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.

Wet N Wild - I need a Refresh-Mint

It's Monday!!
Going to the grocery is getting difficult because it's so hard to avoid the candy isles.  I bought a small packet of caramels, ate the entire bag accidentally, then had to go out and purchase more. The second packet of caramels is now gone as well.

woops

Today I have a Wet n Wild polish to show you, I Need a Refresh-Mint. First off, that is a stupid name for a polish. The color is not mint in the slightest.





It's really more of a light teal blue. It looks extremely similar to China Glaze's For Audrey, so I've included a comparison.

On my pointer finger is OPI's What's With the Cattitude, a light pure baby blue, followed left to right with I Need a Refresh-Mint, China Glaze For Audrey, and  OPI Mermaids Tears,  for a green comparison.



As you can see, Refresh-Mint is a bit more blue and more vibrant than For Audrey, but definitely not as blue as WWTC. For Audrey is lighter, more dusty, and a tad more green

As far as formula goes, they are relatively comparable. They're both creamy and require two coats minimum, but I think I prefer For Audrey as a matter of personal taste. The color is more subtle, delicate, and has a much more preferable brush. Wet n Wild has unfortunately has taken a leaf out of Sally Hansen's book as their brushes resemble gigantic paddles. This makes the polish difficult to work with, which is quite unnecessary.

What do you think about I need a Refresh-mint and For Audrey? Which polish do you prefer?

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!

China Glaze Rare and Radiant

Guess what, it's Friday!! As promised, I have my last polish from China Glaze Bohemian Luster Chrome collection. Rare and Radiant. Soo many brands have been putting out their version of this color, a yellow gold duochrome that flashes green, but I hadn't been able to get my hands on any of the previous polishes until now.

The duochrome is pretty evident in this polish, but (and you may whack me over the head for saying this) I was not impressed with this polish. The formula was fine, the color is pretty, but it doesn't work on my skin and I found it boring. Mayhaps I'm a little jaded with all the green-yellow duochromes coming out as everyone tries to get their fingers in the Chanel Peridot pie. All I know is, this was the polish I was most excited to get my hands on, and my least favorite in the bunch. And that's disappointing. 

Don't get me wrong, there are plenty of people who really like this polish, and that's fantastic. I'm just really not feeling it today. I think on another day, I might actually be fond of it! Perhaps the problem is I scheduled this polish for today specifically to complete the week, when I normally grab whatever suits my fancy for the day. So the moral of the story is: don't let this whinging grouch spoil your fun on this polish!

What do you think? Are you tired of the Peridot dupes?

Have a great weekend everyone! 

China Glaze Unpredictable

Hi guys! I hope you are all having a bearable Wednesday. I have a few things on my to-do list today, so I need to get cracking!

To continue the China Glaze theme from Monday, I have another polish from the Bohemian collection, Unpredictable. 

This is a yellowish-green duochrome with hints of blue. As I tried to capture in the below photo, the duochrome element is much stronger in this polish than in Deviantly Daring. This is also relatively sheer in comparison, requiring 2-3 coats. The one downside is that it took absolutely ages to dry.  Maybe it was my application, but I spent an absurd amount of time trying to work with this polish. I think with a good quick dry topcoat you'd normally be fine though. 

My thoughts? I hemmed and hahhed over this at the display at Sally's and I'm pleased that I grabbed it in the end.  I haven't tried a lot of chrome-y polishes, and this collection is quite satisfactory. A couple of collections already released and/or coming out for fall are chrome (Essie anyone?) so this collection doesn't seem groundbreaking. I'd still pick it up though, there are a few Chanel and Deborah Lippmann dupes to be found and the colors really are lovely.  

That's all for today! On Friday I'll wrap up the week with another China Glaze so check back!

China Glaze Deviantly Daring

Hello friends, did you all have a great weekend? I spent my weekend repotting some poor root-bound houseplants of mine, and we had friends over for dinner last night which was a lot of fun.

To start off the week, I have a polish from China Glaze's Bohemian Luster Chrome collection for Fall 2012 to show you! Deviantly Daring.

This is a bold, turquoise blue that flashes green and deeper blue in certain angles. It's very thick and so pigmented I only needed 1-2 coats to get full coverage. The duochrome isn't as strong as it could be, but what the polish lacks on that department it makes up for in vibrancy. My camera freaked out a little over the color.

The bottle flashes purple at the edges, and I was really hoping that this would translate onto the polish, but it doesn't unfortunately. I tried to capture the color shift, but it's much more noticeable in person.

So what do you think about Deviantly Daring? I also picked up Rare and Radiant and Unpredictable and I'll be posting them soon!

I was able to pick my bottle up at Sally Beauty Supply for about $7.00, but they're also available online for purchase here and here.

Have a good Monday everyone!

OPI Mermaid's Tears

Hello my friends!

Way back in January I showed you OPI's Steady as She Rose here, and today I have another polish from that collection, Mermaid's Tears. 

This is a beautiful dusty turquoise-green cream, and it applied really well. This flattered my skin-tone much better than Steady as She Rose, and as a side note, my mother loved this color on her toes. 

Not much else to say today. I hope you are all having a great week so far and I'll be back on Friday with another post!

Sinful Colors San Francisco

I'm in a very foggy headspace today due to the all-nighter I pulled last night. I'm completely smothered under a pile of work and despite all the effort I put into getting things done, I still haven't made a significant dent on my to-do list, which mostly has to do with all the extra assignments that have been added at the last minute. Bah.

On a higher note, I found a few spare minutes to do my nails! Sinful Colors San Francisco. 

My camera has issues with bright colors like this. It makes the green look much more blue toned than it is, and it actually has more of a yellow base. It was extremely sheer and took about 3-4 coats. Super pretty in the sun, but in normal indoor light it fell flat.
I also had issues with shrinkage at the tips. You can see where the polish started pulling away at the edge of my nail, leaving a green stained tip in its wake. And it stained my nails horribly.  I did like this polish, but I just didn't find it super special. This will be a perfect polish to wear for St. Patrick's Day though!

Zoya Shawn

I don't have much time to post today so I'll make this one a quickie.

I used Zoya Shawn, and on my ring finger I used CQ Cosmetics Golden Green #542 for an accent finger. I thought this was pretty fun, and want to do it again with different polishes.

Sorry my nails are so dinky by the way! They peel horribly and I have to chop them off so they won't continue to peel. This frustrates me. 

 In terms of the polish itself, the Zoya was wonderful, I was very pleased with the formula and it only took two coats. The CQ was on par with most drugstore polishes I've tried, didn't knock me out of the park, but did the job well. It was a little prone to brush marks, so you need to be careful during application.

While I was wearing this manicure, I had one person ask me if I was a Texas Longhorns fan. When I looked at him with a confused look on my face, he said "well your nails are two different colors, are you a football fan?"

image source

Orange and white are very different colors from olive and green hahaha. And no, I'm not a football fan, but I thought it was hilarious he thought so. When I explained that no, the colors didn't mean anything specific, he was the one who was confused so I had to explain that I did it solely for the aesthetics.