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.*

New Spring 2014 Hard Candy Cosmetics!! (Photo Heavy!)

Hi guys!! Happy Friday!! I hope you all have been well!! I've been doing okay, little bit stressed out with some stuff at home but I'm slowly starting to feel better. I am also counting down the next 8 weeks until school is officially done with. I'm not graduating but after this semester I only have three classes left to take and I figure I can take them one at a time so they are less stressful.

Any way I'm sure that you did not come to the blog today to hear me rant about school or work, you came for whats in the title!

That's right Hard Candy put out a ton of new products for Spring 2014 and after seeing a master post on Nouveau Cheap  (Clicky click the link so you can see too!! ) I made a mental note of some of the products I most definitely wanted to try!

I have been a huge fan of Hard Candy when they hit Wal-Mart stores what seems like forever ago! The first thing I ever bought from them and sadly don't have anymore is a five shade eye shadow palette that came with a shadow primer. I thought I was so cool to finally have a shadow primer, and one that work well too!

Well with that said, Hard Candy has done a major upgrade to their eye shadow primer and has released it to be sold on its own not just with eye shadow sets.

Their new eye shadow primer is called Eyes The Limit and it claims to be a long wear eye shadow primer. The tube itself reminds me of the Too Faced Eye Shadow Insurance packaging but I think the Too Faced one is shorter and a little wider. I don't own the Too Faced Primer but I have seen it many times.

The tube contains just under half a fluid ounce of product, and a little goes a long way with this so I don't think I'll be running out anytime soon. The primer is skin toned colored, unlike the original primer that Hard Candy had where it was just a whitish-translucent silicone primer. This one feels silicone-y too but it sinks in to the skin nice and doesn't leave a slippery surface where your eye shadow would fall off.

Yesterday I did put the primer to a first impression  under some shadows from my new Urban Decay Naked 3 Palette. ( I just got it in my Sephora order!) I did a simple look for school yesterday morning since I don't normally have a ton of time to invest in to a detailed makeup look. Any how being at school for three hours by the time  I got home I noticed the shadow was still in place and the color was still visible even though I know I had been touching my face throughout the morning. You know how it is trying to stay awake! Before I ran out to do errands later that afternoon I touched up my makeup a bit more, adding a little bit more shadow and then proceeded to wear the look for about 8 hours, so around 915PM I went to take it off and there was no creasing, or fading, everything was still intact!! That makes me so happy! It outlasted my LORAC Behind the Scenes Primer!

For $5.00 I would totally recommend this eye shadow primer, its totally worth it!!

Next I was impressed when I saw that Hard Candy was introducing new Ombre Lipsticks. Just from the blog post I saw them in I knew I wanted to try them.

I picked up two # 759 Confidence which is a red and hot pink ombre and # 837 Faithful which is a hot pink and light rosy pink ombre. These lipsticks will run you $6.00 a piece if you want to try them and there are 10 shades to choose from!!

# 759 Confidence 

# 837 Faithful 

As you can see these don't look like traditional lipsticks, they are indeed square, with the darker shade being only about a quarter of the lipstick. I'm still unsure how to apply these to my lips, I tried the other night and I had the darker color on the outer portion of my lips, and to me it just didn't look right. I may have to try it with the larger color part as the outermost part and the darker color on the inside of the lips.

Here are some swatches.

Faithful 

Confidence 

The only downside I see with these is the shape of the lipstick, the square shape does kind of make applying it tricky. I found it hard staying on the  inside the lines of my lips and that these have a lot of shimmer and or glitter particles in it. Once I took it off I could see the glitter all over my face, even when I applied it some pieces fell out. . Otherwise the texture of the lipsticks are super creamy which is always nice, the colors are vivid and even if I  can't get the ombre effect and they just blend to one color I'm sure they will look really cool!

Lastly I got two cheek products. They are aptly named Cheeks and Balances, they are a cream blush and highlighter duo. There are three shades to choose from, with two I got being the only blush shades and the third is a contour/highlighter duo. The are $7.00 a piece.

I picked up # 767 Cheeky Pink and # 805 Sweet Cheeks. Both are rosy mauve pinks with a highlighter on top. I initially thought that the highlighter was the same on each, that was until I swatched it.

Sweet Cheeks

Cheeky Pink 

Now the blushes are very similar but Sweet Cheeks is tad bit darker and more rosy then Cheeky Pink, and as for the highlighters, Cheeky Pink's highlighter has a golden tone to it where Sweet Cheeks has a pink pearl tone to it.

Cheeky Pink 

Sweet Cheeks 

You can definitely see the difference in the photos above. I haven't tested these out on my face but when I did blend it out on my hand the color wasn't super prominent but the highlighter took over and made it look like a nice overall highlight. I'm not sure if I just didn't put enough on to really get it going. I will have to update this post the second I put them on my face!!

So that's it for today's post! I hope you found it useful and maybe peek your interest as to see if you would like any of these new products! These are just a handful remember so make sure you check out Nouveau Cheap's blog post linked above to see her master post, there are also new concealers and eye shadow and mascaras!!!

Talk to you all soon! Nicole <3

Sinful Colors: Cool Gray.

Good morning guys!

Hope you all are having a wonderful morning! For those of us who are finishing up the fall semester at school, good luck to you all on finals!!! Today is my last day of the semester too but I don't have any finals. I just have to give a speech in my Business Communications class. I am the worst public speaker. This would be the third speech for this class and every time my heart feels like it it going to leap from my chest!

Anyway wish me luck on it and lets jump into today's post!

Today I have for you a polish I picked up in the fall that I clearly never got to swatch for the blog but I have worn and its kind of a favorite of mine. I remember my Wal-Mart had a huge middle of the isle display with all new and old Sinful Colors on it. Now I have had gray polishes in the past, the two that jump to mind are the Claw Polish in Phantom and China Glaze Immortal. I did a dupe post here if you want to take a look.

This polish just a straight up creme finish, which is why I love it so much. Cool Gray is the name and its is as the name says pretty cool. If you saw in my last post the Instagram shot I did of snowflake nails back last week I used Cool Gray as a base color.

The formula on this isn't thick or too thin, but you definitely need two coats to make it opaque. This is a polish I will find myself grabbing for anytime of the year. 

The photos were taken inside with a make shift light box I  made over the summer and don't have anymore because it got crushed. This also when my nails looked nice too, after the fall semester my nails took a nose dive and got really bad and I have had nubbins for the last three months. Hopefully now I can start to grow them out a little more. Although I do like having shorter nails it makes stamping easier. 

I hope you enjoyed today's post and I will have another one for you guys soon! I'm thinking it might be a make up post with some swatches of the new Lorac Sweet Temptations Eye Shadow palettes I just got a couple weeks ago! 

Until then! 

<3 Nicole 

45 Days of Untrieds Day 17: Sinful Colors: Cool Grey

Good Monday morning! Hope you all had a great weekend. I spent some of mine school shopping. I just have to get a few more supplies and then some fall clothing.

I also want to tell to you guys that I when I last did a untried's post I talked about getting a new job, I ultimately made the decision  not to take the job. I have many reasons for not taking it but the main one is because I would not be making enough money at my new job to support myself while I am in school. Plus we also might be getting a new house, we went and looked at a couple and have started negotiations on one. If everything goes as plans which I pray it does ( and if you don't mind say a pray for us too) then it would be a better idea to not give up my higher paying old job.

To say the least though everyone I work with is happy I'm not leaving. They told me they weren't going to let me leave anyway. But I'm glad I'm staying, mostly for the people and the money. I know that sounds bad.

Anyway on to today's untried. It is a Sinful Colors Polish I picked up from one of those middle of the isle displays at good old Wal-Mart.  It is called Cool Grey. I think if the weather was gloomy this would be the perfect polish to wear.  They are predicting today's forecast to have a 30% chance of rain, we'll see if that actually happens.

This polish is a creme finish. My favorite type! This polish is opaque in two coats but I did a standard three with a layer of top coat to smooth it out.

If you are not careful and apply the layers too thick you can cause it to look uneven and lumpy. Hence the reason for a good top coat!

The color is pretty much your standard slate grey. When I wore it around my friends they said it was the most simple color I had ever worn but it was still pretty. I think it a great palette cleansing polish.

One other reason I picked this polish up was because I thought it would be a great background color for future nail art attempts.

If you like this polish I still believe that it is available at Wal-Mart. The same display I got it off of was still there.

If you guys liked this polish then please head over to Adriana's blog (Morie's Nail Art) and Shaylads over on Instagram!

What polishes do you like for palette cleansers?? 

<3 Nicole

45 Days Of Untrieds Day 16: Cover Girl Perfect Penny.

Hey guys!!!

Once again sorry for the lack of untireds here on my part I should of been up to like day 20 by now! But quite a few awesome things have happened over the last week and they took over my life for a bit.

If you have read my last  post you know that I was talking about leaving my current job for a new one, well I officially put in my two weeks! It feels weird to say that I will be leaving as of the 18 of this month. I am beyond excited though, I love new adventures and taking the plunge with them. It was one of my New Years Resolutions this year!

Also I got re-admitted back into school as of Tuesday!!! Finding out that I am going back to school makes me so happy, I love learning and expanding my brain!

So today's untired is another Cover Girl Polish. If you have an addiction Rose Gold basically anything than you may want this polish.

Perfect Penny is the name and rose gold is its game! I think I became obsessed with rose gold jewelry, and polish and an sort of accessories when I first saw Ingrid or MissGlammorazi on YouTube show her rose gold watch from Michael Kors.

My mom asked me the other day when I showed her Perfect Penny if I had a polish just like this, one that she has worn. I told her yes but this is different. She just shook her head at me. One day she will see how different similar colored polishes are.

It almost blends in with my skin tone so when I was painting my nails I actually had a hard time seeing if I had any bald spots. It was either that or the my light was making it all weird.

Two to three coats are more than enough to make it opaque. I did notice a few streak marks when applying this polish, you know the marks you can get when a polish is metallic and you get those lines.

You can definitely compare this too Essie's Penny Talk which is another one of my untrieds I should feature here, but I feel that polish is not super metallic, its also thicker and really good for stamping.

But if you have always wanted Essie's Penny Talk which is now a polish I see all over the place, but you can't still get your hands on it then Perfect Penny might be a nice replacement or an awesome companion if you already have Penny Talk.

I got my Cover Girl Polish at my local Wal-Mart. It is a part of their core collection so it should be easy to find.


Don't forget to keep up with the amazing Adrianna of Mories Nail Art and Shaylads on Instagram!

Do you like Rose Gold Jewelry/accessories/fashion?? 

<Nicole

45 Days of Untrieds Day 13: Cover Girl: My Papaya

Good Morning!!!

Hope you all had a wonderful Monday! I spent mine doing laundry, trying to renew the registration on my car but the DMV's computers were down so we have to go back today. Then I had to call Geico because some person is or was trying to use my email on their policy, so I had to call them to remove since I don't obviously want these emails. But I decided to just eventually delete the account since it might of been a bad part on Yahoo as well possibly giving the same username to someone.

Anyway on to today's untried. I have a few Cover Girl Polishes that I have tried on here, last Halloween I think I showed you all Wine Stain, which also so happens to show up in my stats as most searched.

Today's Cover Girl Polish I have is called My Papaya! It caught my eye a while ago while wandering around the make up section at good ole Walmart.


My Papaya is a orange-coral that has a shimmer too it. I picked it not because I love the color coral but because its bright and fun and I think I'm auto-programmed to pick those colors first.

This polish takes about the usual 2-3 coats to be opaque. The formula is really nice, a little runny but nothing you can't fix with a clean up brush and some acetone!

The only thing I would change about this polish is the shimmer. You can clearly see it in the bottle but once on the nail it disappears. Its sad because it is really pretty.

If you want to pick up a Cover Girl Polish you can find them usually where ever they have Cover Girl Cosmetics. It may not be huge display but I'm sure you can find them!

Don't forget to check out Adrianna's untireds, she is kicking some butt in this challenge, and check out Shaylads on Instagram, she just had her appendix out so she is recovering go and give her some love while she is healing.

Do you like cosmetic companies putting out nail polish or should they just stick to make up? 

45 Days Of Untrieds. Day 3 Salon Perfect: Bermuda Baby.

Hello!

Hope you are all having a fabulous Saturday! I am most certainly having a great weekend, and I will tell you all tomorrow if it is getting even better.

Today's untried is another Salon Perfect polish that I picked up at the display of the Neon Collision polishes. This beautiful polish is called Bermuda Baby, one day maybe if I am lucky I'll actually get to go there.

Anyhow this polish a wonderful blue neon polish that reminds me of the water you would see around Bermuda.

If you google Bermuda beaches you'll see how this color fits in.

The formula on this was pretty much the same as Gone Sailing.  But the humidity definitely effected the drying time. I still love, love, love this color though. its like a bright blue sky on those days where not a cloud could be found.

I did have a photo with top coat but there were so many bubble it was not blog worthy at all!

These photos were taken in (1) natural light and the second one is under the light of a lamp which I no longer have.

So thats it for today's untried. I hope you will stay with us on this journey! Don't forget to check out Adrianna's untried, and @shaylads on Instagram!

Whats your dream vacation?

<3 Nicole

Fingr's Set In Rhine-stone.

Good morning! Its the middle of the week! Which means I get tomorrow off and I cannot wait!

About a week or so ago I had seen on the blog-o-sphere that the company Fingr's was putting out a whole new line of nail art supplies and polishes called Heart 2 Art. I for one was really excited because to find nail art supplies where I live it is literally impossible. The Fingr's Heart 2 Art line was going to be exclusive to Wal-mart, and wouldn't you know I practically live there!!! OK so that's not necessarily a good thing but at least I get good dibs on all the new stuff that comes out there.


Anyway I had went on a trip by myself, usually my visits to Wal-Mart consist of my parents too, but I like to go by myself sometimes to just get away. Sounds great doesn't it? When I came across the display it hadn't been completely stocked yet and there were parts that were missing. But I grabbed what I thought I wanted or needed, one of them being the polish I am going to show you today.

The Fingr's polish bottles actually look like nail art striping bottles but they aren't. I had to open one in the store just to make sure. At the time I chose this polish there weren't many, like I said the display was missing stuff. I still think its missing a whole line of nail polishes. Out of the few that were there this one caught my eye.

The name is called Set in Rhine-stone. It is most certainly not a summertime nail polish. Its in the fall/winter family but to be honest if I like it I could care less if I wear it out of season. This polish is a medium-dark grey base that is sheer but very build-able with tiny silver hex glitter running through out. The name fits the polish perfectly because it does look like wet cement with tiny rhinestones in it. You know it reminds me of the Forever 21 store's floor. The black tile that has all that glitter. I seriously would love to have a floor like that in my bathroom or something.

Lets take a look at the photos.

These photos consist of three coats I believe and top coat, all photos are taken in natural light.

These polishes I believe are priced at $1.68 each, which for the amount you get isn't horrible. The brush on this isn't too bad, its your standard brush, maybe slightly wider but the elongated handle makes maneuvering a little hard.

Set In Rhine-stone is thick but also  a little sheer on the first coat but by the second to third coat you won't see your VNL.  But be warned the more coats you add the thicker it will get. If you want to get these polishes or any of the nail art supplies (which I'll cover in a later post) then head to your local Wal-Mart to see if the display is there. I would check even if your Wal-Mart, is one of the last to get new products. Mine is like that and they even had the display a few days after I read about it!

Did you get any new products from the Fingr's Heart 2 Art Line?? Tell me in the comments below!!!

Until next time <3 Nicole

Essie Peach Daiquiri

*Purchased by me*

Hello!!! *waves frantically*

Happy middle of the week! Don't we all love it, it means the toughest part is over and yet only a few more days until weekend freedom! I'm excited because after today I hopefully get to see my best friend/sister, I haven't seen her or my niece in almost two weeks. Usually we get together at least once a week but with all the craziness going on between our families it just didn't come together.

Anywho on today's polish post! One brand I have said I don't have many of is Essie, I think my grand total is a whole six. I know for someone who is an addict you would think I have more than that of Essie. Every once in a while I see a color Essie has out and it just calls to me or I find it on sale at TJ Maxx (which reminds me I need to go there soon). The latest color to jump out at me was Peach Daiquiri.

Peach Daiquiri is not the color you think it is. It is definitely not a peach color. To describe the color it is more of a strawberry coral color. So when applying it to the nail you'll notice it is more on the red toned pink side of the color spectrum.

I absolutely love this color, I plan on wearing this a lot over the course of the summer months, I'm definitely putting on my list of what colors I want to wear on my toes when I go on vacation to Florida  in a about a month and a half. Actually its about 48 days away!

So enough gabbing here is the pictures!

In these pictures I have two coats on plus a top coat. Application was really nice, a little streaky on the first coat but I encounter that a lot so it doesn't bother me so much and doesn't really become a factor in deciding whether I like a crème polish or not. I did notice that if you have any trace of dirt under your nails it can be visible through the polish. I did have a bit of chipping but I chuck that up to my job and probably me not wrapping my tips in top coat like I should.

So if your looking for a nice bright Essie color Peach Daiquiri might be right for you. Essie is available at most drugstores and Wal-Mart etc. I paid $7.75 for mine at my local Wal-Mart but remember as always prices may vary depending on where you live and what store you purchase your Essie polishes from.

Until next time!
<3 Nicole

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.

From the Swatch Vault Hard Candy Sky.

Good afternoon polish friends! Hope you all are well!

Today I have a post for you that was sitting in a folder on my USB drive that I took FOREVER ago and never posted here. I think I never posted it here because I wasn't happy with the outcome of the photos but I'm going to show you anyway since the brand this polish is, is being discontinued!

 How sad is that???

If you remember when The Hard Candy Cosmetic Company launched at Wal-Mart sometime ago, they put out a line of polishes with it. It took me forever to buy any of them, and I don't think it was the price point. They retail for $5 each and my Wal-Mart had maybe six different colors to choose from.

The first time I bought one of the Hard Candy polishes, it turned out to be their matte top coat called Mattely In Love. Mattely In Love was the first drugstore/affordable matte top coat I found, considering Essie at the time was $8 and NY Color hadn't released theirs yet.

Later on I wound up purchasing Splendid a bright yellow crème that is not the best by any means and what I am showing you today, Sky.

Sky is a lovely sky blue with hidden blue shimmer that's a tad bit darker. From what I can remember about the formula it takes about three coats to reach opacity and its very thin and watery too. It will definitely flood your cuticles if not careful.


*All photos taken in natural light, three coats and a top coat.

Now here comes the sad news. While reading the drugstore beauty blogs, I found out that Hard Candy is discontinuing quite a few products, including the Just Nails line. So the polish I am showing above will eventually no longer be available. Hopefully though Hard Candy will be putting out a new line of polish and maybe a color similar or better, we can all cross our perfectly manicured hands!

So if your Wal-Mart sells Hard Candy and you have never purchased any of their polishes I would go an take a look because there are a few gems out there.

Do you already own any Hard Candy Polishes?

Nicole. <3

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.