Diamond Cosmetics Spring 2010

Hello all! Hope you are having a good start to the week!

Today I have swatches of the entire Spring collection from one of my faves: Diamond Cosmetics. I was worried at first I would be a bit bored by the pink shades, but my opinion quickly changed. Let's take a look, shall we? :c)

Razzmatazz - This is a pretty, soft, mauvy pink with a very strong purple/pink flash. That flash is what really makes this shade special. Otherwise it may have just been "it's pink. move on". This is much more special than that. This was actually the first I wore for a full mani! I like it because it's work-safe but not boring at all. This shade is very flattering. I can't imagine it looking bad on anyone. I think it's even more vibrant in real life than in the pic. This is 2 coats.

Orange Blush - What a perfectly descriptive name! This is a orange shade that is very pinkish, like it's blushing. The finish of this is a jelly meaning that it isn't a opaque creme. It is slightly translucent giving that soft "squishy" look. This is another soft, safe shade but very interesting. If orange polish is too garish for the occasion this is a great alternative. This is very springy to me. It's like a jelly bean! This is 3 coats.

Hot Lips - Whoa!! Hott! This is a super bold, fuchsia, nearly-neon, creme. I was really excited about this shade in the bottle because it was a very cool-leaning fuchsia and was deep and bold. But once I got it on my nails it didn't look the same. It looked warm and red. I realized it must be a bit transparent and my yellow nails underneath was what was altering the color so I layered it over a white creme on my thumb and that looked like the bottle color I was looking for! This is 2 coats.

Gypsy Pink - I love this name! This is a very red-sided fuchsia pink with tons o' shimmer! Very fun and festive! This is springy, but wild springy! No wimpy pastels here! Hott! This is 2 coats.

Serendipity - What a gorgeously perfect shade. I love this! This is a very gray, pale blue with silver shimmer. This is so gorgeous and perfect. I love the look of this. This is not boring at all but it is soft and delicate. How pretty!? I did have to do 3 coats to get it camera ready but you could probably get away with two. This is a must have!

Tranquility - This is the blue pastel creme that was missing from China Glaze's Up & Away collection! I love this sky blue creme! I have been itching for a shade just like this! I can stop searching! The formula of this reminds me of the Up & Away pastels too. It is very pigmented and a bit thick but that allows for a flawless 2-coat application. I love the name of it too but it seems to me that Serendipity is actually the tranquil one! This one seems bold and bright! That's okay. I don't care what it's called! This is hott!

The Spring collection from Diamond Cosmetics is available now and retails for $2.25 a bottle (man I love Diamond for their prices. Thank you for making such beautiful shades for such an affordable price!) or you can purchase the entire collection with 4 treatments and a nail file for $25. Click here to shop.

What do you think?!
-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.

Gray Creme Comparisons Featuring Nubar Fortress

Happy Saturday all! I should be out drinking and celebrating St. Patrick's Day, but my partner in crime had a surprise visitor in Michigan to go see. She got a new nephew! Very exciting, but sux for me! So instead I bring you a new blog post and I hope it is a helpful one. I guess it is for the best. It's a gloomy, rainy day anyway.

(*Please note, I am uploading these using Internet Explorer and that means that the pics aren't "clickable" for their full size. Usually I upload from work where I have Mozilla Firefox. PS - If anyone knows how to upload with IE and still have them clickable, please email me! I am not computer savvy and have been trying to find the answer to no avail!)

I did some comparison pics of the new Nubar Fortress gray cremes against some other popular gray cremes out there. For my original swatches of Nubar Fortress you can look here.

First up, China Glaze Recycle.

From left to right:

Nubar - Stronghold

Nubar - Palisade

China Glaze - Recycle

Nubar - Barricade

Once I got them on the nails I realized Recycle would have fit better next to Stronghold. I didn't realize how dark it was! But Stronghold is still darker.

Next up: Sally Hansen - Wet Cement

From left to right:

Nubar - Barricade

Sally Hansen - Wet Cement

Nubar - Citadel

Nubar - Marble Tower

No dupes, but Wet Cement seems very close to Barricade, just a smidgen lighter.

And lastly: Rescue Beauty Lounge - Concrete Jungle

From left to right:

Nubar - Palisade

RBL - Concrete Jungle

Nubar - Barricade

Nubar - Citadel

Again, not a dupe but Concrete Jungle is close to Palisade, having the same blue tones, but is lighter.

Here are a couple shots just of the Nubars against each other:

From left to right:

Stonghold, Palisade, Barricade, Citadel

Palisade, Barriade, Citadel, Marble Tower (bottle is Stronghold)

Hope this helps you with your gray purchases!

-Elaine

Slate Blues

Hello everyone! How are we?! :c)

I have a new love. Slate blue. We have had several releases lately and I have been attracted to them all. My most recent purchase was MAC - Blue India yesterday. I thought I could resist. But I thought that with Peppermint Patti and when I decided I wanted it I couldn't find it. MAC sure knows how to get us with their limited edition shades. Ugh!

I thought it would be nice to do a comparison of all these slate blues for our reference. Here it is!

edit: make sure to click for the enlarged view! :c)

From left to right:

BB Couture - Moon Over Manhattan
Rescue Beauty Lounge - 360
Sally Hansen - Gray By Gray
MAC - Blue India

BB Couture has a ton of shimmer that the others do not, so it is pretty unique.
360 has a slight green tinge to it and a secret shimmer. It is very secret. I would feel more comfortable calling it creme.
Gray By Gray is pretty and pale.
And Blue India is the darkest of the bunch but pretty and perfect and surprisingly the formula was great. I was preparing myself for crappy application.

What do you think?
HAPPY FRIDAY!

Brown Polish SPAM

I can't recall ever posting much about brown polish. Maybe a couple here and there but it seems I don't wear it enough. I guess it seems to "common" and I need the bright and unique, uncommon shades to feel comfortable, but I wear brown so little it makes it seem like brown is the unique shade around here. Here are a few:

Revlon - Chocolate Truffle - This is a brown, milk chocolate creme. I love Revlon's thin formula. It's thin and fast drying but still pigmented. This is 2 coats.

Essie - Priceless - I think this is a bit more rare than Chocolate Truffle. This is a redder brown with irregular shaped, silver shimmer.

NYX - Secret - Oooh. This is a deep, reddish brown shimmer. So pretty! I should be wearing this right now!

OPI - Holiday Glow - This is from this past holiday collection from OPI: Holiday Wishes. It is a dark chocolate shade with red, gold and silver sparse micro-glitter.

What cha think about brown NP?

Little Green for Your Life

Just dropping in to give you a little something green and awesome!

Nubar - Reclaim moons and OPI - Jade Is The New Black

And a bonus of Nubar - Reclaim shining in the sun. I can't get enough.

Thank your shamrocks for amazing green NP!

New Konad Plate M78 Swatches

Happy Monday all! Hope you're doing well! I just went to the dentist and am not doing too great. My teeth are killing me! But I have some things to show you so hopefully by the time I am done with this post I will feel better!

I have some swatches using all of the designs of one of the newest Konad plates: M78. I like M78 because it is a plate of full-nail designs. I find those to be much easier to work with. When I try to do small stuff I always mis-align them.

plate M78 - Clockwise starting with butterflies, leopard/tiger, weird abstract circles and stuff with a fan/marble thing, marble print and hearts with semi-circle and dots.

Butterflies. Pretty Standard. Great example of my lack of centering skills.

This is a combo animal print stamp. Very interesting. It is a full nail design with leopard spots and tiger stripes. I was unsure about this one but I liked it with this color combo. The base is Nubar - Reclaim and the stamps are China Glaze - Awaken and Millennium used at the same time.

This is the fan looking thing stamped with China Glaze - Passion and Harmony over BB Couture - Green Goblin. (We've seen this before)

This is the marble stamp used over my gray ombre manicure with the Nubar Fortress Collection. I love this! Are the stamps light on dark, or dark on light?! It's like an optical illusion! The base colors from left to right are Nubar - Stronghold, Palisade, Barricade, Citadel and the stamp colors from left to right are a white creme, Nubar - Marble Tower, Citadel and Stronghold.

The last full nail design I actually broke up into two:

This is the semi-circle and dots stamped with China Glaze - 2030 over China Glaze - Sexy In The City.

And this is the hearts stamped with China Glaze - Millennium over Sinful Colors - Let's Talk. (Please note that this isn't really color accurate. It's not bad but it is pulling too blue. Let's Talk is a royal purple)

What do you think?!
:c)
-Elaine

HEY EVERYONE!

I just feel like posting something for you guys but have nothing prepared! SOOOOO I am going to hit you with what I have available to me: SPAM!

I have on Nubar-Reclaim today, and I can't show you the current mani, but I have an older swatch I did of it and then I decided that I will just give you all the green I have on me and make today "Green SPAM Friday for March"!!! Sound good? GREAT!

Nubar - Reclaim

Orly - Enchanted Forest

China Glaze - Emerald Sparkle

Misa - Toxic Seduction

Maybelline - Glad To Be Green

Misa - Dirty Sexy Money

Essie - Mint Candy Apple

Barry M - Mint Green

BB Couture - Poison Ivy

Illamasqua - Rampage

Illamasqua - Hectic

Illamasqua - Elope

Claire's - Dreamcatcher

BB Couture - Studio 54

Diamond Cosmetics - Never So Evergreen

Sinful Colors - Happy Ending

Sinful Colors - Innocent

Rescue Beauty Lounge - No More War

Rimmel - Camouflage

Have a wonderful weekend!
Elaine
:c)

Laine's Version of the Ruffian Mani

Photo Courtesy of CND

After seeing the nails done by Creative Nail Design (CND) for Ruffian at Fashion Week I had to try it out. Here is the video showing how they got the look:

The inspiration was the night sky. To emulate it they used a dark navy topped with a matte maker and left metallic silver in a crescent shape at the base of the nails for moons. I love it!

I did mine a little different. I used gold foil for the moons, and dark green topped with matte for the majority of the nail, so mine isn't quite like the sky, but it sure is chic!

Here are a couple shot of the finished look shiny, prior to adding a matte top coat:


And here is the look after being mattified:


How I did it: If you look at other posts of my nails, you see that I practice "the gap method" of painting. I stop the brush far before the cuticle and leave a little space to ensure I don't hit the cuticle and make a big mess! But for this mani since I was going to have to do a larger size gap for the moons, I didn't want to take away from the space the moons would have. Therefore, when I put down the gold base (China Glaze - 2030) I went all the way to the cuticle (but still didn't touch it! It was a dangerous game of chicken!). Then I proceeded to paint with Zoya - Envy very carefully as I usually do, but with a huge gap, being the crescent moon. There was no real trick to it. I just worked very slowly and very carefully.

What do you think?!
:c)

-Elaine