Tarte Sweet Indulgence 3 in 1 Holiday Collection from QVC! Photo Heavy!

Good morning lovelies! Its 8 days until Christmas! I am about half way done with my Christmas shopping, I'm hoping to finish this week and if I have to I will to go to the store on Christmas eve. Any store on Christmas eve is a scary place.

Today I bring you a closer look at a holiday gift set that I showed fairly quickly in my Current Favorites video on YouTube.

It was also my very first purchase from QVC. Back when my aunt was alive she was obsessed with QVC and I could never really understand why, until now.

I purchased the Tarte Sweet Indulgence 3 in 1 Holiday Collection that was originally a Today's Special Value back in the beginning of November. I bought mine on Black Friday for a featured price. The original price of this set was $71.50, on the one day it was the TSV it was $59, then it was at a featured price of $65.94 and it was on Easy Pay.

Easy pay is when you can pay for a product on QVC monthly instead of footing the whole bill at once. I believe that QVC does it to products that can have monthly payments of three months or longer.

It didn't take long for my gift set to get here, I ordered it Black Friday and it was here that following Tuesday! So thanks QVC for having amazingly fast shipping.

Sadly I hate to say this now at this time this set is no longer available on QVC. Cue the sad faces I know, BUT, there is hope, you will have to wait until May 2015 to get it. Tarte will be releasing a spring version of this gift set then! So if you missed out this time around you can get the Spring Version! You can even see what its going to look like on the QVC Website, you just have to scroll down the page to a tab called "Second Shipment' and it shows you what will be coming in May!

Okay so enough rambling lets look at what came in this set!

In this amazing set you get three boxes set inside of a larger box. Each box contains something different. Lets take a look at the turquoise box!

 I think the turquoise box is by far my favorite. I mean I love all the boxes but I am a huge blush and lippie girl so this was fantastic. You get two full sized Tarte Amazonian Clay 12 hour wear blushes that are exclusive to this set! Then you also get a full size Tarte Lipsurgence Lip gloss and two Tarte Lipsurgence Lip Pencils!

The blushes are called Pampered and Savored. Papered is a bright light pink blush. The texture is smooth and its highly pigmented. I didn't see any visible shimmer in when I applied it to my cheeks, but you definitely cannot have a heavy hand with this blush, otherwise you will come out looking like a doll. Savored is a mauve-rose pink blush that also has a smooth texture but you can see it has a ton of shimmer too it. Savored unlike pampered is not a pigmented. When I swatched it I had to go back a few time to the blush to get the color you see in the photo  but on the cheek you still get great color payoff, you also still have to have a light hand so you don't get so much shimmer on your face. Its like the color knows when its on your cheek versus your arm.

Next in the turquoise box is the three lip products. I absolutely adore the lip pencils, they are right up my alley. I am not a huge lip gloss lover but I will wear this to use it up, I don't think it would be fair to let such a pretty color just sit there. The two lip pencils are called Wonder and Rare and the lip gloss is called Indulgence.

I like that all of these are bright pink colors, its very different for a holiday set, I'm still getting used to wearing bright lip colors. I have only just mastered wearing red. Each lip product has a minty scent so if your not into that they you may not like these. I have tried the lip pencils and I love the staying power of these, even when they wear off I can still see a stain of color on my lips!


Next in the purple box you get two 8 pan eye shadow palettes. I heard that this was a big hit this year since it didn't happen last year in the holiday collection. If you saw my Current Favorites video on my YouTube Channel then you saw I briefly mentioned this set and how much I loved the eye shadows and how wearable they are. They do stay in the neutral family so it suitable for anyone really.

You get a great mix of matte and shimmery shade with these two palettes and lately I have been using  matte shades to create eye looks. One of my favorite shades in this palette is the gold shade in the purple palette. Its called Dare to Be Gold. At first I thought that it was just a shadow with a glitter overlay but the glittery goodness goes all the way through! I have a feeling it will be in my look that I wear on Christmas eve at work next week!

Lets take a look at swatches!

These first two swatch photos are of the shadows in the purple palette. I forgot to add the names of each shadow in the photo so I will list them here.  We have; Pinky Promise, Taupe of the World, You Look Mauveless, Just Malt Away, Pampered Pink, Dare To Be Gold, Show Plum Love and Wind Down Brown. 

These are the shadows in the Teal Palette; Vanilla Candles, (which is my skin tone shade and can't see), Coming Up Roses, Hazelnut Bon Bons, Champagne Bubble Bath, Bronze Cuff, Feeling Grey-t
Espresso Yourself, and Cinnamon Latte.


All of these shades are super buttery and very pigmented, especially all of the dark shades. I found using a cleanse off oil was the best way to get them off without leaving any residue behind.

And finally in the last box, the gold box you get two full sized Tarte Lights, Camera, Lashes, 4 in1 Mascara. That's right TWO! Plus you get three eye pencils.

I'm not a huge fan of the eyeliners, but look at what other bloggers were saying is that they were not fans either. These eye pencils sad to say are not long wearing and not water proof and smudge easily. I wore one as a liner on my upper lash line one day and when I accidentally rubbed my eye without thinking, boom, there went my eyeliner. 

However the mascara makes up for the bad eyeliners, hell everything else makes up for the bad eye liners. Can I say how much I freaking love this mascara! I think I might have found my holy grail mascara here, Lights, Camera, Lashes gives me the longest, most full, and curled without a lash curler lashes I have ever seen! 

I'm still getting used to the formula on it though. Its much more wet than in any other mascara I have used before. But I can say that it has been a standout in testing. I haven't seen any smudging or flaking at all when I wear this. It holds up way longer than a normal 8 hour shift and I am just so impressed with that. The only downside I have about this mascara is that it makes your lashes very crunch and hard and can be a bit stubborn to get off. But I think that's the price you have to pay for all the pros you get.  

Overall I think this was a great investment piece for myself. I think its a great beginners set too, if someone you know loves makeup and doesn't really have a collection going or needs one then this might work. Like I said above and in my Current Favorites video this particular set isn't available any more but by the looks of the QVC Website they are getting a whole new set in May! So if you are looking to get this you will have to wait, but I think it will be worth it! 

I hope you guys enjoyed this post! I will talk to you all next week! 

<3 Nicole 

Urban Decay Vice 3!

Hi lovelies!

How was your Thanksgiving? For those of you that celebrate it of course,  I hope you ate tons of food and slipped into food coma's, and for those of you that don't celebrate it I hope your day was wonderful and still full of good food!

My Turkey day was non-traditional this year, my mom and I made Eggplant Parm and Meatballs in marinara sauce. It was delicious!

In today's post I wanted to share with you my swatches and my thoughts on the Urban Decay Vice 3 palette! If you saw my most recent video on my YouTube Channel then you know I FINALLY got my hands on this beauty!

Ever since I opened this palette I fell in love with it. Hell I was in love with it when I saw all the amazing Beauty Youtubers talking about it, and then its all I thought about after seeing it in person in Sephora. Oh the things Sephora does to us! Am I right?

Lets take a look at the packaging.

The Vice 3 comes in this beautiful case that you can either keep your palette in or use as a makeup bag. I plan on keeping this as a carrying case for my palette, especially if I do any traveling I'll feel better about it being protected. Not that I do a whole lot of traveling anyway. The design on the case is just amazing it reminds me of a sunset or something from the 1980's but I can't put my finger on what it is.

And of course the actual palette has the same design which on the metal-ish/plastic casing looks just stunning. I could not stop staring. The Vice lettering is a lime green raised plastic, that I'm not going to lie, I ran my fingers over a few times because of the texture. Call me weird if you must.

The only downside that I found and I think a lot of other blogger did too was that the outside case is fingerprint city. I have a compulsive thing about the outside of the case looking nice and I know its a waste of time cleaning it off every time especially if I use the darn thing every day!

Look at all those gorgeous colors. Seriously you guys I didn't want to touch this palette when I first opened it, I didn't want to mess them up, but I didn't spend the $60 bucks on this just to stare at it.

So I dug in.

You get five columns of outstanding colors. Each of them in their own color family and giving you five potential looks. But I don't always go by that. I go for what I feel .

I'll get this out of the way now since I will be saying it about all the colors in this palette. The texture on these are buttery and smooth and just one circle around with your finger or a few dabs with a brush you will get lots of color. Especially with some of the darker shades like Bondage and Reign. There are a few colors that are too light or powdery, I found those to be Alien (too light), and Truth (too powdery).

Lets look at swatches.

 In the first column you have your matte/transition shades. Like I mentioned earlier Truth was the powdery shade. Obviously as a skin tone shade you don't need it to be pigmented but because its a matte shade its can be powdery so I mainly use it to blend out the edges of my eyeshadow to highlighting my brow bone.

Undone, Downfall, and DTF are great crease shades and transition shades that help when your using a ton of colors in one look.

 In the second row column you have some of the not so normal colors. I have never worn blue or green eye shadow before and yet Dragon is calling my name to be used some how very soon. I think my next afternoon off I'm going to be playing around big time.

 In the third column we have some lovely shades. I've used Vanity in my outer corner already. Its a nice change up to using a dark brown or black. In the palette it comes off pretty vibrant but on the eye its more muted.

 The fourth coloum is all the pinks and reds. Look at them, they are just so ugh unbelievable. I think part of my decision on buying this palette was based of of Sonic, and Alchemy. As you can see Alien (At the top) is that one shade I wish was just a little more pigmented. In the palette it has so much potential, it has this amazing gold shimmer to it just screams 'Oh yes come to mama!. On the eye its barely a sheer wash of color and you don't see any of the gold.  I've used Bondage quite a bit and create a lovely smokey eye with it. My co-workers enjoyed it too.

The last column we have one of my favorite shades Last Sin. Its just this amazing shimmery neutral shade that when you have a dark crease and outer corner it helps blend everything together on the lid. Even wearing this by itself is nice if your going for that, 'wearing makeup, but I don't want to look like it' look. As for the last three shades I haven't delved into them too much yet, I'll get there, I saw a really pretty smokey eye on Pixwoo's YouTube channel Revolver and Defy could be great for!

And there you have it my lovelies, my look and thoughts at the Urban Decay Vice 3 Palette. This Palette retails at Sephora, and on Urban Decay's website for $60. Amongst all the other holiday palettes out there I'm glad I got this one!

I'll talk to you all soon! <3 Nicole

Back in Business!!!

Hi guys!!!

Sooo.... the semester is officially OVER!!!! WOO HOO! You have no idea how relieved I am. Technically I do have to go into school on Monday for one last class and to return a rental book but I don't have anymore test or anything like until the spring semester in January!

Since Christmas is about 11 days away I thought I would share my current winter/Christmas/Holiday manicure with you!

I feel like this year is coming to an end so fast, but I'm kind of glad it is. I have had a roller coaster of a year, with loss and family health problems. I've also been suffering really bad lately from depression, and anxiety. Its not fun but one thing that has kept me going over the last three months or so has been staying in touch with the nail community and how many of you amazing people out there are so supportive and encouraging!  I can't say thank you enough for that!

Today's manicure started off with one of my absolute favorite Christmas reds, China Glaze Cranberry Splash. I talked about this red a lot last year from what I can remember . Its shiny and shimmery, and every time I use it or see it, it makes me think Christmas!

I also have to give a shout out to OPI Nail Envy Matte for being my base coat to protect my nails, I got a twin pack of the original formula and the matte formula back in February. I finished the bottle of original formula and now working my way with the matte. It definitely keeps my nail polish on longer and I haven't seen any yellowing in my nails, compared to other base coats I have used.

To make this manicure more holdiay-ish I broke out my stamping plates. Originally I saw Nicole from Polish Me Please, post a snowflake manicure on her Instagram. I got inspired that day and did something similar and posted a photo on my Instagram. I used the same stamps from Bundle Monster for this manicure, and I think it makes my nails look like wrapping paper.

I used my mini star tree topper to pose my hand on. I have a mini tree in my bedroom this year and it just makes it so much cozy-ier. I will say this once I was done taking photos with it my hand was full of glitter, but there is nothing wrong with that.

For the snowflake stamp I used Fresh Paint's Coconut. I got it from Five Below, but I don't think they have it anymore. Five below goes through series of different polishes every so often and Coconut was released over the summer.

And to make my manicure shiny and protected I used Seche Vite. I was using Sally Hansen Insta Dry Top Coat but my nails chipped quickly after using it, which is a problem I have never really had with it so I decided to go back to Seche Vite one day after seeing they sold it in Wal-Mart. Seche Vite was the first quick drying top coat I ever used and I loved it, but then it started shrinking my manicures so I stopped. It seems though that this bottle isn't doing that so I guess I must be doing something right.

For the photos I did take them inside since it is snowing outside right now and the hours of daylight are limited. A couple of the photos did come out dark so I had to adjust the light on a couple of them.

So this is my launch back into blogging!!1 I am so excited to be back you guys!! I hope you like this manicure!

I will talk to you all very soon!
<3 Nicole

Update!!!

Hello lovelies!!

I hope you all are well. I'm so sorry I haven't posted to here in almost two months. Unfortunately there really hasn't been anything to update about.

School is still going on and to be honest its been tougher than I thought. I am definitely struggling to handle everything. I have even had some regrets about going back but my family and friends in real life and on social media have reassured me it was the right step to take.

I am however glad that it is over in three weeks! After that we get about a month break before spring semester begins. I hope that during that month off I can get some serious blogging done. I miss it so much. My nails have most certainly suffered from the lack of care they used to get before life went all crazy on me! Right now they are nubbins and the polish that I am wearing which is OPI Charged Up Cherry, is severely chipped. It makes me so so sad. I have acquired plenty of new polishes and cannot wait to swatch them for you and even maybe get to do some holiday nail art.

Next semester thought that starts in January, I made my workload a little lighter, I'm not expecting to graduate on time, I had to retake a class that I took almost three years ago so that threw me off but I also realized I'm not sure I want to go all the way and get a four year degree with business, I may just see where I go when I'm done here. However with that said, I am hoping that since my work load would be lighter and I am going to be working less I can focus more on school and blogging.

What I really want to do is blogging I mean I absolutely love it. I just wish I could make it into my job, but then I would become a recluse!

Anyway when I get a chance I will upload some photos to this post of any manicures I took photos of over the last two months and anything else that is exciting.

Okay lovelies talk to you soon!

<3 Nicole

Simple Holiday manicure number 2 Dots!

So I have a feeling this years holiday manicures theme is going to be simple for me. Last year I did all my nail art on fake nails so when it comes time to do my own nails its a huge fail!

Seriously though I wanted this post to be a super cool holiday manicure that was candy came themed. I had it all planned in my head like any nail blogger would and then trying to execute it was a no go.

My original idea was to have some awesomely striped nails in the traditional red and white and so I got out my supplies and went to work. I tested it out on my pinkie nail, then moved to the others and realized I can't do consistent stripes! It bugged me much. My mom of course who is half friend and half nemesis when it comes to the type of nails I wear said it was cute... Yeah no.

So then I thought why not do dots but in stripes and maybe it will be a new type of candy cane nail. So repainting my nails for the umpteenth time I went to work with my dotting tool and came up with what you will see below.

I used China Glaze Cranberry Splash as my base color, it is by far my go to red this year. Then I used Pure Ice Superstar for my dots.

I only did the dots on the opposite corners of my nails so they kind of are candy cane-esque maybe not your decision but they are very sweet for a holiday party. It kind of reminds me of a few snowflakes on a holly berry or even cranberrys? Who knows take a look at the photos below and tell me what you think!

Until next time!

A very simple holiday manicure!

Hello my dears!

Hope you all are having a wonderful Sunday! Today I am picking my dad up from the train station! I'm excited to see him I haven't seen him since before Thanksgiving.

Another thing that has happened is we have had our first snowfall this year!! It's only like a half inch but still it's snow! Sadly it will be gone by Tuesday as they are forecasting it to be 60 degrees! Such weird weather for December and New York!

Since it is December and the holidays are approaching I bring you the first holiday manicure! Anyone can do this manicure it so simple you can't mess it up!

First up you start with a gold foil polish! I used Sally Hansen Golden-I which I just bought and can't believe I never owned it! Plus gold polishes are all over this time a year, there are a few companies that have them out this year. Two coats and your at optimal opaqueness. Let that dry completely, then add one to two coats of your favorite multi color glitter! Who doesn't want to be all sparkly this time of year??

I would suggest if your multicolored glitter is densely packed then only use one coat if its a very sparse glitter like the one I used which was the Blue Cross Beauty Holiday Lights use two coats. The bottle actually lights up different colors!

Add your favorite top coat and you are good to go! I got a lot of compliments at work on this manicure, it's so simple and festive that it would go good would any holiday party and outfit!

Check out the photos below!! I hope you enjoyed this post and stay tuned for more holiday manicures and treats!