31DC2013: Bring It On Edition

I've seen a few people joining this 31 Day Challenge starting Sept 1 (tomorrow, eep!) and I decided to join in. I'm going to really try to stay on track but it's hard to do daily stuff! I've never done this 31 day challenge so I fully expect mine to be the most basic out of everyone's!

Anyone else joining? You can find more details at Chalkboard Nails! Let me know if you're joining, I definitely want to make sure to follow everyone!

Now I need to go to the store and find red nail polish since I didn't bring any on my road trip. I'll use any excuse to buy more nail polish!! =P

Naughty

What an awesome title. Caught you're attention didn't it?

I'm currently out of town so I'm using some photos I took last week to keep ya'll busy so you don't miss me while I'm away!

Revlon Naughty has been in my stash for sometime, although why it didn't make it to my fingertips until now is a complete mystery. It's a fantastic shade of dark smokey purpley grey (yes I just made Purpley a work) with a bright purple flash that is killer! Very businesslike with a mischievous edge!

The purple flash wasn't as apparent as I wished it had been, like in the bottle. You could see it at some angles, but it wasn't very noticeable unfortunately.

In the dark or from afar, it looked like a regular smokey purple grey.

Three coats with base and top coat (Gelous & Seche Vite, of course!).

Overall it's a nice polish, business appropriate without being boring. That lovely purple flash eluded me but the formula was easy to work with so I'm happy with it.

Purple Flowers

Ever since I laid eyes on High Marks Purple, I wanted to do a pseudo-wall paper design with it and Lemondrops. Even though they're from different collections, they looked made for each other.

Base & Top Coat (Gelous, Seche Vite)
Barielle Lemondrops
Wet N Wild Field of Greens
Barielle High Marks Purple

I like the creme, simple, retro flowers against the glitter background and I think the yellow base color and flower center ties it all together nicely.

Battle of the White Polish

I use a lot of white nail polish for nail art. I love a nice, crisp background but whites can be finicky. Some can be goopy and thick, or thin and never become opaque, some formulas are harder to work with than others. I was using Sally Hansen White On from the Xtreme Wear collection and actually used up an entire bottle (eep!) but I'd heard such good things about other brands. I went to the store one day and randomly grabbed every white polish there to compare them - for ya'll as well as myself.

All polishes are brand new and all were swatched at the same time under the same conditions. Everything was equal for all of them! Each polish was used for a total of three coats, no base or top coat.

In alphabetical order:

Essie Blanc

Maybelline Porcelain Party

Milani White On The Spot

NYC French White Tip

OPI Alpine Snow

Sally Hansen Hard To Get

Sally Hansen White On

Sinful Colors Snow Me White

Wet N Wild French White Creme

Which do you think would do best? Do you swear by any of these whites? Before trying them, I think Sally Hansen White On (of course, I used it forever), OPI Alpine Snow, and Essie Blanc will be the winners, just because I am most familiar with those brands. Sinful Colors Snow Me White is supposed to be great, which I think is what spurred this post.

Here are the first four. I included each step plus the final clean up picture. Chart at the end of the post to summarize!

Next four...

Best 3 so far plus the straggler!

The final pictures for comparing!

Name	Price/oz*	Formula	Rating
Essie Blanc	$17.39/oz	Thick	8/10
Maybelline Porcelain Party	$17.34/oz	Thin, Runny	5/10
Milani White On The Spot	$9.97/oz	Medium, Runny	7/10
NYC	$2.20/oz	Thin, Runny	5/10
OPI Alpine Snow	$18.00/oz	Moderate, Easy to manage	10/10
Sally Hansen Hard To Get	$6.64/oz	Thin, Runny	5/10
Sally Hansen White On	$7.48/oz	Moderate	8/10
Sinful Colors Snow Me White	$3.98/oz	Moderate, easy to manage	9/10
Wet N Wild French White Creme	$2.30/oz	Moderate	6/10

* = USD per ounce, Prices May Vary

Of note, the only cruelty free white is Wet N Wild French White Creme (please let me know if I've got my information wrong!).

My top picks? OPI Alpine Snow, Sinful Colors Snow Me White, then Essie Blanc. I think you could get a crisp opaque white with two careful coats of OPI or Sinful Colors. After those 2, they're all 3+ coaters. Looking at the pictures, I think the lighting evened them out a bit. Also, I think base and top coat would help. I really feel a good top coat can even out any streakiness, but I wanted to compare each color on their own.

Now that I have waaaay more white than I'll ever need, it's nice to know which to use for nail art and base colors and which to use to lighten other colors!

Hope this was helpful. I'm definitely going to refer back to this post when I need to buy white polish, which should be in about 1,000 years. 

Lemondrops

Barielle Lemon Drops is a great yellow included in the Summer Brights collection available here. Great yellow, leans slightly orange. Bright, but not neon.

I will say, I enjoyed the formula on this one. It needed a good shake, and three thin coats were magical given that yellows tend to have crazy hard to work with formulas. I tried to be really careful, but it still managed to slide a bit. I'm not upset, as it's hard to find a good yellow.

Just looking at this makes me want to play Candy Crush! ^-^

Shining Star

Another one from the vault! I really do miss my light box. Especially on dark rainy days. I think I may need to make another one before winter gets here and there's nothing but clouds and snow. 

Orly Shining Star is a fabulous golden holographic glitter polish in a clear base.  It shines gold, green, and orange and lots of shades in between.

A single thumb alone for the polish by itself. Alone, it's kinda meh. Most glitters in clear polish are meant to be layered, in my opinion. 

Look at all those gorgeous glitters just wanting to stand out!

I thought this would look fabulous over a dark polish to really bring out all the golden holo goodness in this bottle!

Base Polish: L'Oreal The Queen's Ambition

I bet this would look killer over a dark green to really show off that gold. I may have to try that next. Adding a glitter like this over a color is a nice way to change it up if you're bored of a polish after one day (which I am super guilty of!) but don't want to change it up just yet.

Blue Visionary

Wet N Wild Blue Visionary is a great dark turquoise with light blue shimmer that I picked up recently. Applies kinda frosty so I needed to be careful with strokemarks. It also was really thin and needed four coats for full opacity. While I don't mind building for coverage, or even layering for less coats, it was really watery and needed very thin coats or the polish would shift on the nail and sometimes pool at the edges.

To my delight, however, I noticed that it is a duochrome and it flashes purple in some lights.

So I tried to see if in different lights and angles if it would translate onto the nail!

Maybe a little? Not much that I could tell. Mostly just beautiful blue and turquoise duochrome. Which is fine since I have nothing like it in my stash.

Or do I? O_o

The two closest to it are Sally Hansen Calypso Blue and Sally Hansen Teal Steel. Yes I marked the picture Sinful Colors originally. I also deleted the original so I had no way to fix it other than mark it out. Sorry everyone!

Wet N Wild Blue Visionary is an medium aqua with blue shimmer and theoretical purple duochrome. Thin formula, opaque with four coats. $1.99/0.45oz. Wet N Wild is cruelty free.
Sally Hansen Calypso Blue is a darker aqua with turquoise shimmer. Easy to work with formula, opaque in 3 coats. $7.99/0.5oz.
Sally Hansen Teal Steel is a sheer turquoise with aqua shimmer. Runny, thin. Can't make it opaque without a bajillion layers. Price is in between the two above.

I think Sally Hansen Calypso Blue, while being the most expensive and not cruelty free, is the prettiest color and easiest to work with. The others are closer and if you're a cruelty free beauty, then Wet N Wld Blue Visionary is a close second!

Sally Hansen Manicure Cuticle Eraser + Balm

Sally Hansen Manicure Cuticle Eraser + Balm is a neat little product I picked up the other day while at the store.

Info on back...

Ingredients for those who are curious.

The product itself is in a nice round container with a twisting seal. It's about the same size in diameter as Burt's Bees Lemon Butter cuticle cream container, but twice as tall it seems.

The balm itself is a swirl of green and white, which is fun, but we all know this fun spiral design is ruined the first time you use it.

When you rub it, the product comes off easily, very much like a balm. Nice and thin and easy to put on your nails and cuticles. Not much is needed, although it will stay a little green tinted until you rub it in completely, which can take awhile. No oily or greasiness here. I had fun putting it on my cuticles and then working on posts, which is hard to do with cuticle oil sometimes as it will run onto the keys. Yes, I've had that happen.

Overall, it's a nice product. It smells clean, hint of sweet cucumber and heavy lotion scent when you get close to it, but otherwise it's nothing bothersome or overpowering, which I appreciate. It's soft and easy to pick up a little on your fingertip, no digging necessary. You can apply it over nail polish and it doesn't do anything to your polish, which is nice.

I've been using it for a few weeks, usually daily but sometimes more than once a day or I'd go a few days without it. No drastic changes to my cuticles, but I've never been one to have really unruly cuticles. I think for people who just want a nice balm to moisturize and help with some double-tasking it would be great. It's easy to travel with - just put it in your purse and go so you can use it at work, on the bus, during a break, etc. It's going to last forever because you don't need that much. I've found with my usage I don't need to push my cuticles back as much, they stay groomed better, and when I do need to trim my cuticles, it's not as much or as often, so overall it's a winner!

Has anyone else tried this? Any thoughts of other product recommendations? My usual cuticle go to product currently (before this one) was the Sally Hansen Insant Cuticle Remover Maximum Strength which I think was a little too harsh for me, so I'm happily switching it up!

Nails: Wet N Wild Punch It Up

Punch It Up

Let's begin with the fun after pictures first! Wet N Wild Punch It Up with Kleancolor Metallic Purple tips. Absolutely fun to wear and is beautiful for a bright summery look. If I have a polish that still looks great with a little tip wear, I'll add a fun tip to it now that my hands are a little more steady to get another day out of the polish.

Now to the main polish!

Wet N Wild Punch It Up is a fabulous medium blue leaning hot pink with hot pink and purple duochrome microglitter. It shines and glitters and is pink and bright and fun and I can't think of anything else to say about it other than it screams summer and youth and fun.

I was searching for swatches to see what others had labeled this color and I found one (ONE!!) swatch. Holy cow. How is that possible? This color is fantastic! I did learn that this color is a new addition from back in March 2013 that is limited to Dollar General stores so if you're lucky enough to have one near you - I'd check out the Wet N Wild display! The other colors I mentioned in my previous haul post are also all limited to DG stores.

Three coats with base and top coat (Gelous and Seche Vite of course!). I likely could have gotten away with two coats but I did a third for good measure for pictures. When I wore this I received tons of compliments on it, which always says great things about the polish!

Rimmel Lash Accelerator Endless

I've been on the look out for a new mascara. While I love my Maybelline Falsies Flared, I keep thinking there may be something better out there. I recently was browsing my local makeup aisle and found Rimmel Lash Accelerator Endless. 

What it claims ...

What is inured? =) Someone was slacking in the proof-reading department!

The ingredients for those who are curious ...

It comes in a sleek tube - yellow and black, thinner at the end of the mascara tube and thicker at the lid.

The brush is a pretty nondescript plastic brush with pointy tips. I HATE this kind of brush. I feel like these are popular on a lot of "volumizing" mascaras but they seem to go past my thin lashes and brush on my eyelid and clump my lashes together. I can already tell you I wouldn't have bought this if I had known it was this brush.

Now, the money shots.

Rimmel Lash Accelerator Endless with Grow Loach Complex in Black.


Overall, I'm really disappointed with this mascara. It had such good reviews online and I wanted to break out from my Maybelline Falsies Flared run, but I think I'll go back to it. While it darkened and separated, it didn't volumize or lengthen. My lashes looked pitiful and non-existent. It also smudged after a few hours shopping (albeit on a hot, humid day) and I had on primer and powder on my lids because I know I'm super oily.

I'm not even going to comment on the lashes being longer with consistent use because I'll likely never wear this again. I have heard good things about the serum, though, which I've yet to actually see for sale.

Any other drugstores mascara recommendations for someone wanting dark, volumized, natural lashes that doesn't smudge? Am I asking for too much?

Nails: Rainbow French

Haul!

I haven't done a haul post in awhile, mainly because I haven't really bought anything recently. I went to a few local stores and got a few things, so these will be coming up soon!

Rainbow French

I've been trying to get back into more interesting nails and nail art, but it's a slow process when I try to keep my nails pseudo-business friendly for work. I was planning on a purple, green, and pink wallpaper flower design but High Marks Purple ended up chipping quickly and I had to take it off. I was actually at work today with nekkid nails! I haven't done that in awhile. I've even had one person mention that my nails weren't "fun!" Apparently I'm getting a reputation.

I do not do tips freehand well, so sorry for my lines in advance!

 

High Marks Purple

Barielle High Marks Purple is from the Barielle Brilliant Colors Collection. A fabulous dark pink leaning violet creme that is both fun and classy at the same time. Bright and bold and just gorgeous.

Dots

Then I decided to add some dots.