Vintage Vixen Swatches - "Hotsy Totsy"

Hello Everybody! I have a very exciting post today: One half of the China Glaze Fall Collection, Vintage Vixen. I have been very excited to see these shades for myself and they do not disappoint. The only way they disappoint me is that they make me wish it was fall!

Vintage Vixen is a collection of 12 foxy, vintage shades and I am showing you them in two parts. Today is going to be the first 6-piece set: Hotsy Totsy. Tomorrow I will show you my swatches of other set.

Okay, ready? >>>

Jitterbug - This is a steel colored, mega shimmer with a sort of foil finish. It's part foily metallic, and part shimmer. Very flashy and hott. This is 2 coats.

Swing Baby - Same concept as Jitterbug but this is a champagne colored shimmery foil shade. This appears to have several different colored particles in it to give it the overall shade it is. It is hard to peg as "cool", "warm" or "neutral". This is on the thinner side than Jitterbug though. I needed three coats.

Bogie - This is a eggplant purple shade with silver shimmer. WOW. I really like this one. I wish it was fall so I could wear it! It doesn't feel like a summer color.

Hey Doll - This is a mauvy, rose with shimmer. Not a color I would normally go for, but it is still pretty.

Ingrid - Ah, the beloved taupe nail polish. Do we have lots of them? Sure, but this one is special thanks to the caramel colored shimmer.

Foxy - A very unexpected surprise. This is a very brown, red shimmer. On coat 1 it looks mostly like a red shimmer (boring), but by the second coat it has a more noticeable brown color to it (awesome). This is another one that is making me wish it was fall.

How pretty are these? I would have normally thought tomorrow's set would be way better thanks to the bold colors like blue and green, but this set is fantastic! There is lots to enjoy here. The formula of these are a bit thin and runny, but very pigmented allowing for two coats on all except for Swing Baby. Hey Doll may need 3 coats but by doing a thicker second coat I was able to get away with just two.

Stay tuned for Part II!!

Elaine
:c)


Disclosure: The products featured in this post were furnished to me by the manufacturer or PR company for review. For more information please visit my disclosure policy.

New Revlon Nails + Giveaway

Hi all! I have had these for far too long! I am so glad to finally post them.

I received some new nails from Revlon to show you. They are colored nails in Revlon Red and Royalty.

Revlon Red

Royalty - These are actually colored gold on the underside to give you an effortless "Lubu mani"! How cool is that?!

Revlon Red - These were a bit smaller than I anticipated. I tried to get them on without having my natural tips peeping out but that made the ring finger end up way high from the cuticle. It looks a bit strange. It's just for swatch purposes. I didn't actually wear them like that!

Royalty - Wow. This is a gorgeous dark plum with a royal purple shimmer. So pretty. They look sort of duochromy. These say they are medium length like the red ones but they are clearly longer. I don't know. And the gold underside would be enjoyable if I didn't have my tips showing. The concept of these is WAY AWESOME but you can really only rock it if you have short nails with very little to no free edge.

Here are some things I must say about these nails:

1. The glue that comes with these is very strong. You don't need to worry about wear time. As long as you want them on, they will stay on.
2. Do not follow the instructions for how much glue to put on. It says to completely cover your natural nail, and the false nail with glue. If you did that you will get glue squeezing out all over the place and end up gluing yourself together and having your mani look like crap. Instead, apply glue to only one of the contact surfaces and I find the best way to do this is fully cover the inner portion, but not go all the way to the edge as the glue will spread out to the edges when you press them down.
3. The package says to soak these nails in acetone nail polish remover to get the nails off. This does not work! Acetone nail polish remover is made up of several other ingredients diluting the power of the acetone and it is not strong enough to dissolve the nails as the box says. You will get frustrated and rip them off, and you will be real sorry. Trust me. I have made this mistake already. LEARN FROM MY MISSTEPS! You need to use 100% acetone to remove these nails. It is not expensive and you can buy it at Sally's Beauty supply or any other nail/beauty supply. Get a little bowl and soak for a minute and they will seriously dissolve. You can use a manicure stick to help scrape them off if needed and if there is any residual glue on the nail you can get it off with a cotton ball and the acetone. I know acetone is drying, but this is what you need to do. Just wash it off your hands immediately and moisturize.
   

AND here is some great news... I have an extra package of each of these to share with you! I also have a package of Sequin style nails from the Runway Collection that I reviewed way back here.

Oooooh! Sparkles!

So, the prize is 1 package each of Revlon Red, Royalty and Sequins nails. They will all go to one, randomly chosen winner. The entry form is at the top of my page. The contest will run from today until Monday, March 1st at 11:59 PM EST. Internationally readers are welcome to enter! Good Luck!

And don't forget about the Skin MD Natural Giveaway I have going on as well! You can enter once for both of these giveaways! (Although the lotion giveaway is only open to US and Canada residents.)

Dinosaur Eggs

Hi everyone! I am trying to post this quickly because I really need to lay down (headache ): )

This is a mani I did a while back with all of the Sally Hansen - Complete Salon Manicure Colors I showed you here.

Lavender Cloud, Yellow Kitty, Commander in Chic

Gray by Gray, Thinking of Blue, Plum Luck

And a few more bottle pics:

See you tomorrow with something great!

New Sally Hansen Complete Salon Manicure Swatches

Remember how I said Sally Hansen came out with new polishes and I had some to share? Well today is the day I am sharing! It's the new line that has been popping up: Complete Salon Manicure. First off, I love the bottles. They are 0.5 oz but they feel much bigger. They are huge and have a lot of glass making them pretty heavy. They are awesome! The base of the bottles are square, but going up in gets round. And there is a band of rubber on the top for ease of opening and holding while painting. Genius!

Yellow Kitty - Awww! Isn't this adorable!? That is exactly what I think when I look at this. This is a pale yellow cream. Not as bold and creamy as say BB Couture - Little Deuce Coupe, and not as jelly as Rescue Beauty Lounge - Squarepants. It's right in between. This went on pretty well for a yellow, but I did 3 coats still to make sure it was even. Do you think the name is a play on "Hello Kitty"? I wonder...

Thinking Of Blue - I love this color... SO MUCH! I had it on Friday and while at the dermatologist in the waiting room, I heard one of the ladies at the front desk say to the other "her nails are gorgeous". Aw! Awesome! This is a dark blue creme, but it isn't navy. It has a drop of purple, but I wouldn't call it blurple. I think it's indigo. Yup. That is what I am going with. I hear this is similar or maybe identical to Sephora by OPI - Blue Grotto, but I don't have it to compare. Sorry! This swatch is 2 coats.

Commander in Chic - Hottness. This is in that mushroom, brown-taupe catergory, and I can't believe it, but I think this is my first like this. Except maybe OPI - You Don't Know Jaques Matte. But that is matte. I don't have a regular creme like this. This swatch is three coats, but I did very, very thin coats. You could probably do two.

Gray by Gray - This name kills me! Does this look gray to you? NO! It is blue. A gray-ISH slate, blue. But it's very pretty regardless. It is reminding me of the new Spring release from RBL, 360. We'll have to see how they match up someday. This swatch is 2 coats.

Plum Luck - This is a plum creme. I don't have much more to say than that! Plum. Pretty. 3 coats.

Lavender Cloud - This looks white, I know. It is. Ha Ha! It has the ittiest, bittiest bit of lavender. It's like if you took one big fluffy cloud and added one drop of purple to it for the whole cloud. You can hardly tell. I made a comparison swatch next to a real white so that you can see it isn't pure white:

Lavender Cloud on the left and OPI - Alpine Snow on the right.

And I scanned the brochure I picked up at the drugstore so you can see what new colors there are:

PS - These have the same tapered brush as Sally Hansen - Insta-Dri polishes with the big, flat wand:
Have a lovely and relaxing Sunday!

Borghese LE set: Serena

So, it's taken me a bit to get these to you! But here they are... at least half of them! This is the Borghese polish collection, Serena. The other set, Allegra, is posted on Vampy Varnish, with my pictures and review! It's so nice that Kelly featured me as a guest blogger!

Serena has four mini polishes and they are very pretty! They do not have individual names for the colors though, which I can't stand! They don't even have a number!


This is a brown with gold and red glitter! I had to have this color. It's so unique! It also has little flecks of silver in there too. We do have another holiday polish that is similar: OPI - Holiday Glow. Let's see how they compare:The gold in the Borghese color is bigger and I think the red is more pronounced too. I would pick the Borghese.

This duochrome is deep and beautiful. It is a blue-gray base that shows colors from green to blue to teal to plum. It is much better than my pictures can show. A close match if you would like a full sized bottle, is Savina - Black Pearl.

This glitter in the bottle looks identical to Sally Hansen - Rockstar Pink which is one of my favorite colors. But, it is not. The glitter is the same, but the density is not. The Borghese polish is much less dense. It takes 3 coats of it to match just one of Rockstar Pink:

This doesn't make it a bad polish. It's just not a full coverage glitter. It's good for layering.


And finally, we have a very sweet, deep purple/plum. 2 coats, and looks fantastic!


This set, along with Allegra, can be found in drugstores and Ulta and goes for $9.99.

Don't forget to check out the compliment to this series on Vampy Varnish! THANK YOU KELLY!

Maybelline Vanishing Venus

Hello! I had a really great post of my manicure this past weekend planned, but I left the pics at home so I can't post them right now and I wanted to put up something! So today I bring you a pretty color from Maybelline. It is called Vanishing Venus. I borrowed it from a friend. I was so intrigued by it because I went to her place one day with Rescue Beauty Lounge - Scrangie on and couldn't wait to see her reaction because it is so unique. She looks at my nails and says "Is that Maybelline?" Are you serious?! Maybelline does not make a color that is a dupe of Scrangie. So I had to borrow it and see. It is definitely not a dupe, but I see where she was going. Scrangie is more of a blue-purple-lilac with a blue-green shimmer, and Vanishing Venus is a deep plum-eggplant color with a more green shimmer. I don't know if this color is discontinued, but I have never seen it in stores. But you can just add it to the hard-to-find shades you are going to hunt for! There are dupes to this color, however they are hard-to-find too. There is Urban Decay - Bruised and NYX - Grafitti. I was most exicited to learn about Grafitti and rushed over to NYX's website to find it but instead found that Grafitti is now what looks like a gray-white shimmer. Boo. I really hate the interchanging of names/colors that NYX does. Not cool.

And I will post the awesome weekend mani I had on either later today or tomorrow!

Last Minute NY Buys

Hello! Before I left from my parents on Sunday I decided to do a little last minute shopping. I checked CVS for any interesting stuff, and Claire's because my Claire's here never seems to have anything good. Take a look at what I found:
Milani - Antique, Claire's - Green Confetti, Goldmine, Rockstar and Orange Neon

(Make sure to click on the pics for the enlarged size! :c) )
Sun


Shade

Goldmine is definitely my favorite. I have had CND-VIP Status on my wishlist but it is hard to find, and this looks just the same. Check out this close up:Huh?! Awesome right!?