Maybelline true love

Never thought I'd say this of Maybelline because I barely ever use their products but I LOVE this polish. I think all I've ever used from Maybelline has been mascara... and it wasn't really good enough to repurchase. But this... this is a gem. If you can get your hands on this polish do so right away. Cool Couture stumbled into my life as a fluke - I saw it from the corner of my eye standing in line at the grocery store. It was totally worth losing my spot over this.

Cool Couture is a murky grey/teal color with a flash of teal/blue micro sparkles in it.

 I find it to be quite a strange polish because it can seem gray in some lights and teal in others.

The polish dries incredibly fast. They're not kidding about the 50 seconds. This made me super happy because I truly hate to wait for polish to dry. However, the fact that the formula is so thin and runny makes it a bit harder to apply and doesn't give you the smooth finish a higher end polish might. This was easily solve for me by using my trusty Seche Vite. Turned my mani into a boss!

 

I believe this polish cost me $5 at Superstore. I haven't seen these in Shoppers or Lawtons in Canada but we may just be late in receiving them. 

Well done Maybelline - you have created a unique and afforable, quality product. Kudos! I shall be keeping you on my radar!

May I just inform you of something...

Last week, I decided to order the Bare Escentuals The Playlist palette. I was looking for something more portable than my MAC 15 palettes but also for different shades than what I currently possess.The Playlist won over The Cocktail Hour palette after a long debate and extensive shade comparison.

I must say, I really really do not regret my choice. This palette is excellent. The shadows are buttery soft - but not too soft that there's fallout when they are applied. Even the more sparkly shades applied like a dream. They are incredibly pigmented - only a tiny amount is needed. And they are all contained in a cute little palette that is very sturdy!

Disclaimer: I don't know what it is about my skin chemistry, but my eyelids are very oily. I NEED a base (usually Two Faced Shadow Insurance) in order to have my eyeshadow stay in place all day. Even then, shadows like Club and Copperplate by MAC will crease by the end of the day. So is my curse. With a base, the shadow in The Playlist palette called "Louder" stayed on all day, with ZERO creasing. That's pretty amazing to me.

Here are some swatches!

 From left to right, 1st row: Pumped, Chart Topper, Max Volume, Louder
                               2nd row: One Hit Wonder, Most Requested, Remix, Speaker Box

After swatches - shows the texture of the shadows. Like I said, they are very smooth.

From left to right: Pumped, Chart Topper, Max Volume, Louder, One Hit Wonder, Most Requested, Remix, Speaker Box.

Some of my favorites include Chart Topper, Louder and Speaker Box. But they are all very beautiful. I must also say that my swatches are very light - a couple swipes. So they are quite potent even if it doesn't look too much like it in the pictures.

Here it is in action, in a poorly shot picture, because I have a shit camera. Louder is on lid, a tad of pumped in the crease and One Hit Wonder in inner corner and for blending.

 

The palettes retails for $40 on their website, but I purchased mine on Ebay. If you don't own a whole lot of eyeshadow and you're looking to expand, this is a great start. If you're an eyeshadow fanatic, and you can never have enough, you also need this. If you're kind of in the middle of both, like me, you probably most likely need this as well.

Are We There Yet?

What a classic thing to say on a road trip - and you can ask my boyfriend, I do still say it.

I feel a bit unloaded today as I completely cleaned out my closet and drawers of clothes I no longer wear. Now I have room for more! Well, only a little bit more. Specifically, work shirts. NO MORE JEANS.

This OPI is from the Touring America 2011 collection. I picked it up at my local Winners wanting a different polish - different for me, that is.

I really like this polish. And I think I'll like it even more when warmer weather approaches. In my pictures, it looks orange. To my boyfriend's eyes, it looks orange. But to me, it looks like a pink that pulls towards orange. I still see pink in it even though my boyfriend and camera don't seem to think so. Weird huh?

Billie didn't want anything to do with my nails.

I'll definitely be wearing this in the spring/summer. I'm willing to bet that there will be tons of this type of color coming out in the next few months.

Fffffflamingo!

I've been listening to Leonard Cohen all night now and I feel like packing a backpack with a couple t-shirts, undies, lip balm, scarves and a good camera and leave town on a bus for Montreal. In a good way. Whatever happened to being spontaneous? Life becomes dull once you settle down, get a job, have a cat. I've never traveled anywhere really - specially not with only a backpack. If I had the money for it, I wonder if I'd even do it. I feel safest at home, chilling out. But you don't really experience much doing something like that for the rest of your life. So there, I'd have to do it.

Recommended Leonard Cohen songs: Chelsea Hotel, Bird on a Wire, Take this Waltz, Dance Me To The End of Love, Lover Lover Lover, Hallelujah... and well, everything. Just pick up a few of his tunes, you'll get it.

I recently purchased MAC's Flamingo lipstick from the new Iris Apfel collection. It's quite nice actually - a bright pink/coral shade that's still quite sheer. It's a Lustre finish which I usually quite like. I don't know if it's the winter lips thing but the lipstick was not moisturizing at all on me. My lips looked all flaky and the lipstick clearly accentuated this fact. However, it did look better on freshly scrubbed lips.

I'm quite please with this lipstick but I must say I could have lived without it. It's nice but definitely not remarkable enough to NEED it. If you don't have something similar already, I say go for it. My Dior Addict in Tokyo is a tad more orange than Flamingo but quite similar.

I've got a few posts lined up for this week. Hopefully I get back into the swing of things once again. I missed blogging!

Skincare - my new goal for the year

I readily admit that I was never one for a strict skincare regime. I have mostly used Cetaphil and Spectro Jel for the past few years and Bioderma for makeup removal. No "real" exfoliants or moisturizers, the bare minimum.

I've come to realize that my skin doesn't really bode well with the bare minimum. I therefore decided to give myself the 2012 goal of refining my skincare regime and getting rid of my problem areas on my face. They include acne, blemishes, redness around the cheeks, blackheads and bumpy skin/discoloration. It sounds like a lot but these are all things that I notice when I look very very closely at my skin. And it has begun to bother me. I also have some scars from chicken pox that I would like to see minimized.

So, this new goal has been started by Avene Diacneal. This was an idea I got from Sandra from 15 steps then a beauty blog who constantly raves about this product. It is a combination of retinol and glycolic acid which is supposed to rid your skin of acne and discolorations caused by it. I must say, this was a great product to start my regime with. I use it on my skin every few nights in order to give my skin a bit of a break from the treatment. So far, so good. My skin is much clearer (after having gone through a bit of a purge, I'm assuming from the Diacneal) and much much smoother. In two weeks and a half, I can see a big difference. It has definitely encouraged my skin's cell turnover and has helped my skin have a more unified tone - by this I mean that my dark spots from acne scarring are either gone or slowly making their way out. Even my boyfriend has said that my skin has looked clearer. However, one thing it has not cure is the redness on my cheeks. I'm not sure what this redness is stemming from but it is there and looks like a bad acne rash.

 

My next skincare goal will be to tone the redness on my cheeks. This redness doesn't seem to be rosacea or anything similar but might be from lack of moisturization. The red skin isn't bumpy and doesn't seem to have any acne associated to it. It's just patchy and red. We'll see with time but I'll try to keep my skin as moisturized as possible without being a grease ball. 

I'm looking forward to the new collections coming out soon so you can expect some reviews of that stuff. I'm specially looking forward to the OPI Spring 2012 collection. Should be exciting! 

The Gelish Experience

Did you get my title? It's a twist on a movie title which I will admit I haven't seen yet. But I thought it would make a cool title, so there.

Gelish is quite the ingenious nail lacquer system. It was designed to be able to give yourself "gel nails", much as what you would get at a salon, at home. The "gel" cures on your own nails, giving you a harder, shinier finish than regular nail polish. It claims to stay on your nails for up to three weeks and look just as good as when you applied it.

From experience, the Gelish has lasted two weeks on me. The problem I have been having with the polish is that it sometime peels off at the tips or sides of the nail. And instead of not touching it, well, I touch it. And my manicure is ruined. Also, I find that the more coats the nail polish needs, the more I have experienced some peeling. However, other people I have applied Gelish to have not had any issues whatsoever. My mom did say that she chewed one nail and had to take her manicure off after a couple weeks.

Some tips for having the polish stay on longer is to dehydrate the nail before applying the polish (with the Gelish overpriced stuff, or basic rubbing alcohol) and to make sure you do not "flood" cuticles. This also implies that you should have NO cuticle remainders on your nail bed. This will cause the Gelish to detach from the nail. You also need to buff (enough so that your nail is not shiny) your nail in order for the base coat to stick.

From experience, do NOT peel off the gels off your nails. The gel is usually so stuck to your nail that it will ruin the surface of your nail by peeling off little bits. Don't worry, it doesn't hurt or anything but it will damage your nail, which is totally against what Gelish is made for. The best way to remove the polish is to use pure acetone on a cotton pad the size of your nail, and wrap your nail in tin foil for 10 minutes. The nail polish should easily be gently scraped off with an orange stick after.

The following polish is called Wiggle Fingers Wiggle Thumbs That's the Way the Magic Comes. What an idiotic name. Who the hells wants to spell that every time they talk about the polish? Saying WFWTTTWTMC is even worst. Therefore, it'll be called WIGGLE for the purpose of this blog.

So this is Gelish's WIGGLE. This was two coats. It could have used a third. I unfortunately didn't wear this color because I was starting a new job the next day. Bright blue nails are probably not the best way to start a new job.

This is Hot Rod Red. I really really loved this color. The glossiness was beautiful and the color was really nice to wear with pretty much anything. I got compliments on this manicure from people at my new job! I wouldn't say it pulls too much on orange - it's just a really bright creme red. It is similar to Bullish on OPI .

I tried to take this picture with Billie's tail but it's a bit blurry!

This shows the extremely glossy finish of this polish.

All and all, this is an excellent system if you're the kind of person who likes to stick to the same colors, who has no time to paint your nails every few days or if polish chips easily on you. 

The investment for this is minimal if you're savvy about it. I purchased my lamp on Ebay for a mere $12. Granted, it kind of sucks because I can't fit my thumb in it, but it does the trick, even if it's only an 9W. I will cure my nails in there for about 3 minutes per coat. I highly suggest purchasing the polish itself from Ebay sellers or Amazon.com. They are half the price that what is sold in stores. Sally's is ripping off Canadian customers selling MINI Gelish bottles for twice the price of a regular sized bottle on Amazon. Ridiculous. So do not go there. Patience will help you save a few bucks. 

So that is my Gelish post. I hope I didn't leave anything out. Feel free to comment or contact me with any questions!

Hope you all had wonderful holidays. Mine were exceptionally perfect this year.