Review: NYX Matte Finish Setting Spray.

Hi lovelies! How are you? Can you believe that we are only 15 days away from Christmas??? I haven't even started shopping yet! Hopefully I'll be able to get a few things this weekend.

Today I am going to bring you a short review on a product I bought back in September. I remember it was right after my vacation because I had picked up two NYX Butter Glosses from Target while I was away and then came home to see that my local CVS had gotten in a NYX display. I couldn't tell you how excited I was.

I picked out quite a few things from that display including the title of this blog post, the NYX Matte Finish Setting Spray.

As a makeup enthusiast I had never tried a setting spray before, I just never thought to buy one let alone use them. When I first got into makeup I had only heard of Skindanavia, if that's even how you spell it and I knew it was way too expensive for my teeny wallet.

That's why today I am glad that brands like NYX that are more affordable have these products available to the masses who can necessarily afford the high end makeup.

Above is my attempt at taking a cool photo using nature as my background. While I think its cool, I'm mad I cut off the bottom of the bottle.

To use the NYX Setting spray all you have to do is first off your makeup, then according to the bottle you hold the bottle out away from your face, close your eyes and spray a couple times letting the light mist settle on your face.

I have used this stuff a few times now, especially on occasions where I really need my makeup to last, I have found that it does help my makeup stay put. I used this most recently when my niece was baptized back in November and I had been out from about 10am until 6:30pm and when I got home I can safely say my makeup still looked like I had just applied it. I also have to say that I was wearing a  few other products to help prevent makeup breakdown but I do feel the setting spray had a hand in everything.

I think this is a good product if you need your makeup to last for a special event, as for using on a regular basis just when your putting makeup on for a work day I don't find myself reaching for it.

If you want to get your hands on the NYX Matte Finish Setting Spray you can get it at Target and CVS as long as they have displays which I'm pretty sure most Targets do, I think its select locations with CVS.  NYX is also available at Ulta and of course online as well.  The setting spray cost me about $8.49 but on the CVS website says $7.99. I have mentioned before that my CVS does mark up in price because its in a tourist location. NYX also makes a dewy setting spray as well, which I haven't bought because I have naturally oily skin and I don't like that look.

However NYX has steals and deals all the time you just have to watch out for them!

I hope you enjoyed this review and I will talk to you all in the next post!
<3 Nicole

Milani Cosmetics Bella Eyes Eyeshadow First Impression!

Hi lovelies! How are you all! Happy Monday, although I am not a fan. As you are reading this I am working a 6am to 230pm shift today and I still have three more 8 hour shifts to go before my first day off. I hate getting up early but I don't mind the hours and of course the $$.

But all of that nonsense aside its time for some makeup!

Today I bring you my first impression and swatches of the new Milani Bella Eyes Eyeshadows.

I have been waiting and waiting for my CVS to finally get these in, I've been seeing them everywhere  and couldn't wait to get my hands on some.

Before I ever go to CVS I alway check my email account linked to my Xtra Care Card, I do this because lately CVS has been issuing 20-30% coupons, now mind you while they don't work on sale items they do work on regularly priced items and it just so happened that Milani wasn't on sale.

It took forever for me to choose what colors I wanted or how many. I chose three colors since my spending amount was limited, there was one shade I wanted badly but it wasn't in stock and that was Champange but for the shades I did get, wow!

Here is a look at the three shades in their packaging.

Bella Rouge 

Bella Espresso 

Bella Sand

First off lets talk packaging. I love the packaging, (its true I'm a sucker for it) they're basically like the baked blushes but mini! I love that they are so compact that they are going to be very travel friendly. I am going to have so many options to choose from when packing for vacation in September. I also love that each of the eyeshadows have seals on them, so if you don't see a seal you know its been opened and touched by grubby hands not of our own. So a huge THANK YOU to Milani for doing that! 

Next is texture. I love love love the feel of these shadows! There are smooth and velvety, they are very finely milled, and even though when you first look at them you see they have a texture to them you don't feel it. Plus that imprint doesn't go away which is kind of cool, makes the shadow constantly look new. 

These are highly pigmented shadows. One to two circles of your finger will get you a lot of pigment, that equals to about 2-3 swipes with my brushes.  As for staying power, I wore them Sunday for 8 hours with a primer underneath and when I left work at 6:30pm I still had a decent amount of shadow on my eyes, not that I packed it on or anything. After 12 hours (right before bed) I noticed, most of the shadow was gone, but I had rubbed my eyes and such so I can't say it was the shadow naturally wearing off.  I will try to put a selfie on Instagram using the shadows so you can see. 

Click to enlarge

Click to enlarge

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Each swatch that I did is one to two circles of my finger around the shadow and NO PRIMER! I will try to update this post and swatch them over a primer to see if it makes a difference.  I love all three of the colors that I chose. I can do a natural look with the Bella Sand and Espresso or a more colorful look with Bella Rouge and Espresso with Sand as a highlight or inner corner highlight.  

And what makes these even more of a plus is that there not all the same finish. You have Matte shades, Satin Matte shades, Shimmers, and Metallic. I added the underside of the packaging to the swatch photos so you can see they are clearly marked what type of finish they are.  

Okay so price point: At my CVS they retailed for $4.79, and you get 0.05 ounces or 1.4 grams of product. For a single eye shadow from Milani that is a decent price, usually at CVS Milani is expensive. 

I hope that in the future that CVS will run Buy one get one half off sales or something of that nature so I'm more inclined to spend more money. Oh what the hell I probably will spend money on them whether they are on sale or not. 

So if your looking for some awesome single eye shadows that are highly pigmented and a great color array, these might be for you. 

I hope you guys enjoyed this post and I will see you all at the end of the week! <3 Nicole 

*All of the products in this post were purchased by me with my own money. I'm not being compensated by any companies, all reviews and opinions are my own.** 

Maybelline Baby Skin Review.

Hi guys! I hope you all had an awesome weekend. I worked mine as usual, what else is new!

Today I bring you a beauty review on a product that made a huge splash in the drugstore market back in January/February.

What I'm talking about is the Maybelline Baby Skin Pore Eraser. Why is it that drugstore  and high end products are becoming more mouthfuls to say?

Orly: Angel Eyes and a huge thank you!

Good Sunday morning guys!! I hope your weekend is going awesome! I had Saturday off but spent it bundled up indoors doing homework and watching the new Vampire Diaries episode, due to the small snow storm we got. I just can't believe how cold it is!!  Tonight I'll be going to work and trying to get done in time to see the new Sherlock episode!

Today I have a polish that is full of glittery goodness. I just hope my camera did it justice.

When I posted about Orly's Miss Conduct I said it came with a sister polish from the same collection in a duo pack, well here is that polish its called Angel Eyes.

This polish is a bright kind of sky blue jelly base. I say sky blue because it does look like the color of the sky on those summer mornings where its bright blue sky and no clouds in sight.

This blue polish is chock full of holographic glitter, who doesn't love that ?

I tried my best to pick up the glittery sparkle, but nothing would work. You can see the sparkle in the bottle thought.

The formula is like a normal glitter polish, it doesn't cover in one swipe, I did about three coats to get it opaque but I still felt like I had a bald spot or two only because I don't think I gave it enough time to dry in between coats.

I did notice that the more coats you add the thicker it looks on the nail.

I did add top coat to smooth everything out. I'm not usually one for blue polishes often because I'm afraid they will stain my nails, however I didn't see any immediate staining with this polish. And don't forget when you wear a glitter polish to use the tin foil method for removal. If you don't know what that is, I will try to do a post on it!

Orly is available I have found at Sally's Beauty Supply, TJMaxx ( where I got my duo set from), I've seen them at marshals and even CVS!

Okay so on to something that happened over this weekend. Saturday afternoon coming home from the a run to the store my email for the blog went off, so I checked it and saw that there were new likes to the My Nails. My Polish Facebook Page! And when I say a few I mean like over 100 new likes!! It took me by surprise because the last time I checked it which had been last week it was still at 46 likes, so to jump from 46 to at the time of this post 157 is crazy!!!

So I want to say a huge thank you to anyone who clicked the like button it means so much. I also want to give a shoutout to Adrianna of Mories Nail Art Blog because she was the one who made it possible. She shared my Facebook page. I love Adri she is seriously my best friend in this polish community and if you don't know her blog linked above you should!

So that it for today! I will talk to you guys soon!
<3 Nicole.

Wet 'n' Wild Megalast Nail Color: Heat Wave.

Good morning guys!!!

Today's post is of a nail polish that I received for Christmas! My mom is very hesitant when it comes to buying me any makeup or nail polish because she thinks that she will either A: get me something I already own, or B: get me something I won't like. So I told her this past Christmas that I would love anything she picks out, and that trust me there are a lot of make up and nail polishes I don't own yet.

So she picked out this really awesome Wet 'n' Wild gift set that had 10 mini Megalast colors inside. Five of the best and three limited edition colors. I will have swatches of all the colors from the set on the blog in the coming month!

Today begins the first one its called Heat Wave. Who doesn't love a red nail polish? I know I do. This one is kind of a crelly type, where its a creme color but has a jelly like finish. I say this because after three coats I could still see VNL.

But that doesn't take away from beauty that is this polish.

I think at some point I want to attempt to do a jelly sandwich with this. It reminds me a lot of Ruby Ruby from Sinful Colors which I have used for a jelly sandwich but its a tad more dark than Heat Wave. 

Like I said above three coats of this polish and I could still see my nail line on my middle finger. But what I love even more is how shiny this polish got with the addition of top coat. I used Orly's Sec 'n' Dry in these photos.

Out of the set of ten minis I think that I will definitely pick up the full size of this polish. That's what I love about mini polishes so much, you get to try a color and if you like it you can go and get the full size! If you want any of the Meglast Colors all you need to do is find in your town wherever Wet 'n' Wild is so, although its probably at most drugstores and get some of these colors! I think they only run $1.99!

I can't wait to show you guys more of the minis in this set! Mom sure did pick out an amazing gift! Love you mom!

Till tomorrow <3 Nicole

Free For All Beauty Friday! Physicians Formula Super BB Cream!

I have nothing to disclose, any and all products mentioned are purchased by me.
Happy Friday!

Congrats to all of you who have the weekend off! As you are reading this I will be at work and praying for 4 o' clock to come quickly! I have Saturday off and its my dads 60th birthday! It is a very special birthday since he is finally home from his stay in the hospital!

So HAPPY BIRTHDAY DAD!!!

Okay on to my very first volume of Free For All Beauty Friday! I have been putting this off since I first mentioned it because I have been so nervous to write up this post! As much as I love nail polish I love make up and beauty products equally as much although the size of either collections vary.


Today I will be giving my thoughts on the Physicians Formula Super BB Cream. I have always used liquid foundation when applying my makeup, so when I heard about BB Creams I didn't really know who or what they were. I had heard of Japanese BB Creams and how amazing they are. Sadly I know I would probably never get my hands on one so I would have to give the American counterparts a try.
After watching many reviews on YouTube, I decided to give it ago and see what I could find. I also wanted to try a BB Cream for when I go on vacation this summer so I don't have to pack a glass bottle of foundation in my suitcase.

I chose Physicians Formula because well I'll be honest, it was partially the brilliant white packaging with the holographic design on it. But I did choose it because it supposedly had 10 plus benefits, an SPF of 30 broad-spectrum and was recommended by the Skin Cancer Foundation for daily use to help protect your skin from the sun.

Here is what the packaging looks like. Plus a close up of the 10 plus benefits.

 

As you can see after you open the box you get 1.2 fluid ounces of product. Now I purchased mine back just around Valentines Day, and its now the almost of end of April and is sill have just about under a third of product left. So its lasted me about two and half months. It will most likely make it to the middle of May before I have break in to the back up that I purchased.

As for the 10 plus benefits I could go through them individually but then this post would be super long. So I'm going to break them in to sections. The first three are  smoothing, moisturizing, and protecting, I have to say these benefits prevail to be true, the BB cream goes on smooth and blends really well, I do feel like I put on moisturizer with this, my face doesn't get dry or cakey, I still put on a separate moisturizer before putting this on though, its just in my routine. As for protecting well duh it has SPF broad-spectrum 30 in it so its going to help. Obviously you wouldn't use this as regular sunscreen but for being out and about on a girls day or just sitting outside its really good for that, if your going to be in the water or on the beach in direct sun clearly you want a higher SPF sunscreen!

The next 3 Firming, Priming and Filling, and Perfecting, I would say for I don't really notice a difference, I don't like primers but this doesn't feel like one, I definitely don't get that silicone feeling when applying it. Since I'm still young I don't have to worry about firming if it does firm anything I don't see it. Perfecting, I don't think it does that, I still have to spot conceal and conceal my under eyes.

As for the last four Concealing, Brightening, Line Softening, and Long Wearing, I feel it does even out my skin tone well. The only downside is that this product only comes in two different shades. Light/Medium which is what I wear and Medium/Dark. So if you fall outside the two shades or stuck in the middle you might like this product. Some say Light/Medium is too light and Medium/Dark is too dark, and its sad there is no in-between color. For brightening I think it does lighten my face a little but that goes with evening out my skin tone. For Line-Softening and Long Wearing, once again I'm on the younger demographic for this so I can't tell if it works for that, as for long wearing I think it last well up to about the 6-7 hour mark. I have worn this to work and come home and still have a nice face but not as nice as when I first applied everything, When I wear this on a regular day and not really doing much it can last much longer as long as I'm not touching my face which is a bad habit of mine.

So here is what the product looks like.

 

 

 

I get about light to medium coverage out of this BB cream, if I don't have many blemishes (which is a rare day) it makes my skin look nice, but like I said above I do have to use separate concealers to finish the covering up when I want to wear a full face of make up. If I have a lazy day and just I am just running to the store and don't have to put a lot of make up on then this can actually work well by itself and I just set it with powder and be on my way.

 

 I do like this BB Cream, I think it will be good for Florida because it is light weight on the skin and with the humid weather down there I think it will be an excellent choice to a heavy liquid foundation.

 

For price point it is on the expensive side of the drugstore makeup lines. If you want to purchase this it will run you about $10-$13. But there is a brighter side to it. I have seen a lot of these in stores with $3.00 coupons on them and drugstores like CVS and Rite Aid are always having sales on Physicians Formula. When I bought mine I got it for 40% off which brought it down to $7-$8 and then with the $3 dollars off it was brought down to $4-$5! Not bad at all if you ask me.

 

So if you want to give it a go wait for it to be on sale and then you won't feel like you are investing large amounts of money on a drugstore product.

 

I hope you guys enjoyed this first FFABF post and I'll see you next time !

 

<3 Nicole

 

If you guys have any comments or questions or even suggestions on what you would like to see for any future Friday post please leave it in the comments below! I would LOVE to know! Thanks!

 

 

 

Nicole By OPI Selena.

Good morning my dears! I hope you all are well and not suffering from a cold or the flu like myself last week!

I cannot imagine the last time I was that sick. I hope it all I get for the season because I hate being sick! I want to say a huge thank you to all of you for hanging in there while I was recuperating on the couch. Turns out being sick got me addicted to The Vampire Diaries, darn that Netflix.


Anyway on to today's post! Today I bring you Nicole By OPI Selena, from the new Selena Gomez Collection. I found the entire collection at my local Wal-Mart. They had a huge end cap display that was all nice and clean one day and then when I went back a few days later to actually buy one of the polishes the idiotic people that live in my town wrote all over it with the nail polishes and drew all over Selena's face. I hate it when people deface things, so what if you don't like the person on the display do you really need to use the product in the display to deface it? People may want to buy that product! My other thought was how they got up to the top of the display since its pretty tall.  Luckily I found one that didn't look used in the back of the display.

Selena is a polish that I don't have anything like in my collection. The closest thing I have to it would be Pure Ice Twinkle, and it is way more orange toned and contains shimmer, Selena does not.

Selena is a soft peachy crème, a color I love to wear in the spring time.

Application was pretty awesome with this polish. Two even coats and you can reach opacity, with three thin coats you can achieve it as well, the choice is yours :)

This is such a fun color to wear, its very much work appropriate, so if you work in a stuffy office you should be able to get away with it.

As you can see from my photos it looks a bit more pinker, but its really not. I tried to correct it in the photos but it wouldn't budge. I do have to say the shape of the NOPI bottle is an odd one, I don't hate it but it is so hard to photograph my hands on it. If your looking to purchase any of the Selena Gomez Collection than you can find it at Wal-Mart, and I've also seen it at CVS, but my CVS only had a partial display so if your looking for the whole shebang than I would say Wal-Mart is your best bet. They retail for: Wal-Mart $7 and at CVS $7.99. These prices are local to me and I paid the $7 at my Wal-Mart. Remember they maybe different where you live.

Did you purchase any of the Selena Polishes??

<3 Nicole.

L'oreal Paris: Royalty Reinvented.

Good morning!

Hope you all are having a fantastic start to the weekend!

Today I have to show you a new L'Oreal Nail Polish! L'Oreal recently launched a line called " Le Nouveau  Riche   TRENDsetter collection. It consist of six to eight new shades of nail polishes. The display at my local CVS only had the six. That kind of disappointed me because I really wanted to see the three metallic shades included in the set. Guess I'll be hopping over to Walgreens soon to see if they have it. Usually I go to Rite Aid for the newest collections but my local one is slacking lately. :(

So this collection like I said above has three metallic shades and six pastel crème shades. If you want to read more on the collection you can head on over to Nouveau Cheap's blog for all the deets.

Out of the six crème shades available to me I picked out the purple crème called Royalty Reinvented. I wanted to grab more but at $6.49 a pop I had to say no, I did however have $1.50 in extra bucks so it knocked it down to $5.51(including tax) in the end.

The reason I bought yet another purple nail polish is because I don't have many pastel purples, the only one this is even remotely close to was my very first pastel purple from OPI when they released their Shrek Collection. Funky Dunky is the name and its actually darker than RR and matches my winter jacket perfectly.

I'm always cautious when wearing a crème polish due to brush drag, spottiness, the usual. This polish is most certainly among the average crème colors, the first coat was sheer but by the next coat the opacity quota was met making Nicole a very happy girl.

Immediately wanted to layer something over this and with it being the start of the new year I grabbed for my Tasmanian Devil Confetti Polish and added one layer over top. Who doesn't like colorful sparkly nails?

*All photos taken in indoor lighting. No flash. Two coats with top coat and glitter. The last photo is the more IRL color.

 

This combination reminded me of a robins egg. Now I know usually robin's eggs are blue with black splotches, but we can say this is its oddball cousin who is the wild child of the family.

The one thing that I did notice today while I was out killing time in Wal-Mart while my mom was doing laundry was that the pastel purple from the NOPI Selena Gomez collection look awfully similar to Royalty Reinvented, and one of the glitter polish which is multi-colored is an exact dupe of the Confetti Polish in these photos! And to mention price point, usually at Wal-Mart L'Oreal polishes are $4.97 versus the $7 dollar price for NOPI.  I was kind of excited to buy some of the Selena polishes and did buy one of them today and I'll feature here soon.  Is it weird that I'm glad there were dupes in that collection from what I have so I didn't have to buy? ( As I type this I hear my wallet's cries of joy).

Do you own any of the new L'Oreal Nail Polishes
Nicole.

Milani 3D Holographic Nail Polish in Hi-Res.

Hello!!

Happy Thursday!

 In the beginning of the year I when I really started by polish regularly and had the chance to go to stores that I normally don't have access to and I picked up my first holographic polishes. Two were from Color Club, and the rest were Milani! So today's holographic goodness is from Milani, if you didn't get that from the title.

Hi-Res is the name and I like how these polishes have that tech savvy name to them. I featured the Milani Pink Holographic polish on here sometime in the very beginning of the year and for St. Patricks day I showed you the Green Milani Holographic polish.

I like to describe these polishes as jelly-ish holographic. You seriously need about four to almost five coats to achieve opacity. I tried pairing a similar color underneath these and it seems to take away the holo effect which is weird,.

Whether having to apply four coats to me its worth it. Once again these are not linear holographic polishes like the new Color Club Halo Hues Collection, which I have still yet to obtain or the Layla Holos, I can't justify a $15 dollar polish no matter how cool it looks, these are scattered holographic polishes that sometimes have a slight linear look to them.

I am going to be putting seven pictures in this post so please excuse the picture spam!

Application like I said is tricky, the fact that they are almost jelly like in consistency it really neat and definitely adds to the 3D effect but I would rather just have to apply two coats of thicker creme-ier polish and get the same effect.

The scattered holo effect is sadly lost in a couple of these polishes, which I will be posting soon. I will say the Silver one is the worst, four coats and I could still see my nail line.

I would definitely describe the color of this as a delicate lavender/lilac. It really is a spring time color, but for me its one of those work appropriate colors. No one noticed the pretty sparkle, so I guess if corporate were ever to come and visit and shake my hand its good to know this polish won't get me fired or something. To be honest my job doesn't have a problem with the front end wearing nail polish, its only if you work in the food prep area's like the deli that you can't.

These polishes are not cheap, they are most certainly at the high end of the drugstore spectrum, as most Milani Cosmetics are. Its because they are good, I have read a lot of reviews on Milani products and Milani seems to have hits with lots of things. I purchased this polish at CVS for $5.99 each.

I hope you enjoyed this post.! Stay tuned for more. I just got some of the Pure Ice polishes that are new and I can't wait to show you!

<3 Nicole

Spoiled I Don't Drink Cheap Wine

Hello!

Hope you all are having a great weekend. I am spending mine like I always do, at work.

Today I bring you a polish I picked up at CVS from the Spoiled Collection made by Wet 'n' Wild. For $1.99 you really can't beat these polishes, such an awesome array of colors and glitters and finishes. This is called 'I Don't Drink Cheap Wine', and by the name you guessed it, its a wine colored polish. For some reason I don't own many of these types of polishes, but this fall I find myself by more and more of these polishes, and I do not consider it a bad thing. Okay maybe for my wallet it is. :)

'I Don't Drink Cheap Wine' took about three coats to be opaque. the first coat is really streaky, but by the second coat it help cleans it up. When looking at my nails in the light I could see visible brush drag, so I suggest letting each coat dry before adding the next.

This polish has a very nice subtle shimmer to it, sadly its only visible in direct light. As for a description of the color, in the store it seemed more berry looking, then in natural sunlight you can see ruby tones appear.

Okay so that's it for this post. Sorry it so short :( I'm trying to work on some fall designs to put up soon.  Hope you guys enjoyed it. Until the next post!
Nicole

Milani Neon: Pink Hottie

Hi everyone! Happy weekend! Hope you all are doing well!

 I was in the neighboring county yesterday to drop my dad at the train, I was also on the hunt for the Nabi Magnetic Polish that are supposedly popping up at Walgreens. Did my Walgreens have them...no, neither did the other one I went to. I saw swatches on Scrangies Blog and I'm dying for the red one. I'm hoping that they will pop up in the Northeast next week or so since they were spotted out in the midwest already. Heres to hoping!

So after striking out at Walgreens I went over to the CVS across the street and looked at the Milani display to get another 3D Holographic polish. I bought Cyberspace, the blue one and one of the Neons, in Pink Hottie.

That is what I bring you today Pink Hottie! I think this is my perfect pink color! Its that bright bubblegum pink that suits the warmer weather and is just all around girly!

I know that neons dry matte, that doesn't bother me at all since a top coat can fix that in a pinch. The application I wasn't so happy about. It was really streaky and my non dominant hand can attest to that. It took about the standard 3 coats to be opaque, I did add a fourth coat just to make sure it was all good, especially on my right hand.

This first picture is the polish all by itself with no top coat. Even matte this polish has an amazing gloss to it!



Here it is in the shade, no flash with a top coat. It looks so much darker than it is. Outside of the pictures this color makes my hands look really tan. 

Finally we have in the sun and with a flash.

That's it for today! Do any of you own Neons from Milani or just any neons in general??

Thanks for stopping by!

Nicole