivid Purple

First of all I do like this mascara and the results that it gives. My lashes look fuller and the mascara gives them a dark black color. The application is easy and there is no need to comb through the lashes after you have applied it, which is definitely a good thing.




The brush is made out of rubber and is on the larger side. It has shorter bristles at the end making it easy to apply the mascara at the inner and outer lashes.


But....

There is one thing that I don't like and it is that it has a tendency to flake. The fallout isn't massive but there are always some black flakes under my eye after a day of work. The flaking start quite early in the day as well. At first I thought it might be that I started using this during the warmest days of summer but now when it's fall and the days are cooler, the result is the same.

Overall Grade:

PRODUCT: This is a good drugstore mascara that give good results but it has a tendency to flake.
PACKAGING: A bright orange mascara tube. Nothing special but the color makes it easy to find in the makeup bag.
APPLICATION: the mascara applies without any clumps and it gives a good result without the need to comb through the lashes with a mascara comb.
SCENT: I quite strong synthetic almost chemical scent.



I paid for this product with my own money and it is my own opinion.

On my Lips: Bright lips with NYX Sunflower

When I placed an order from Cherryculture a while back ago I order two round lipsticks from NYX Cosmetics, Thalia and Sunflower. While Thalia wasn't my cup of tea, Sunflower really surprised me. The color is a bright coral red with a frost finish, and it really makes a statement on the lips. I normally don't wear bright lip colors, I'm more of a pale pink/nude color kind of a girl but I can actually see myself wearing this.


In this picture I paired it with a lip pencil in the color Hot Red also from NYX Cosmetics and they work really well together.

Friday, September 16, 2011

On my nails: Come To Poppy by O.P.I

It is a beautiful fall day here today and I am stuck inside sick with a cold. So I felt like cheering myself up and paint my nails. I went for a summery pink, Come To Poppy from the Nice Stems Collection.


This is as it sounds a poppy color pink or if you will a pink coral color. It has some fine shimmer in it making it look like a pearl finish. I thought I would love this color and it is a wonderful pink but I don't know...It feels kind of ordinary to me. It is a little strange that I feel this way since this is the reason why I bought the Nice Stems mini set, I wanted to add some nice pinks in my collection.

I felt that it needed a little bit extra something so I applied the glitter/flake polish, I Lily Love You form the same set on top of my ring fingers. I also put a little dot of this polish on my other nails to tie it all together.

In retrospect I would probably skip the little dots on the rest of the fingers since it looks a little bit odd.


Update: I have fallen in love with the glitter polish, I Lily Love You and I tried to capture all of the beautiful colors that the glitter/flakes have in this polish. This polish is really hard to capture in a photo but hopefully this gives you an idea of how beautiful it is.

Wednesday, September 7, 2011

The Crazy Nail Polish Lady

Yepp that's me. I guess I got a little bit nail polish crazy and I ordered three mini collection sets from BeautyBay.com. I wonder if the fact that they are minis is a good excuse for buying a total of 12 bottles of nail polish. I say yes it is.


All three sets are summer collections and I was looking for some good pinks to add to my collection. The Summer Collection set from Essie was my venture into more brighter colors and a little bonus.
I was a little bit surprised at how small the O.P.I bottles were. I new that they were 3.75 ml each but I didn't realize that way were as small as they are, true minis I would say.
An other thing that I didn't like with the O.P.I minis was that the bottles aren't labeled with the name of the polish. Instead the name is written on the box that they came in forcing you to keep the boxes and be careful not to mix up the bottles. I didn't realize this at first so I pulled out all of the bottles from the Nice Stems collection out of the box just to realize that they weren't labeled.
The Essie mini collection contained larger bottles, 5 ml each and the bottles were also labeled. The Essie Mini collection was also cheaper than the O.P.I sets and did cost £10.75 were as the O.P.I sets cost £12.75 making the Essie Mini Set a better deal.
I apologize for the horrible state of my nails and hands in the pictures below. I have worked a lot with my hands lately and it has definitely taken its toll on my hands and nails.
The Nice Stems Collection by O.P.I
This collection contains three shimmer pink nail polishes and one glitter polish. I applied two coats of polish on every nail.

From Left to Right: Play the Peonies (thumb), Come To Poppy,
Be a Dal-ia Won't You, I Lily Love You and
I Lily Love You On Top Of
Play the Peonies.
Play the Peonies is a very light almost white shimmery pink. I liked this because it is so light that it almost looks white but the pink tones in the polish makes it more wearable than a white polish.
Come To Poppy is a pink that leans towards Coral. It has the same shimmer quality as Play the Peonies. This is my favorite out of this set as it applies very well and I don't own any colors that look like this.
Be a Dahl-ia Won't You is a fushia pink with a more glittery effect to it. It looks like a foil to me. This is quite sheer so you may need to apply three coats of this to make it more opaque. I like this color but it doesn't feel very unique to me.
I Lily Love You is a glitter/flake polish in a transparent pink base. This works best when it is layered. I layered it over Play the Peonies in the picture but I think it would work better over Come to Poppy or Be a Dahl-ia Won't You since I think that the glitter disappeared a little on the light base.
Femme De Cirque by O.P.I
This collections consists of very soft nudes and pinks and one shimmery top coat. These colors are very sheer and I needed three coats to make them show up on the nail. Step Right Up! is more opaque than the other but also a little difficult to apply.


From Left to Right: So Many Clowns... So Little Time,
In The Spot-Light Pink, Step Right Up! and I Juggle...Men
So Many Clowns... So Little Time is a creamy nude and also my favorite in this set. When I applied the first coat I couldn't make out the color at all but this polish is build-able and after three coats it became a nice milky nude color.
In the Spot-Light Pink is the sheerest out of the three colors and it is difficult to make out even after three coats but the effect is very nice, it makes your nails look more polished and nice.
Step Right Up! is the problem child in this set. It is more opaque than the others but I had difficulties making it even on the nail. There is also something with this color that makes it a little bit odd. I think it should be even more opaque than it is. Even after three coats the nail line is still visible and it looks like I haven't put on enough coats.
I Juggle...Men is a glitter top coat with iridescent sparkles. It looks amazing in the bottle as it has a beautiful blue iridescence to it. But when you apply it to the nail the shimmer is barely noticeable. I used two coats on the nail and you can detect some sparkles in the close up picture below. I think I have to play with this some more before I make up my mind about it.

From Left To Right Step Right Up! and I Juggle...Men
The Essie Summer Collection 2011
This is the brighter collection that I added as a little bonus to myself when I made the order. There were two colors that I was interested in trying and that was Braziliant and Smooth Sailing. I applied two coats on every nail except for Super Bossa Nova that only needed one coat.
From Left to Right: Smooth Sailing, Meet Me At Sunset
and Super Bossa Nova.
Smooth Sailing is one of my favorites in this set. It is a periwinkle/lavender blue with silver sparkles in it. It looks amazing on the nail and the shimmer really stands out. This was very easy to apply and after two coats it looked perfect.

Meet Me At Sunset is a bright glossy orange creme that leans towards read. This was a little bit sheer but after two coats it looked okay. It isn't my favorite color in the set but I can see myself wearing this in late spring and during the summer.
Braziliant was one of the colors that I was most looking forward to. This is a orange color as well but with pink shimmer in it. I don't know why Essie decided to put two orange colors in this set but there is a difference between the two orange colors. The pink shimmer makes this color more coral and also it is a little bit lighter. This polish was very hard to work with and it was difficult to apply this evenly on the nail.
Super Bossa Nova is the star in this collection and I recommend this to everyone who is reading this blog. This is a dark shimmery fushia and it is very opaque. I only needed one coat. Color-wise it resembles Be a Dahl-ia Won't You from the Nice Stems collection but the formula is very different. This isn't as shimmery and it looks almost like a creme on the nails. I am thinking of layering Be a Dahl-ia Won't You on top of this one to make it more sparkly.