The product in this post was given to me as a gift. All opinions are my own.
Hi gang! Just a quick swatch for you today! I recently got a bottle of Picture Polish Unicorn as a Secret Santa gift, and it is just as pretty as I was hoping! It has a minty blue base with small pink and silver glitters and purple shimmer. My pic doesn't really do it justice.
Picture Polish Unicorn. Two coats with Out the Door topcoat.
I have literally nothing bad to say about the formula. It was basically perfect, not too thick or too runny! I did have to use two coats of topcoat to smooth out the glitter. My nail line is just barely visible with two coats.
Enjoy your evening!
The product in this post was given to me as a gift. All opinions are my own.
Happy Friday!! Today I tried out a reciprocal gradient inspired by some of the manis at Simply Nailogical. She does some amazing stuff with gradients!
Unfortunately the colors I used weren't different enough to make the pattern as visible as I wanted. But in real life my nails still look pretty cool and subtle. I will definitely have to do this one again!
The polishes I used were A England Ascalon, Sleeping Palace and Briarwood. In case it's not clear what I did, I started by doing a gradient of all three, let that dry, then put down Scotch tape in triangle shapes and did another gradient going in the opposite direction.
The product in this post was sent to me for review. All opinions are my own.
Hi there! Hope your week is off to a good start! I just got back from the dentist to get a filling, ick!
Today I've got a review of a hair product for you! I know I complain about hair products a lot, since I have very fine hair and most products leave it feeling grimy and heavy. But I've been wanting to try a hair mask in the hopes that it will help tame my crazy flyaways.
InstaNatural kindly sent me a jar of their Argan Oil Hair Mask, and I'm on the whole pretty happy with it so far! This mask is packed with natural moisturizers, like argan oil, shea butter, coconut oil, jojoba oil and avocado oil, as well as other beneficial ingredients like green tea extract, amino acids and vitamin B5. The product claims to improve your hair's texture and shine, as well as protect it from heat.
The mask can be used in two ways: as a mask (duh), where you apply it all over damp hair, let it sit 5-15 minutes, and then rinse; or as a standard conditioner. I tried it both ways. It has a light creamy consistency and a pleasant, sweet fragrance.
Using the product as a mask, I didn't notice a huge visual change in my hair after one use, but it definitely felt a lot softer than usual! My hair didn't feel grimy at all, but it did look slightly weighed-down at the roots. This probably wouldn't be an issue for someone with thicker hair than me. As a conditioner, it didn't detangle as well as my usual conditioner. So I'll probably stick to the cheap stuff on a daily basis and use this mask once or twice a week for intensive moisturizing.
The jar is nice and big (8 fl. oz.), although you have to use a fairly large amount if you have long hair. I think it'll last me at least a couple months of weekly use.
Overall, I'm glad I got to try this mask, and I'll definitely keep using it, probably alongside a volumizer if I'm planning on leaving the house. I'm interested to see if there are any long-term benefits!
InstaNatural Argan Oil Hair Mask is currently on sale at Amazon for $17.95 down from $49.95, so it is absolutely a good deal right now!
The product in this post was sent to me for review. All opinions are my own.
The products in this post were sent to me for review. All opinions are my own.
Happy Friday! Today I'm excited to show off an upcoming collection from a new-to-me indie brand, Blue-Eyed Girl Lacquer! I was so honored that Julie asked me to review for her!
The Spark in the Dark collection is perfect for winter because it's full of different shades of blue, which made me really happy! Of course, blues are the hardest shades to photograph, so I had to color-correct some of these, and the colors still might not be 100% accurate. So I would definitely look for multiple swatches before purchasing if that concerns you!
A note on the formula: the brand states that their polishes are "designed to be opaque in one to two coats, so they may need to be thinned to your desired consistency." I found that they were definitely on the thicker side but still perfectly workable, so long as I was careful to wipe a lot of excess polish off the brush. I didn't feel the need to add thinner to any of them, but that's just my preference!
OK, let's start with an LE polish called Hypothermia! This polish will ONLY be available if you purchase the entire collection. It's described as a purple holo with purple shimmers, although to me the base color is more like faded indigo.
Blue-Eyed Girl Lacquer Hypothermia. One coat with Out the Door topcoat.
The purple shimmers were hard to catch on camera, but they're definitely there in real life. The holo effect is nice and strong. This polish was a great one-coater!
Next is Bound to the City Life, a dark teal jelly with multicolored holo microglitter. It has great depth and sparkle!
Blue-Eyed Girl Lacquer Bound to the City Life. Two coats with Out the Door topcoat.
Since this is a jelly, it was thicker than the others and took a little more finesse to apply evenly. I didn't find it unpleasantly goopy or sticky though.
This is Counting Down Until I See You, which has a clear base packed with pink microglitter, as well as some larger pink glitter, gunmetal grey glitter, and silver reflective beads. Definitely the blingiest member of the collection!
Blue-Eyed Girl Lacquer Counting Down Until I See You. Two coats with Out the Door topcoat (left) and Revlon matte topcoat (right).
Since this one's very sparkly, I added matte topcoat to my ring and pinky nails so you can see the details a little better. (Plus I think it looks great matte!) The glitter applied very evenly, and two coats was sufficiently opaque for my taste.
Next up is It's Almost After Midnight, a smoky dark grey with strong blue shimmer. This is definitely one of my favorites in the collection--it's so moody!
Blue-Eyed Girl Lacquer It's Almost After Midnight. Two coats with Out the Door topcoat.
This polish was sheer on the first coat but built up well on the second. I couldn't stop staring at my nails. :-D
Here's Never Danced Like This Before, a navy holo with teal shimmer. It's gorgeous, with a jeweltone-like quality to it.
Blue-Eyed Girl Lacquer Never Danced Like This Before. One coat with Out the Door topcoat.
This was another one-coater. I'm really impressed with how she manages to get such depth and opacity in a polish at the same time! The holo particles here are a little bigger and less dense than in Hypothermia.
Next is She's Electricity, a hot pink holo with pink and aqua shimmers and purple-blue iridescent microglitter. This one feels like a splash of summer in amongst all the blues!
Blue-Eyed Girl Lacquer She's Electricity. Two coats with Out the Door topcoat.
The extra shimmers and glitter are visible, but they don't pop out quite as much as I was hoping. Maybe if I added some thinner? The holo effect here is the weakest of the three holos in the collection.
Next up is The Years Have Been Short, which is a slightly white-tinted base with blue, white and iridescent microglitters, blue shimmer, and silver reflective beads. This polish just screams "snowstorm" to me!
Blue-Eyed Girl Lacquer The Years Have Been Short. Two coats with Out the Door topcoat.
Again, the glitter applied very evenly and I was happy with the opacity at two coats. I think this would also look nice layered!
Finally, here's Wanna Fall in Love Tonight, a red-toned purple with golden red shimmer. This dries to a semi-matte finish, so I've left it au naturale on the two left fingers and added topcoat on the two right fingers. (Pardon my huge nail ridges!)
Blue-Eyed Girl Lacquer Wanna Fall in Love Tonight. One coat with Out the Door topcoat (ring and pinky fingers).
Although my nail line is visible here, I couldn't really see it in normal lighting. I probably could've gone for two coats though. As you can see, the shimmer is very fine and adds a luminous quality to the polish.
In addition to the Spark in the Dark collection, I also received a limited edition polish in the Siren Series, which will only be restocked once. Sirens Are Made For Water, Not Snow is a blue creme with a purple flash that dries semi-matte. As above, I added topcoat only to the ring and pinky nails.
Blue-Eyed Girl Lacquer Sirens Are Made For Water, Not Snow. One coat with Out the Door topcoat (ring and pinky fingers).
I was a bit disappointed to find that the purple shimmer is much weaker on the nail than in the bottle. (My camera couldn't pick it up at all because it was confused by all the blue.) This might be another case where adding thinner could help.
Overall, I think this is a really solid collection, especially with all those gorgeous blue polishes! My favorites would have to be It's Almost After Midnight, Never Danced Like This Before, and The Years Have Been Short. Which do you like best?
All these polishes will be released on January 12 at Blue-Eyed Girl Lacquer's shop! You can get the entire eight-piece Spark in the Dark collection for just $67 (13 ml size) or $37 for minis.
Hi again! Whew, I've had a long day mixing up nail polish, and my hands are sore from shaking bottles! Can't wait to show you the new stuff... ;-D
So today, as promised, I have my five favorite manis from last year. As I was going through the blog, it was a little sad to see that I did so much less nail art in the past six months than at the beginning of 2014. I guess I haven't felt much inspiration lately. Maybe I should make a New Year's resolution to do more nail art this year!
Anyway, here are my top five (#1 is my absolute favorite):
Hi guys and gals! As promised, I'm going to show you some of my favorite posts from last year. Today I narrowed it down to my top five swatched polishes, which was pretty hard, believe me! Are we surprised that they're all purple or teal??
In no particular order (each title is linked to my original post):
Happy New Year everyone!! 2014 sure went by quickly, didn't it?
We got back from our long trip yesterday after driving 5.5 hours through the big storm that was all over the eastern U.S. Now it's time to get back to life (and start eating better again!), but first I'll show you some more manis I wore over the holidays, and a couple other photos!
This was what I wore on Christmas: Happy Hands Metal Heart.
Then for my 10-year high school reunion, I wore Powder Perfect Maneater with an accent of Indigo Bananas Moonlight:
You can't see it in the sun, but Maneater actually has a lot of blue-green iridescent glitter, so I took another pic that shows it better:
Finally, I have a few photos from our visit to the Henry Ford Museum in Detroit. I used to go there for field trips all the time, but I hadn't been back in many years. As you might guess, the museum mainly focuses on the history of technology, especially cars, trains and planes, but they have a lot of other exhibits too, such as the chair Abraham Lincoln was shot in. It's definitely worth a visit if you're in the area.
Here's the Oscar Mayer Wienermobile:
Rosa Parks' bus:
FDR's presidential limo (they also have JFK's limo, which was actually used by other presidents after JFK was assassinated in it. Kinda morbid, don't you think?):
One of their special exhibits was a Lego display with some models of Detroit skyscrapers:
I'll be back soon with a roundup of some of my favorite manis from 2014!
