Friday, January 31, 2014

Liquid Sky Lacquer: Just Lucky Swatch and Review

Good morning, dear readers, and TGIF! Life in the Jedi household has become a little hectic lately, and I am looking forward to a little bit of down time for myself this weekend. 
As you may or may not already be aware, today marks the beginning of the Lunar New Year and the Chinese New Year. Naturally, I had to show you swatches of Liquid Sky Lacquer's Just Lucky in honor of the occasion. Gold when warm and red when cold, this thermal beauty is fun to wear! My husband refers to me as his favorite furnace so it was only gold on me, but I did have fun dipping my fingers in cold water to get the effect! The formula was quite sheer, and I ended up using four thin coats to hide my nail line. Check this out!

After an ice water dip, I didn't get to see red entirely covering my nails for long
Warm!

Now for the transitional stage spam! I love this look and couldn't pick just one photo. :D 

I had so much fun playing with this polish, and I love the red to gold transition. I think next time I wear it, I'm going to layer it over something so I don't need to use as many coats. I hope that an "undies barrier" will allow me to see more of the red on my nails without having to go into a cold water dip.

Just Lucky and other polishes by Liquid Sky Lacquer can be purchased at the Bigcartel site.

Here's to a prosperous year!

XOXO!









Wednesday, January 29, 2014

LilypadLacquer Fire Fire Swatch and Review

Good morning, dear readers! I have a gorgeous polish made by Nicole of LilypadLacquer to share with you this morning, and is it awesome! When I first saw a photo of the bright fiery orange holographic polish Fire Fire from the Color My World collection, I knew I just had to have it. Orange polishes have always had a special place in my heart, and I am happy to now have this beauty in my collection. I applied two coats of Fire Fire and followed up with Glisten & Glow HK Girl top coat for the following photos. 
The formula of this beauty was superb: not too thick or thin, and the dry time was reasonably quick. Fire Fire doesn't have the intense linear holo like some other polishes on the market, but if you like scattered holos and the colour orange, this polish is one you need to try!

Links
LilypadLacquer is based in Australia, and the polishes are 5 free. Nicole's Etsy shop is scheduled to open on February 1st. Keep an eye on her Facebook page for announcements on colours available (there is going to be a new collection released!) in addition to approximate stock time.

In other news, if you have not yet entered my two year blogiversary giveaway, you can fill out the rafflecopter here!

Until next time, dear readers, have a wonderful day!
<3

Monday, January 27, 2014

Two Year Blogiversary Giveaway!

Good morning, dear readers. I am really excited to be bringing you this two year blogiversary giveaway post! I wasn't entirely sure what to expect when I started blogging two years ago, but I don't think I expected to keep doing what I love two years later. I truly appreciate all the feedback that you have left for me over the past couple of years, and I hope you are just as excited as I am to continue on this journey with me. I blog because I enjoy sharing my thoughts with you, and I wouldn't be here without all your support. Thank you so much for that! I wanted to have a little giveaway to thank you for being there with me. This giveaway is open to both US and International entrants. One of my wonderful sponsors only ships to the US and Canada at this time, so please include your country of residence as prompted in the rafflecopter. This way I can make sure the winners can get to enjoy their prizes. :)

Prizes
Zoya: Neely, Lola, and Hazel

$50 Gift Certificate to Girly Bits Cosmetics, very generously donated by Pam of Girly Bits

$25 Gift Certificate to Jindie Nails, very generously donated by Jen of Jindie Nails
$25 Gift Certificate to Glisten& Glow, very generously donated by Jill of Glisten & Glow

Literary Lacquers Pan Galactic Gargle Blaster, Sidewalk's End and Phenomenal Woman, very generously donated by Amy of Literary Lacquers

SoFlaJo Teal Me a Bedtime Story and Pink If You Love Me, very generously donated by Jody of SoFlaJo

I am thrilled to have met these amazing sponsors, and I am immensely honored to have them take part in my blogiversary giveaway. Please be sure to thank them for participating!

Please enter using the rafflecopter widget below. The terms and conditions are included at the bottom of the widget. Giveaway ends February 8th.

Thank you! <3


a Rafflecopter giveaway

Saturday, January 25, 2014

Literary Lacquers Community Collection, Part III

Press Sample

Good evening, dear readers! I hope this post finds you well, and you have been enjoying the weekend. For this evening's post, I wanted to finish sharing my swatches and thoughts on the Literary Lacquers Community Collection. The other polishes from the Community Collection can be viewed here and here. So I'm not repeating myself throughout this post, I used three thin coats of each polish and topped them off with HK Girl top coat for these swatches.

Thermodynamics
Thermodynamics is not my favorite subject matter, but this polish is hot! ;)

This polish looks beautiful in the bottle, but it just came to life as soon as I put it on my nails. I expected to like it, but I was completely blown away by it! A pinky-red jelly with blue glass fleck, this stunner was designed by Sparkly Vernis. It is the sort of colour that I tend to wear primarily during the summer,  and you can bet I'll be sporting this on my toes all summer long! Impeccable formula and gorgeous, this is a definite must-have from this collection. 


Shift of Fate
I have always loved green polishes, and this green to gold shifty holo is a welcome addition to my polish collection. Designed by Olivia of Morning Nailspiration, the formula on Shift of Fate was flawless, and this shade is perfect for the spring.

My Red Hair
Be still, my beating heart! It's no secret that orange polishes have a special place in my heart, and this colour shifting shimmer orange through copper into red beauty designed by Debbie of The Crumpet is amazing! If you love orange and copper, this fiery beauty will win your heart. I don't believe I have ever seen a red and orange duochrome polish, and I am *thrilled* that Debbie and Amy decided to make this happen!

I absolutely adore these polishes, and the rest of the collection as well! There is such an assortment of colours and finishes to choose from, and you just cannot go wrong with any polish made by Literary Lacquers. 

These and many other amazing polishes can be purchased at the Literary Lacquers etsy shop. Also, keep an eye on the Literary Lacquers Facebook page for shop announcements.

Which one would you choose? 

Until next time, dear readers, have a great night and enjoy the rest of the weekend!
<3

Disclaimer:  The products reviewed above were provided to me for my honest and unbiased opinion. All thoughts stated are entirely my own and are based on my use of said products.  I love receiving feedback from my readers, and any comments left here are the express opinions and/or property of the individual authors.  Therefore, I, the author of this site, cannot be held responsible for the opinions held by others.  I reserve the right to remove any comments that I find to be harmful, unnecessary, or not constructive for other readers.

Thursday, January 23, 2014

Simple Water Marble using Précision Nail Lacquer

Good morning, dear readers! I have been drawn to red and pink polishes lately, and I wanted to share my latest nail art. I wanted to test out a few of my Précision nail lacquers to see if they would work well for this technique; to answer that question: yes they do! I water marbled three nails on each hand, kept two nails solids, and topped it off with Glisten & Glow HK Girl top coat to prevent chips and make it extra shiny. This is what I came up with:

Check it out: even my thumb is showing here! Posing with my thumb nail showing in photos feels so awkward, but I just had to include it here. 

I'm really loving this manicure for a fun and relatively simple idea for Valentine's Day!

These are the colours I used for my manicure:
Pandora's Box
Baby Rock
Shine, Wine n Dine
Purple Posh
Sahara Deserted Me

Shine, Wine n Dine is the colour of my solid nails and was not used in the water marbling. Although this photo makes it look very sparkly, it did not translate well onto my nails with three thin coats. There was definitely sparkle present, but not to the extent that the bottle would leave you to believe. 

All of my water marbled nails were first painted with two thin coats of Sahara Deserted Me prior to the marbling.

Précision nail lacquers can be purchased here. You can also keep on eye on their Facebook page for announcements on new colours and sales here.

Until next time, dear readers, have a wonderful day!







Wednesday, January 22, 2014

January Wantable. Makeup Box Review

Press Sample

Good morning, dear readers! I have the January Wantable cosmetics box to share with you today This was my first cosmetics box from Wantable, and I was eager to try out this box when I saw that the awesome beauty blogger, Jessica Scull of the blog Love for Lacquer was going to curate it. According to Jessica's quote on Wantable, the idea behind this box was "starting fresh" and "throwing away or donating all of that expired makeup", and I can definitely get behind that concept for the new year! 

Now before I get too far ahead of myself, I should fill you in on how Wantable works in case you haven't tried the subscription service. For a one-time purchase of $40 or $36 per month subscription, Wantable curates a box specifically for you based on your answers to their very detailed questionnaire. If you say you don't like a particular type of product, you will never see that in your box. Likewise, anything you claim to love or like can appear in the box. Like many of you, I read several blogs before I make any decisions as to what products I want to buy, and I have been following the Wantable cosmetics box lately. The past several boxes others have received have looked interesting, and I had high hopes going into the process this month. This is how it all worked out.
The box! It looks like USPS was a tad rough with it, but it did not affect the contents.
The reveal!
First glance of products in the box
And all the products out of the box

Let's check out each item individually, and I'll give you my thoughts on them.

ncLA Nail Lacquer "Call Me for the After Party"
Retail Value: $16.00

This is my first ncLA polish, and I was happy to get one to try in the box even though this same shade has been seen before in a November Wantable box. I'm not sure what the consistency is like for these polishes as I have no experience with them, but this one was really thick and goopy. I'm not going to pretend to know how Wantable's products are stored, so I don't know if the poor consistency was due to storage or the product was of inferior quality to begin with. I do know that it has been pleasant and warm in Tucson, so I did not try swatching from a cold bottle, which definitely can cause goopiness. This is what one thick coat (not by my choice) looks like on the nails; no top coat was used for the following photo:


It is a beautiful blue, and definitely a good colour choice for me. I have to give Wantable credit for that! I'll be adding several drops of polish thinner to get this to a better consistency for future use. Given that the product page on ncLA's website specifically states two coats recommended for this particular shade, I suspect the formula was not supposed to be this bad.


Billion Dollar Brows clear brow gel
Retail Value: $18.00

The Billion Dollar Brows gel has also appeared in a previous Wantable box, but I was still pretty excited to give it a try. Unfortunately, I had some issues with this gel. Unless I am supposed to be applying clear flakes on my eyebrows and start a new fashion trend, this brow gel had dried out by the time it got to me. On a side note, I looked into this product on the brand website, and they only charge $16 for it, so I have no idea where Wantable is coming up with their $18 price tag. Either way, I'm annoyed to have an unusable product, possibly because it has been sitting around since at least October. I really despise throwing away a product before I could even use it.


La Bella Donna Baci-Baci Lip Sheer "Grappa"
Retail Value: $26.50

I was and still am pretty excited about this deep-plum sheer lip gloss. I had not seen it before in any of the other Wantable monthly boxes, so that was definitely an improvement and back to the "starting fresh" mentality that Jessica envisioned for this box. I'll get back to this one in just a moment.


Bésame Cosmetics Classic Color Lipstick "Cherry Red"
Retail Value: $22.00

Just look at that packaging! This gorgeously decorated tube was inside the red velvet pouch which was then placed inside the box. Talk about presentation! The downside to this lipstick is I have already seen it before on Wantable. I guess we're back to that theme.


LBD "Grappa" and BC "Cherry Red"

I am really loving these colours! La Bella Donna Baci-Baci Lip Sheer Grappa looks a little dark when it first floods the lip brush applicator, but when it is applied to the lips, it imparts just a hint of colour. The formula is thick and ever so slightly sticky, but it definitely had pretty impressive staying power. 

Bésame Cosmetics Classic Color Lipstick in Cherry Red was perfect! This lipstick applies so smoothly and stayed for a respectable amount of time for a classic lipstick. I had to reapply on occasion, as to be expected for this type of lipstick, but it is well worth it. I need to pick up more of these beauties!

Skiin Instant Skin Tightener and Line Filler Sample
Retail Value: N/A for Sample Size

I'm not sure where to even start with this one. First of all, for a cosmetics box, I don't want to be receiving any sort of skin care products. That wasn't an option to love, like, or dislike on the Wantable website, so I can't exactly fault Wantable for sending it, but this just isn't something I would want to see in a cosmetics subscription box. Another issue I have with this product is that it looks disgusting. You might have to click on the photo to view a larger image, but it is separated and lumpy, features that I associate with food that has spoiled. The expiration date on it is labeled May 2016 so it should still be good, but it doesn't look like the smooth consistency I have seen in onetwo, and three blog posts featuring this sample product in the November box. I fully intended to try all the products in my box for this review, but there is no way I'm putting this on my face, regardless of the expiration date. It's a shame because it looks like the formula was of good quality at one time. Even though it isn't technically something I consider a cosmetic, I actually would have liked to try this.

Final Thoughts
I have very mixed feelings about this box. While all these products are new to me, it was disappointing to see items that Wantable has sent out in the previous months with only one exception. The fact that two of the items were unusable and had to go straight to the garbage can (the brow gel and the skin tightener sample) and one was of inferior quality (the ncLA polish), I am led to believe that Wantable followed Jessica's mantra of starting fresh by purging the old by sending all their old products to me in this box. Only one of the five items seems to have been a new addition to the box, and that really bothers me as the potential to receive duplicate items from month to month is high. While I cannot expect Wantable to open and test every cosmetic item prior to shipping to their customers, I find the lack of quality control to be disturbing. I truly love the lip products in the box, even if one has been sent out in a previous month, but I don't think these two items make up for the other faulty products.

Links
If you are interested in trying out Wantable for yourself, you can sign up here. You can follow them on Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter.

I know that experiences vary widely when it comes to the Wantable boxes. Obviously, my box this month was less than stellar for me, but I would love to hear your thoughts, good or bad. Have you tried Wantable this month? How was it?

Until next time, dear readers, have a great day!


Disclaimer:  The products reviewed above were provided to me for my honest and unbiased opinion. All thoughts stated are entirely my own and are based on my use of said products.  I love receiving feedback from my readers, and any comments left here are the express opinions and/or property of the individual authors.  Therefore, I, the author of this site, cannot be held responsible for the opinions held by others.  I reserve the right to remove any comments that I find to be harmful, unnecessary, or not constructive for other readers.

Monday, January 20, 2014

Colors by Llarowe Good Golly Miss Molly Swatches and Review


Good morning, dear readers! I have the beautiful Colors by Llarowe (CbL) Good Golly Miss Molly (GGMM) to share with you today, and oh man, it is beautiful! The following photos are with two coats of GGMM and no top coat. I could have gotten away with a single coat as it is quite opaque, but I added the second coat to get a slightly darker shade. On to some photos!

I love the depth of colour in the polish, and the formula was perfect! Unfortunately, GGMM was a limited edition release and is no longer in stock, and I wanted to compare it to a few other polishes in my collection. It looks pretty similar to a few other colours, and while they are not exactly the same, they might be close enough to you that you need not despair if you missed out on this stock.

CbL Dirty Diana versus GGMM
As you can see, these polishes are similar, but definitely not identical. Dirty Diana is a little lighter and the holo has a little more zazz than Good Golly Miss Molly.

CbL Oxen versus GGMM
I was actually surprised at how close these ones were. Oxen is just a touch redder, and the holo effect is more subdued.

OPI DS Extravagance versus GGSS
Ok, so these ones are less similar, but I still wanted to see how GGMM compared with the OPI. Extravagance is definitely more pink and has a scattered holo whereas GGMM is linear, although I couldn't get it to photograph well.

Lilypad Lacquer True Blood (original*) verses GGMM
This comparison was an interesting one to photograph because my camera seems to have picked up on the subtle differences between these two more than I can actually see with my eyes. True Blood is the slightest bit darker, but the holo effect was very comparable between the two, and had I not known that I had two different colours on my nails, I don't know if I could tell the difference. Sitting down writing this post while it is dark, I can make out the difference more now, but these are very close in colour.

*A note on True Blood: I'm not entirely sure how many versions were released, but I do know this one was created before Lilypad Lacquer announced a more red version and then later another version that was to be closer to the original. If there are more than three versions with the name of True Blood, I don't know if I could figure out which batch my bottle came from.

I'd love to hear your thoughts on this colour! Did you catch it during one of the stocks? Is there something else you can recommend that is similar in colour? I'd love to hear from you!

Until next time, dear readers, have a wonderful day!












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