Sally Hansen Xtreme Wear Berry Juicy!

Hi lovelies! How have you all been! Are you ready for some nail polish? I am! Lets get to it.

Today I have to show you a new Sally Hansen Xtreme Wear Polish to show you. I believe this polish came out as part of the new core line for the Xtreme Wears. I found in a small end cap display at Wal-Mart with all the summer stuff.

I love the name of this polish. Its called Berry Juicy, its a pale pink but not a baby pink. It definitely has some brightness to it.

Berry Juicy is a creme formula, and you know how much I love my creme formulas. The formula itself is nice, its not thin or thick it falls nicely in the middle. If you do try to apply more than one coat without letting each layer dry it will get thick and nasty looking on the nail.  Two coats will get you a nice opacity, thats what I used here in the photos.

This summer I am quite enjoy bright colors as usual so this is a no brainer favorite for me. It seems it will also be a good base for future nail art or stamping.

You can find Sally Hansen Xtreme Wear Polishes at drugstore or Mass retailer such as Wal-Mart or Target. I bought mine from Wal-Mart for $2.49 they were running a sale 2/$5 but $2.49 is the normal price!

Hope you guys enjoyed this quick post! I'll talk to you all soon! <3 Nicole


*Any products mentioned in this post were purchased by me and my own money. I am not being sponsered by any company mentioned. All opinions are my own.*

Urban Decay Cosmetics Naked 3 Palette!

Hi guys! Its Monday again, but that means its also new blog post day!!

I apologize for my post going up so late, but we all know real life can get in the way. I so wish that blogging was kind of my full time job.. I love it so much!

Today I bring you a post that I have been putting off because I think its my favorite one yet, and if you saw the title then you already know where this is headed.

Back in March I placed a Sephora order and bought myself the Urban Decay Naked 3 palette. I did this after much consideration of other eye shadow palette from other companies. I literally did research for months on what palette I wanted.

How important is doing research on a beauty product you want to purchase?

So in the end I'm pretty sure that I made the right decision, I have used this palette almost every day since I got it and now after a couple months of using it I want to tell you what I think.

 
First off, the packaging... I have said over and over I am a sucker for anything rose gold... and this makes no exception. I love that its a metal case that snaps shut so you don't have to worry about it opening up during travel. Its slim so it will also travel nicely as well. Its not as thin as my LORAC Pro Palette but its compact enough. I like that this palette has a texture top to it, I think it adds a little something extra that we don't always see.

All these shadows for the most part are warm rose toned shadows. I'll be the first to admit I never wore much pink eye shadow when I started playing with makeup with I was a kid. I always thought it washed me out. Turns out I was just using to pale of a pink.

Formula wise these are all soft and easily blendable. I found them all really easy to work with except Dust which is a little too sheer for me. 


Lets take a look at swatches:  All swatches are photographed in sunlight with no primer underneath.

Here we have the first three shades, Strange, Dust and Burnout. Strange is a shade I use most definitely for highlighting. Its not a complete matte, more of a satin finish. Dust is a very light shimmery pink, its a nice color but too light for me and it doesn't really show up on my eyes. Burnout is slightly darker than Dust, and I love using this as an all over lid color and blend it out with a nice light brown in the crease for a wearable look for work.

Next up we have Limit, which is one of the two only matte shades in this palette. I like using it as a transition color when I'm working with some of the darker colors. Next is Buzz again a medium pink that is kind of like Burnout but a little less pigmented, I still like it as an overall lid color. Lastly in this set is Trick. Trick is one of my favorite colors in the palette. Its a warm peach, color that is super shimmery/glittery and its just looks like foil on the lid, ( at least for me it does). I would beware the fallout with Trick, when I tap off any excess I can see the glitter go everywhere!

Now we are getting to the darker side of the Naked 3. We have Nooner, Liar, and Factory. Nooner is the only other matte shade in the palette. I like to use it as a crease shade when I don't want a smokey eye or to use a brown. Its a nice change of pace when I need a different look. Liar is a rose gold shade that I just can't believe I never used earlier.

I can successfully say I have used all the shades in this palette at the time of this post! I have aways been fearful of darker colors for fallout and the fact I suck at blending darker shadows without getting it everywhere.

Factory is a mid tone brown shade that I used on my outer corner most of the time.

Finally we have the last three shades, the ones that are the most pigmented, Mugshot, Darkside, and Blackheart. Mugshot and Darkside are darker brown shades that have a pink undertone to them, once again I use these as outer corner colors and in my lower lash line. Blackheart is a really dark brown with red shimmer running throughout. The red shimmer doesn't transfer to the eye as well though. That doesn't bother me so much but if its something you look for you can always add red glitter on top to bring it out more.

You can see even without primer these shadows can pack a punch, but sadly they don't stay long on my lid without primer. When you purchase the Naked 3 ( It retails for $52 at Sephora, and $54 on Urban Decay's website) you also get a four pack of UD Primer Potion samples. You get original, Sin, Anti-aging, and Eden which is a long wear primer. You don't necessarily need the UD primers to get the shadows to strut there stuff. The Hard Candy long wear primer does just fine.

You also get a double ended brush with your purchase. It's just as adorable as the palette. One side is a small paddle brush the other a larger fluffy blending/paddle brush. The smaller paddle brush is not my favorite, it's stuff and I have a hard time packing on color. The fluffier end however is amazing for blending out color and placing color in my outer corner! 

Overall I love this palette, I get pretty much everyday use out of it, and I never get tired of pairing it with other eye shadows I have. The price point is a little iffy for me. I never spent $52 bucks on make up before. I can see why now though, you definitely get what you pay for!

If you are looking to purchase the Naked 3 you can do so at Sephora stores or online and I'm sure they have it at Ulta, and also on UD's website! I hope maybe this review swayed you on whether or not you wanted to purchase it or not!

I'll talk to you all on Wednesday! <3 Nicole

Nicole By OPI: Carnival Cotton Candy. The Carrie Underwood Collection.

Hello lovelies! Its the middle of the week, I cannot wait to get today over, as you are reading this I will be at work, fun fun.

Today I bring you a swatch of one of the Nicole By OPI Carrie Underwood Polishes. I have only seen this collection at my local Walmart and they only have five of the colors which makes me sad.

Today I bring you Carnival Cotton Candy! I adore this polish so much! It is just the perfect girly pink creme. I wore this on my first day back at school this past spring semester but did a crappy job of applying so I never took photos.

OPI Charged Up Cherry!

Hi guys!!

Today I have for you a polish from OPI called Charged Up Cherry. I bought this at the grocery store I work at. We have a small section of OPI, Orly, and China Glaze that doesn't always get updated but sometimes new polishes appear and I make it a thing to check it out once in a while.

Charged Up Cherry is a bright cherry pink creme polish. Its from the OPI Brights Collection.

I adore this color! I think it is going to be great for upcoming spring and summer! I'm pretty positive that I will be wearing this as a pedicure majority of the summer. Sadly I'm one of those people that puts on one color on their toes and don't take it off until it looks crappy.

If you didn't know already, ( I think I mention it every time I show a creme polish) that they are my absolute favorite finishes. They just look so clean and smooth and top coat just makes them look gorgeous.

I used two coats to get perfect opacity but honestly if I was more careful I could of gotten it one this polish is that pigmented!

I'm also really glad that my DSLR picked up the color well and didn't freak out. Sometimes with such bright colors it goes all hay wire and I have no idea how to fix it when I edit photos. I don't even think that Picasa has that option!

I don't own a lot of OPI nail polish but I'm so glad when I find one that I can add to my collection that I know I'll go back to!  If you want to get your hands on OPI polish I would check out Ulta or even now Sally Beauty Supply!

Do you own Charged Up Cherry? Whats your favorite OPI Polish? I wanna know! 

<3 Nicole

China Glaze Loves A Beach.

Hello all! Happy Friday afternoon!

It has been bitterly cold here in New York for the past almost week, I can't tell you how much I want the spring time to get here!

To help combat the bitter cold today I have a polish that will make you want to go to the beach!

Loves A Beach is from the China Glaze Summer Neon's collection it is a medium bright florescent pink. You could compare it to Hang Ten Toes its just a shade or two darker.

When Loves A Beach dries the shimmer that you can see in the other colors isn't too prevalent, at least to me it isn't. The finish is much more of a matte satin. With the addition of top coat though the shimmer comes alive and creates a great back drop for nail art or glitter.

The formula on this polish is pretty good, three coats take care of any visible nail line. It is definitely a good idea to wait a few minutes in between coats so you don't get any brush drag or bald spots.

I still believe that The Summer Neon's is still available to purchase through the online E-tailers. So if your stuck in the bitter cold like I am or just in need of a spring-ish color then you might want to pick up a couple of these colors!

Do you already own any of the Summer Neon's?

<3Nicole

My very first Essie Polishes!

Hi everyone! Hope all is well!

Today for once I didn't have to get up at the butt crack of dawn to go to work, I love having a Saturday off! What is even better is work is kind enough to give me next Saturday off too! Apparently the customer service gods are shining on me :)

Today I bring you my very first ever Essie Polishes! I have always love the brand, always ogled at them in drugstore when they started showing up there, but at $8 a pop I couldn't justify buying one, when $8 can buy me like 5 of a more cheaper drugstore brand polish. Maybe its the bottle size that is intimidating to me, I mean I have walked into beauty supply stores before and walked out with an OPI Polish and there about 50 cents to a dollar more, so why have I waited so long???

 Yup I dragged my mom out of the house at 11:30 this morning solely to go to Big Lots to find some discount polishes since the rumours are flying around that you can find some really decent polishes there now. The only thing I don't like about Big Lots or as my mother kept referring to it as "Odd Lots" is that not all of them have the same items, and some store won't get the overstock that another store does. With all intentions full steam ahead I went in and prayed I would be one of the lucky ones.

The outcome of my trip? FAIL! Not really any polishes at all! A few sets of obscure Revlon Colors that weren't that appealing and a few of the Sally Hansen Nail Pens but no huge bins of discount make up items to dig through :( I became a sad panda.

So I dragged my mom down the road to the next shopping plaza where I knew I would be somewhat successful. Its got a Sally's, Five Below, TJ Maxx and Kohl's, Walmart, Rue 21. One of these places or more were bound to have some polish I want. Now I know I said I was on a 'No Buy' but looking at the calender I did a successful month of no buys, I actually started July 15th. but didn't start talking about it till almost the 1st of August. Today is the 18th so exactly one month and 3 days!

Although I probably will go on another month of no buy now since I bought a few. That's what I do at least. Well unless the new L.E. Maybeline Fall Fashion Week Polishes come out....

Anyway enough rambling! On to the polish. These are the two beauties I picked up at TJ Maxx!

These are Raise Awareness (pastel pink) and Infatuation (darker pink)!. I believe they are in the salon bottles since the caps have a large lower case E on them and the names are on the bottom and they don't have the Essie name in the white label like we see in drug stores today. I snagged these lovelies for $3.29 a piece! Score!

Here is the manicure I created with them!

Pretty self explanatory, I think every nail polish lover and blogger has done a manicure like this. Each color is two coats both reach perfect opacity. When I got Raise Awareness I thought like every other pastel pink it would be streaky but it was not at all, and no brush drag either. Infatuation is like a nice berry pink that I don't have in my collection from any one else! These pictures were taken in sunlight with a top coat. Oh and I used my new base coat today too! How many of you use Orly Bonder??

Okay so that is for this post! I do think I will be buying more Essie in the future, my Walgreen's has pretty much a full stock of all the colors and I desperately want Marshmallow, and Penny Talk!

Talk to you all soon!
Nicole!

Glitter Jelly Sandwich time! Glitter Jelly Sandwich time..

Like the title? Yeah me trying to be clever....Anywho, Hello!!!

Hope you all are having a good Saturday, its still raining here in good ole New York. Lucky me had to walk through a tremendous downpour just to get from my car to my front door... which has no awning or gutters so its like walking through a waterfall. Needless to say I got an unneeded second shower today!

Today I bring you another bright happy manicure. A jelly sandwich! Jelly sandwiches are so easy to do! You take a jelly polish, put on one to two layers of it, let it dry, add one coat of your favorite multi colored glitter polish or just some sort of glitter polish in general and then add one more thin coat of your jelly polish and TA DA you have a jelly sandwich.

Now you could save your self some time and buy the polishes that already have all the ingredients together and all you have to do is apply two to three coats of it. I personally wish I had more of those types. I don't own many jelly polishes myself in fact I think I only own one or two. Oh and if your curious as to what a jelly polish is, it is a polish that you can still see through/ or  see your visible nail line even after three coats.

Today's jelly sandwich consist of two coats of Sinful Colors Scandal. Now I bought Scandal way before all the Sinful Colors Hullabaloo. Now while I don't support what they did in any sense, it was just down right wrong, I'm still going to use the polishes I have... Since I'm on that no buy....

After I applied Scandal's first two coats and let dry, I then applied one coat of Confetti Polish in Tasmanian Devil. This polish is a good dupe for all those other rainbow glitter polishes out there and its fairly cheap too. I got mine from CVS but I don't remember how much it was, check with your local retailer to get the exact price for your area.

Once Tasmanian Devil was dry I applied one more thin coat over top to give the 'suspended' look. If I may say that it came out nicely.

 This first picture was taken with the flash on my camera, it only happened because the sun that peeked out right when I was ready to take pictures dashed away behind the clouds. :(

This is by far my favorite picture of the three in this post. It's in the natural cloudy light and it definitely shows the glitter suspended in the polish well. Plus the glitter is nicely defined in this picture too, you can see some of the individual colors.

Lastly this picture was taken under artificial light, a huge thanks to the overhead light of the stove for participating!

Okay so I hope you enjoyed this post and I believe by Monday this mani will be history, I'm assuming its going to peel off just like my last two did... grr.. don't even get me started on it. But by Monday I think the next sprinkles polish is in line to be posted!

Talk to you all then!
Nicole

Nails Inc. Sprinkles Topping Lane.

Good afternoon!

Hope you all are well! Today I bring to you the second of the Nails Inc. Sprinkles Collection, Topping Lane!

Topping Lane is a pink jelly base that personally I would like to see Nails Inc put out on its own; that is filled with small round silver, fusica and purple glitter. I know Nails Inc. says its a different color but to my eyes it's a deep purple which I like a lot!

Once again two coats is the perfect amount to achieve opacity. I definitely feel like I have dipped my hands in pink frosting and then matching sprinkles. Speaking of sprinkles this polish also matches the sprinkles and candy coating I bought for the cake bites I will be making next week for my sister/BFF's baby shower. Maybe this will be my baby showers manicure.

Ok before I get to pictures I wanted to let you guys know I will be do a nine week summer nail art challenge! I will be doing it alongside Adri from Moriesnailart, and Lindsey from Polish and Diamond! I think I will do a separate post tomorrow to give you all the details!

Ok now for pictures! All picture are two coats with top coat in natural sunlight!

Hope you enjoy!

Easter Bunny Ahoy!

Hello again!

I just couldn't stay away today! I know I said that I would post my Easter Bunny manicure tomorrow on Easter itself, but I took off my water marble and did a different manicure I would like to post tomorrow, sooo ...

I wanted to do some sort of nail art for Easter.My lovely friend over at The Little Canvas, did some amazing Easter nail art. Four of them to be exact. So I definitely had lots of inspiration to draw from! Go on and click her blog name to check it out!


So For this Easter manicure I started with my background color of Wet 'n' Wilds " I Need a Refresh-mint". As I have heard it is an exact dupe of For Audrey!  After letting that dry I used a toothpick by snipping off the pointy bits to create a dotting tool and proceeded to create the bunny on my ring finger. To make his the pink of his nose and his ears I used Simply Sweets Pink creme I got from Marshalls.

Then using more toothpicks I snipped the ends off of, I dotted pink and yellow on the rest of the nails to make it seem like Easter eggs.!

The first two pictures are in the setting sunlight and the last one is with direct flash.

I hope you all enjoyed this! I will talk to you all soon!
Nicole

Simply Sweet : A Purple Pink bright!

Happy Friday!!!

So glad to be off today!! The weather has been nothing but phenomenal! Yesterday a few close friends of mine actually went and had a cook out at the local park, which is right on the water of the Hudson River. The day was perfect, good food, great friends, just perfect.

Of course I had to have a bright color on my nails to celebrate with. So today I am going to show you the second polish in the Simply Sweet four pack I bought from Marshall's last week.

This color I thought was going to be a darker fuchsia or purple, but no its a mix of a darker bright pink with purple. Kind of makes me want to say pinurple, pink and purple mixed together. Its a fairly bright almost neon color. It does not dry matte so its definitely not a neon. It reminds me of  the hydrangeas we get in at work in the spring.

These first two photos are with flash. The flash makes it look a little darker than it really is. All photos are 3 coats and no top coat!

You can see how in natural light its much brighter than with a flash. It is still showing a little darker than out in the sun. But the clouds were kind of covering the sun at this time. :(

The polish applied amazingly. The first coat was not streaky at all, unlike with the blue. The second coat was enough for opacity, and that's how I wore it yesterday at the picnic. I threw on a third coat to fix any little chips but there were none, but it looks amazing with three coats! Even with out a top coat there is a nice glossy-ness to this polish. Once again the brush was good no weird bristles or anything. I think the more I go to Marshall's I'm going to continue to look for this brand!

Simply Sweet Polishes can be found at Marshall's, I paid $4.99 for a pack of four!

Have a great Friday everyone!!
Nicole

I bring you Milani!

Hi lovely readers!

I am so surprised that it has been over a week since the last time I posted ( okay its only one day over a week). Still The last thing I posted was my Valentines manicure. Okay, two days after Valentines Day I went to the mall for some much needed retail therapy. I had Sephora gift cards I wanted to use, and maybe get some polishes too...even though I am "supposed" to be on a polish ban until the end of March when the Hunger Games Collection comes out.

I sort of broke that ban, only because I found 6 polishes that were on my wish list and one that was recommended to me. For a grand total of 7 the most I've bought in one day!

Today I bring you the first of the seven polishes. I am going to space them out by once a week maybe two in a week because I feel it will give me more blog post to plan. Work has me by the gonads, working crazy shifts. Yesterday I had to work till 10pm at night then come back in at 7:30 this morning. Not fun when you can't go to sleep right away. That's been one of the many reasons why I hadn't posted in a week. After my shopping trip I found out some not so nice stuff about the some of the people that I work with who decided its cool to talk crap. I now realize my circle of friend is now on one hand. I'll spare you the horrid boring details but yea that's one of the reasons.

I also got sick. Yup, my mom had a cold on Valentines day then kindly gave it to me. Thanks mom! So I was sort of unable to breathe and talk without hacking up my lungs and blowing my nose 24 hours a day! Needless to say I am much better now and couldn't wait to post this color for you guys! I even got sun pics!

Okay so since you guys have gotten through my very long intro, here is the reward with some lovely pink holographic goodness!

This is Milani 3D Holographic Nail Polish! I was very lucky enough to walk into the CVS at the mall and while my friend Stephy was bearing with me as I dragged her through, I hit the Milani display and found all six of the 3D Holos! I grabbed four of them since they were the only ones that stood out to me. I will probably go back and get the other two.

This is Digital. It is a pastel pink scattered holo, that sometimes when you catch it in the right light you can see some slight linear holo too. I would like to say that these polishes have a jelly like finish to them. The photos I am going to show you are 3 coats, you can't see my nail line but to my naked eye I can still see it. It doesn't bother me but adding one more coat made the difference.

The jelly like finish is something that I really like about these. These are my first holographic polishes, and boy am I addicted. I plan on buying back ups of these either online or when I go stalking some CVS soon. Shhhh... don't tell my mom. She is the one who is trying to help me enforce my no buying policy.

I did try to create a macro shot so you can see some of the colors but its not the best.

I love the rainbow effect with this  polish the '3D' effect that you get kind of makes the holo seem suspended? When you first apply these they seem like it would be gritty but its not at all!

Okay I think I have ranted enough. If you can still find these at your CVS I would say grab them! I paid $5.49 each for mine, but it was worth it. On the CVS website they retail for $4.99 and I think the the same on the Milani Website itself, but don't quote me. But I just checked and they are!

Oh and if anyone out there knows how to take a good macro shot please let me know!! I am always wanting to know new tips and tricks I can do with my camera!

Talk to you all soon!
Nicole.