Haul-extravaganza

I did some major haulage this month in terms of retail therapy. Probably bought around $100 worth of nail polish alone and quite a bit more damage on clothes and makeup. Here's a quick glimpse of my polish haulage. I'll be doing reviews on mostly all of them if possible. My nails at the moment are in a very damaged state as I started to work in the pool again (it closed for 3 weeks), so the chlorine expire is stripping them all bare. I'll try my best to post up at least one swatch every two days! :)

My first haul is from Sally's Beauty Supply near the beginning of the month. I had intended to go in to see how much of the Tronica collection that I could salvage and unfortunately for me, all of the good ones have already been poached by other polish collectors. Only 4 were left and Virtual Violet being one of them, I quickly snatched it up. I also picked up Dorothoy Who? as soon as I saw it since I missed out during the Wizard of Oz collection as well. Not to mention Re-fresh Mint andI  Lemon Fizz each from the Up up & Away collection.  Having missed out on most of the new holos, as soon as I saw a holo top coat, Fairy Dust, I just knew that it was meant to be! (Flying Dragon was just one of my lemmings from a long time ago and thought one extra wouldn't hurt).

I don't usually shop at Sally's since it's so far away and out of travel distance from me, so I don't have one of those membership cards. But seeing as it was one of my rare trips to the East end of the city, I thought it would be fit to haul to my heart's content and pick up whatever else I wanted and get a membership card at the same time! Along with the polishes I also picked up acetone that smells like mixed berries when it evaporates (amazing!) and some nail polish thinner (not pictured in post).

China Glaze - Lemon Fizz

China Glaze - Re-fresh Mint

China Glaze - Fairy Dust

China Glaze - Virtual Violet

China Glaze - Purple Dragon

China Glaze - Dorothy Who?

A few weeks later, I was wandering the mall nearest to my house with my friend Cynthia and we both decided to stop by Winners. My original intentions where to pick up some new sheets for my boyfriend but somehow (as always), we wound up in the beauty section looking at nailpolish, hair products and perfume. OPI for a steal? That's almost never what you see where I live! I just knew that it was meant to be as well! Out of the few that were on sale, I picked up Oh So Glam! and You Don't Know Jacques - Matte. I didn't know that You Don't Know Jacques was matte at the time when I picked it up and only found out after I did swatches when I got home. Not a big problem though seeing as it can be easily solved with a topcoat.

OPI - Oh So Glam!

OPI - You Don't Know Jacques - Matte

My last polish purchase was Chanel's Morning Rose from their new Spring Collection 2011. I've been stalking the internet for swatches ever since the launch dates and promotional pictures were posted. Mimosa may be the most lemmed (sp?) shade for the summer, but yellows just don't cut it with my skin color and always makes me look extremely sallow even when pastel. I know I just purchased a yellow from China Glaze, but $5 is just so much easier to justify with myself then $26 is.

Chanel - Morning Rose 

That's all that I've purchased for this month polish wise and I feel like I've way exceeded my monthly limit to last me for awhile. I'm anticipating the June release of OPI's Pirates of the Caribbean collection and so far every shade looks absolutely gorgeous! Retailing for over $70 here, I might as well start saving up for it. Sigh, more money to spend...

Disclaimer: The products mentioned in this post where purchased by myself for the use and review purposes. My opinions are honest and are not influenced in any way at all. I was not sponsored for this post.

[SWATCH] China Glaze - Tronica; Virtual Violet

I absolutely love holographic nail polishes and I'm sad to say that I came into the game after the kaleidoscopes came out and missed out on those. The only other one that I have is China Glaze OMG (the holographic silver) which has striated holographic particles in it. When I tried to get ahold of some of the polishes from the Tronica collection, I was yet again too late and most had already sold out. The only ones left where the paler ones and Virtual Violet which I immediately grabbed as it was the last one on the counter. The Tronica collection is a set of polishes with a scattered holographic pattern which works best in direct sunlight, as with most all other holos.

Virtual Violet is an intense rich purple that when in the sun, reflects a multitude of colors. Holo polishes definitely lift and drag when applying so it's best to wait till each coat is completely dry before putting on the next. I also found with this one that a base coat made the first layer extremely uneven and splotchy. So your best bet would be to skip the base coat for these and go straight with the nail polish. Although you do have to wait for holos to dry before adding more coats, my experience showed to me that holos dry extremely fast.

Myself being obssessed with not having and VPL (visible nail line) I always apply 3 coats of whatever polish I'm using regardless if opacity is surpassed with the second coat. However for Virtual Violet, you can almost get away with it being completely opaque even with just one coat. In doing so, I only needed two coats per nail to achieve the color that you see below. And as always, I seal my manicures with a fast dry top coat.

China Glaze - Virtual Violet

China Glaze - Virtual Violet

China Glaze - Virtual Violet

China Glaze - Virtual Violet

China Glaze - Virtual Violet

China Glaze - Virtual Violet

China Glaze - Virtual Violet

China Glaze - Virtual Violet

I absolutely love this color and even though it wasn't the striated holographic polish that I sought after this one shines just as much in the sunlight. For anyone that appreciates and easy application and beautiful results, I'd definitely recommend you getting your hands on Virtual Violet.



Disclaimer: The products mentioned in this post where purchased by myself for the use and review purposes. My opinions are honest and are not influenced in any way at all. I was not sponsored for this post.

Apologies

Incredibly sorry for absolutely no updates or posts in this blog since the beginning of the month. My finals completely took over my life this entire month and I failed to keep up with my goal of bi-daily posts. Since summer has officially started for me today, I'll be trying my best to do so. In the meantime to keep my blog happily posted, here's a very small collection of a couple of my most recent manicures this month. Usually I do about at least 1-2 a week totally to 5-8 a month but because of my hectic schedule I was only able to squeeze in 3.

OPI - Nail Envy

China Glaze - Virtual Violet

Seche Vite - Fast Dry Top Coat

OPI - Nail Envy

China Glaze - Dorothy Who?, Fairy Dust

Seche Vite - Fast Dry Top Coat

OPI - Nail Envy

Chanel - Morning Rose

Seche Vite - Fast Dry Top Coat

Starting tomorrow or maybe even tonight if I feel motivated enough, I'll have another post up :) For now, have a good night!

[SWATCH] Rock & Republic: Saturate Eye Color - Exile

For my second installment of the Rock & Republic eyeshadow swatches, I chose Exile. So for a quick recap, I bought these off of Hautelook for $8.40 USD $24.00 USD each and they each come with 0.11oz/3g of product. Each eyeshadow is encased in a weighty solid plastic/metal container and are housed in black cylindrical packaging. The company logo is embossed anywhere to be found and all of the information on the product is found on the lower portion of the packaging and on the lower portion of the container. The eyeshadow flips up to reveal a mirror on the side with a plastic protective sheet covering the shadow.

The eyeshadows when swatched are very silky, smooth and glide onto the skin with much ease. Although they applied fairly pigmented dry, the colors became ever much more so prominent when applied with primer or wet.

Exile is a soft rose-gold copper base with many gold micro-shimmers. It's a beautiful neutral shade that can be used all over the eyelid or on the inner corners and lower lid as a highlight. I'd definitely recommed this color for first time shoppers of the cosmetics line as it is very easy to work with and not much blended is required to smooth out the color. Below are swatches when applied dry, with primer and wet. Enjoy!

Exile - Flash

Exile - No Flash

Swatches w/ Wet, Primer, Dry

Swatches w/ Dry, Primer, Wet

Disclaimer: The products mentioned in this post where purchased by myself for the use and review purposes. My opinions are honest and are not influenced in any way at all. I was not sponsored for this post.