I love Zoya's Barbie

I'm officially in love with Barbie by Zoya. A light creamy pink with blue undertones, this polish is a dream. The consistency came out streaky but smoothed put by the second coat, and perfectly opaque by the third. My only qualm with Zoya is that sometimes I feel the dry time is too long for me. But it is sped up with a coat of Seche Vite .
I bought this polish strictly on its name alone and was happy that it is as Barbie as I wanted it to be! Thanks Zoya.

Kat Von D True Romance Poetica Eyeshadow Palette Review and Swatches

Here are the swatches from the Kat Von D True Romance Poetica eyeshadow palette. Sorry, my arm is gross and has freckles! From left to right: "Forgiveness" a super shimmery white with gold sparkles in it. I couldn't see the gold at all in the pan until I swatched it and I was very surprised at how much gold is actually in it! "Sand Timer" is a light shimmery sand/greige, that almost doesn't show up on my skin. "Chandler" is a super reflective rust, which I think is my absolute favorite in this palette. "Tijuana" is a black with purple and rust colored micro glitter. "Wonderland" is a glittery dark purple with light purple micro glitter.  "Shiba" is a greyish purple with the same light purple shimmer as "Wonderland". "Babe" is a super bright purple with an iridescent blueish sheen to it. This is my second favorite, because I love bright colors, but don't have any with a sneaky iridescent finish to it. And last but not least "You Alone" is the most matte of the bunch, a creamy off white, leaning on the beige side, having only the slightest bit of shimmer to it. Almost not even qualifying as a shimmery eyeshadow. It's an in-betweener. I think "You Alone" would be the perfect color in this palette to use as a base color from lashline to brow. 

 

Above: With Flash

Below: Without Flash

As for what I think: Not going to go into detail reviewing each shadow, but I'll just tell you what I think of the palette as a whole. First of all, I love the packaging. The outside panels are a cool matte metal with an embossed design and has a great weight to it. The inside has a huge mirror the size of the whole case and the eyeshadows are a large and generous pan size. It has a little well for the Kat Von D "Autograph Pencil" which is a super black eyeliner pencil, included in the set. The quality of the pencil is very smooth, creamy, and blacker-than-black. I have nothing bad to say about the eyeliner really, however haven't tried it out so can't report on its staying power or smudging. Some shadows are "better" than others and I can say that they are all really pigmented, they blend easily, they are interesting and fun colors, but the one bad thing is there is quite a bit a dusty fall out on most of the shadows. And I believe I'm losing quite a bit of product each time  I dip a brush into a shadow. I give it a 4 out of 5. There's a range of colors to make multiple different looks and they're pretty good quality blendable shadows. Other than it does create a fair amount of fallout, maybe that's why they give you pretty large pans of each color! :)

 This was given to me as a gift from my boyfriend's mom who gives pretty trendy gifts. Thank you!

OPIs Bling Dynasty Swatch

I had to chop off my nails because I broke two of them! But I got to swatch a new color that I got for Christmas. It's OPI's Bling Dynasty. A rich golden shimmer. I used two coats here, but should have used a third. I really like it but I'm always skeptical of metallics and shimmers because they come out streaky often times. This only had minor streakage due to shaky cold fingers, I suppose. But looks festive for the holidays. My favorite now of all my golds.

OPI I Brake For Manicures Swatch

Merry Christmas everyone! I got a couple of polishes from my boyfriends stepmom today, one of them being OPIs I Brake For Manicures. I had time after my nap navidad to swatch it for you guys because it's a really interesting color but I'm not sure the pictures do it justice. It's a creamy dark grey/brown/purple that goes on smooth and opaque in just two coats. I love it. It's from the Touring America Collection which I loved almost every color of. It's a new shade for me, and perfect for winter! I'm glad I'm on a break from acrylics so I could easily swatch this on my natural nails!

I hope you can see the complex hue combo in this color- might add a sunlight pic later on. Thanks, Diane!

Do any of you guys have this color? What do you think of it?

Merry Xmas, followers!

Essie School of Hard Rocks Swatch

Ahhh I've had this polish for a few weeks now and haven't gotten a chance to swatch it out because my crap long acrylics and my 30 day challenge. But here's the scoop: School of Hard Rocks from Essie's Winter 2011 Collection is a creamy, slate blue/green/grey polish that glides on smooth and opaque in just 2 coats. I was sorta worried as it's been sitting upright in its drawer for at least 3 weeks and it had already settled at the thin liquidy stuff rose to the top. I gave it an extra few shakes and it was good as new. The first coat was transparent and streaky, but it coulda just been me, as my hands are very badly sore from 3 straight days of crocheting Xmas presents. I love the color, it is such a new shade of blue/grey/green (lol) that I really haven't seen before. I instantly felt like it was winter and it made me feel very warm inside. The only problem I have with this polish: when I was applying top coat, the polish started to rub off onto the top coat brush!!! And I'd had my nails dried for nearly 45 minutes! Maybe it was just this top coat, I'll let you guys know next time when I use a different top coat. But my review stands: this is a great new color!! I love it, and can't wait to try the other Winter 2011's from Essie!

Huge Post: Haul, Swatches, Reviews... (Pic Heavy)

This is OPI's "Crown Me Already" from the Miss Universe Collection (the silver and large hex glitter). And the blue is "Across The Universe " by Deborah Lippmann.

OK let's start with 'Crown Me Already': I'm not sure if it was just this bottle, it's my friend Megan's and she ordered it online and she said when she recieved it a little bit had leaked out a bit. Not sure if it was a little think because of the insane amount of glitter, or because of the leak, but it was pretty hard to apply, and seemed to PUSH more polish out of the bottle each time I put the brush back in. I love the glitter, love the sparkle, but it was pretty hard to smooth out the texture, even with Seche Vite top coat. I also used a toothpick to push the large hexagon glitters around to keep my cuticle line clean looking.

"Across the Universe" is a dream glitter polish. It only took 2 medium coats to opaque and despite it being loaded with hexagons, it went on smooth, and had a jelly-like finish. It was smoothed out instantly with only one coat of Seche Vite. This is also Megan's polish. I got to swatch these while dog-sitting her super awesome golden retriever, Lady. Hey Megan!

YAY 3D acrylic! I'll go into details about that further down the page, as this is a swatch review for Essie's "Raise Awareness". It's Essie's breast cancer awareness pink and it is a lil tricky. I did read another review of this polish saying it was streaky and it is. I feel like when I'm painting tips it's even streakier vs. whole nail application. So this is two coats. I love the color, it would be less streaky with 3 coats, but I don't like to have heavy looking tips. I think that this polish would be less streaky in 3-4 months as it ages and becomes a little thicker.

Here is my pink nail drill I just got yesterday from Beauties Factory. Check it out here. I got it for about $25, and actually this is my replacement drill for the one I just got last month and BROKE. Now for this review I would like to make it clear that I BROKE the drill the first time. It did not come malfunctioning. Good news: the BF pink drill has a one year warranty, and this one was sent to me for $10 fee and I got to keep my other drill, it's cable, and drill bits. As for it's power: it goes up to 20,000 RPM (super fast and powerful) but so far I haven't had to use it at it's max speed; it does the job on medium. I've successfully filed a nail I had to put on today, and carved out the moon tips from my squared off nails. It did a fine job, my tips are sharp and more defined that with my previous battery powered drill. See above, the moon tips in my Essie "Raise Awareness" pictures. The only down side I have seen with this drill so far: it gets pretty warm in my hand after long use, and once it has overheated and slowed down. I turned it off for about 5 minutes, and was able to use it just fine again. I would reccomend this to any beginners for use on home acrylic application. And these are my acrylic brushes that I got JUST for doing 3D kawaii japanese nail art!!! and this 12 color set of acrylic powder. The colors are pretty random, but I'm not too picky about that right now these are just for practicing 3D stuff. I only paid about $2.50 for the 5 brush set (free shipping) and $6 or so for the acrylics also free shipping. It only took about 2 weeks to get here from China, and they are good enough quality to do a few little bows and flowers.

The website is here and it's insanely cheap for decent quality nail stuff like rhinestones, glitter, etc. So you should DEFINITELY check it out. Free shipping from China to US and came in a super decent amount of time. The comtainer that the acrylics came it was a little dusty (as shown) but I just dusted it off with a paper towel after I saw how yuck it was in the photo. None of it was spilled in shipping, but it was just a little dusty with powder. The brushes are super cute and the bristles are a nice soft sable hair for acrylic application, and they clean as well as my expensive ones from Sally's.



Well, if anyone read this whole thing, kudos to you, and I hope this was helpful for someone!

Stolen: Sweet Memories

Literally, I stole this out of my boyfriend's mom's room. (I'll put it back where I found it.) But it was just too pretty for me not to try it on. It's OPI's "Sweet Memories" Ahhhh its such a soft pretty pale white-pink. I had to put on almost 4 coats to have it cover up the remnants of my purple glitter tips from 2 weeks ago.

It's so pretty I want want WANT this exact polish for my self. It's so pretty I did a swatch, and I never post swatches!