Max Factor - Fantasy Fire AKA Amazeballs

Ah, I'm back! I took an impromptu break and didn't mean to stay away so long!

I've got something super fun and awesome to show you:

Max Factor Fantasy Fire.

This was released in the UK back in the spring, and in an instant a lemming was born. I was ridiculously upset that I wouldn't be able to buy this in the States, but I was determined to get my hands on it, so a few months ago I bought it off a very nice seller on ebay for a pretty reasonable price.

I die.

I've layered 2 coats of Fantasy Fire over Revlon Royal. The VNL is completely unnoticeable in real life, I don't know why my camera does that. And I did get some minor shrinkage because I think I waited too long to put on the top coat.

But wow. It is just so goddamn pretty.

Using my camera flash helped bring out some of the orange/purple shimmer:



Getting it at an angle to show you the color-shift was a little difficult, but it's there.  :3



Just awesome. I'm so so happy I grabbed this when I could. It's an instant mood-lifter.

Nicole by OPI - Iceberg Lotus

Hello friends! I hope you all had a great weekend :) My birthday was wonderful, and I woke up to Craig trying to figure out the food processor to make a carrot cake. Adorable.

This is a polish from Nicole by OPI, Iceberg Lotus. It took me longer than I'd like to admit before I got the pun in the name, and for a while I sat there thinking, what? Lotus? This looks nothing like the color of an iceberg!

Ah me. 

I wish the duochrome element was more apparent in my photos than it appears to be. This is such a bright, vibrant, insane color and my camera just absolutely hated it. The base color is a bright teal-green, but at the edges it flashes blue and purple and unfortunately my photos just don't do it justice. The formula was on the thin side, so these swatches required about 3 coats to bring out the vibrant green but that seemed perfectly fine to me. 

My only problem with this is that it has the most ridiculous brush. I know this is a sore spot for a lot of people, but this was my first Nicole by OPI so I was really surprised. The brush is slightly wider than the new-ish OPI Pro-wide brush, but thinner than the Sally Hansen brushes (which are on whole other level of terrible), and it just makes for sloppy application. It was not pleasant.

(On a side-note, I also find the bottle shape to be silly.)

 So what do you think? I believe this is from the Something about Spring 2011 collection, and I picked mine up at Target about a month ago so I'm sure you can still find it there. I don't pay any attention to Nicole brand polishes, but they appear to be coming out with some interesting colors that look worthwhile. If only I could get over that silly brush...

See you on Wednesday!

e.l.f. Royal Purple

In my last post I told you that e.l.f. had included a nail polish in their Mystery Bag, and here it is!  Royal Purple  is a fuchsia/ red-violet shade with silver and purple micro-shimmer, but you can see a flash of blue every now and then. The formula was quite fantastic, and went on smoothly with two coats. 

While purple and pink aren't normally the first colors I go for, I think this is a pretty great polish. I'm more eager to put this on my toes, so I think that'll be the next place I try this. 

Can you believe it's August already!? I'm in shock that the summer has flown by so quickly. Soon it will be fall and I'll be even more surprised. I'm curious to learn what autumns are like in Texas, and my assumption? probably hot. bah.