New York Summer - Hot Purple and Wet N Wild - Believe Me, It's Real

Is today the greatest day ever or what? I just found a photo app of my dreams. Here's a shot taken and processed with Photo Toaster:

I generally have difficulty capturing complex, glitter polishes like this one. You can actually see the purple, accent glitter in there (or at least I can... I kind of have Spidey senses when it comes to photos). I was also able to adjust the white balance while fiddling with the tint/contrast and so much more... it's really worth a look and it's only a buck! I also like Diptic but it needs to be used in conjunction with a more powerful app like Photo Toaster:

As for the polish, I wanted to give this manicure more depth which is why I used Hot Purple as a base; it's a wonderful purple, jelly on its own. But I topped it with one coat of Believe Me, It's Real and it looks amazing and has a pseudo-duochrome thing going on.

Orly Nite Owl

This dry weather is not doing my skin any favors. Here's Orly Nite Owl. It's a great nude for my skin tone although it looks more brown in the bottle. It gives the same effect as nude pumps - it makes my fingers look long.

Wet N Wild - Night Glow

Halloween is right around the corner so I felt like I had precious little time to bust out this glow-in-the-dark nailpolish. I also have yet to try a herringbone manicure and I imagined this wonderful pattern full of contrast. Instead I got this:

Ugh - look at how dry my skin/cuticles are. This reminds me why I never break out the good camera for these things! In any case, the glow in the dark polish is very sheer. I should have laid down a white base before putting it on but I actually kind of like it this way. What really failed me is the mediocre black pattern (Sally Hansen Xtreme Wear in Black Out along with plate m63). This watery mess is a far cry from the sharp, opaque pattern I had in mind.

And here is the best shot I could take of the glow-in-the-dark action (and the reason why I broke out the good camera in the first place). It's crazy bright ya'll! I can't wait to go trick-or-treating - no one will notice how terrible this mani is in the dark!

Wet N Wild - I Heart Matte

The wait is finally over! Wet N Wild's much anticipated matte 8-pan palette has landed! I'm not sure whether this will eventually join the three, permanent 8-pan palettes but there was only one at my local Walgreens and it was cracked:

It was still sealed though so I got it anyway. There was no room to consider - there was a girl eyeing the display in front of me and I basically reached around her to snatch the last matte palette. I will try to fix it later with alcohol. Hype aside though, this palette could be better. As suspected, most of the shades exist in other palettes:

The white and green are from the Pride palette. I thought the blue would be similar to the one in Fly Me to the Moon, but FMttM was a bit darker and has a slight sheen. The browbone and crease shades on the right side are from the Vanity palette. The right eyelid shade looks similar to the one in Vanity but it's more peachy and a bit less brown. I can't find the purple in any of the palettes I own but it looks like the one in Dancing in the Clouds - from the Dreamweavers collection which I failed to track down.

So it's not super fantastic. On top of the dupes, I wish they didn't waste two of the pans for a matte white and a matte black.

Wet N Wild - Diamond in the Rough

From Wet N Wild's "Ice Baby" collection: Diamond in the Rough over two coats of Pure Ice Kiss Me Here.

The shimmer in this one is so dynamic, it kept confusing my camera phone and going in and out of focus. This one is packed with tiny, silver glitter as well as big, prismatic (holographic?) glitter. In an attempt to show you the rainbow goodness, here's a bokeh shot:

When Nouveau Cheap started an interactive map on this collection, I stalked it until a local Walgreens popped up. I feel lucky to have found the untouched display. They only stocked two of each color and I had to have one of each.

Don't you love awesome, drugstore brands? They make it easy to splurge without breaking the bank. I'm not looking forward to the day I have to take this off though. I know it'll take a good, acetone soaking to get all this glitter off.

Orly Fowl Play and Color Club Perfect Molten

Sorry for the tiny hiatus. I did a lot of cooking this week and it's more sanitary to go bare nails. I also gave my medium-length nails the chop. Rolling dumplings goes a lot more smoothly with short nails.

But I wrapped up my cooking endeavors just in time as my latest haul from Head2Toe Beauty arrived today.

When I first saw swatches of Orly Fowl Play, I knew I had to have it. It's what I wanted Nfu Oh 51 to be - smokier and more "glow from within" if that makes any sense. This is another one that is so difficult to capture. Here's a bad picture but it somewhat conveys the depth, sparkle and flakies:

Too beautiful. I really didn't want to stamp over it but I was anxious to try my new foils from Color Club. Perfect Molten is excellent for stamping - so crisp, clear and pigmented. The best  I have tried yet. I think I'll have to get the rest of the foils from this collection. I should take out my real camera because my phone isn't doing these colors justice. Perfect Molten is actually green and not silver.

For now, I am too lazy and can only maintain any semblance of a blog if I do it all on my phone.

Revlon Royal Cloak

Revlon has been knocking them out of the ballpark lately and Royal Cloak is no exception. I think this is limited edition and so beautiful. If you see it, grab it while you still can!

It's not actually as blue as it appears in these pictures. This is as close as I could get to color accuracy. At three coats, it looks darker (smokier even) than in the bottle. And it has a lot of sparkle and little flakies...

This is definitely going in my top 10.

Rainbow Liner

Warning: ahead is a scary picture of my eyeball. My allergies have been going nuts lately leaving me with itchy eyes and scaly eyelids.

Now that we have the disclaimer out of the way, I want to talk about this beautiful Rainbow Liner look I saw on Nihrida's website. When I first saw it, I was dying to go home and try it and here's my first attempt.

Products used:

• Nars eyeshadow base
• 88 matte eyeshadow palette
• Ben Nye Liquiset
• Wet N Wild Vanity palette
• Wet N Wild black gel liner
• NYX eyeshadow single in Charcoal Brown
• NYX jumbo eye pencil in Milk

It's pretty horrific compared to Nihrida's pictures but I'm going to go ahead and blame that on the crappy brush I used (and the ever-irritating, eye-eczema situation). In any case, I really love this look and plan to rock it whenever I can. It looks nuts up close but from a distance it actually looks kind of neutral with just a subtle pop of color.

Day-o! Day-ay-ay-o!

I'm so all over this right here:

That's the upcoming Beetlejuice collection from Models Own. I don't own a single Models Own polish as of now but I'm looking at this set and I want every single one. Word on the street is this will be released in November. I'm embarrassingly excited - that one on the left looks like Chanel Peridot.

Zoya Edyta

Even though I love Zoya's Edyta, I basically had to force myself to wear it. I tend to gravitate towards my brights and pastels. I can't help it - I love the way brights look with my skin. In any case, Edyta is perfect at two coats but I had to double up on my base coat because it stains like crazy.

Rescue Beauty Lounge Under the Stars + Zoya Vegas Freeze

I haven't done a funky french in a while so I figured I would dust off a couple of old favorites. Under the Stars, like most RBL polishes, is very pigmented but not thick so perfect for doing the tips. Topping it all off with a coat of Vegas Freeze brings out the subtle shimmer in Under the Stars and makes the naked parts of the nail more interesting.

Revlon Starry Pink

The pink is more pronounced in real life and I love the large, hex glitters among the tiny silver sparkles. This was sheer (almost jelly-like) so I did three coats though I probably should have done a fourth. I love it but it's quite subtle (by my standards anyway) and you know me and nail polish = go bold or go home.

The only cure is more cowbell*

Once upon a time, my collection looked like this. It's marked as "what's in my makeup bag" but more or less, that as all my stuff. But as you can probably gather, the sickness = it spreads. Having a sister that works at Sephora does not help at all. I also blame Makeup Alley. With that, here are the contents of my Helmer. These are things I use on a regular basis (not all at once, in  case any of yous feel the need to ask). I actually have a box of "retired" items but I digress...

Drawer 1: face primers, concealers, foundations (liquid and powder), finishing powders, blushes (powder, creme and stains) and highlighters and bronzers.

Drawer 2: eyeshadow primers, brow products (pencil, powders, waxes), eyeliners (pencils, gels and liquids), mascara, various tools, sample-sized perfume, false lashes, my Shu Uemara eyelash curler (Shu pulled out of US retail stores a while back and I am afraid for the day when this needs to be replaced)

Drawer 3: eyeshadow singles and smaller palettes (I have bigger palettes that just don't fit; I keep those at the top of my desk in one of those letter holders) and various tools.

Drawer 4: all the lip stuff! Lipsticks, lipgloss, lip cremes, pencils, medicated balms, tinted balms, etc.

Drawer 5: Mid to high-end nail polish. Those of you with sharper eyes will see Revlon in there and I don't consider Revlon a mid-end polish company but I'm running out of room in the low-end drawer and I had to keep them together! My frankens are also in here.

Drawer 6: Low-end nail polish and polish minis. Retired nail treatments (I keep my frequently used nail treatments in a caddy with my manicure tools).

And for good measure, here is how I store my brushes. It's a Real Simple letter caddy I found at Target. The dividers I made myself out of foam-core board. I also keep my two favorite mascaras, favorite eyeshadow primer, brush cleaner and setting spray in this.

And that's that. I don't consider myself a collector by any means - I just really like makeup and find makeup application very soothing.

* Extra points to those who know what I'm talking about.

Konadicure Failure

I was aiming for a manicure inspired by Urban Decay's gorgeous 15th Anniversary palette and what I got was something else... Base color is Revlon Carbonite, Mash plate m64 with Sinful Colors Verbena and Wet n Wild Buffy the Violet Slayer.

I realized too late that I didn't have a proper, rich velvety purple. I tried to use Sinful Colors Verbena but it didn't have enough contrast. So to up the ante, I restamped with Buffy but it was too watery and shimmery to have much impact.

I smudged my middle finger badly in the middle of all this and by then I was already uninspired so I just left it unstamped. If anyone asks, it's my "accent" color. :P

Speaking of Buffy, anyone catch Sarah Michelle Gellar's new show "Ringer?" I'm halfway through the first episode and so far so good!

Locking Down your Stash

If you are sharing your home with kids, siblings, roommates or very dexterous pets, you might want to consider finding a way to secure your stash. It seems a common enough occurrence (on MUA anyway) that expensive items disappear, or one child takes it upon herself to use your favorite Too Faced palette to create her own smokey-eyed face of the day. Here's how I've modded my Helmer to keep those sticky fingers out:

That's a wooden rod cut to the length from the top handle to the bottom with an eye screw at the top and a combo, luggage lock to secure it in place.

Once upon a time, I used a key lock and then misplaced the key. I had to take the Helmer apart to get it open again so I really recommend the combo lock instead. This one is from Walmart and it was about $3-$4 for two. Now my stuff is safe as long as I remember to lock up after each use.

So I know this blog is new and I have zero readers but if some poor, bored person has found themselves here, what's up? Have you had a roommate or sister steal your makeup? Has your child ever tried to "color pictures" with your eyeliners?

Revlon Devil's Lure

Fall is here so time to break out the vamps! It's hard to capture this one on camera but it is a very deep red jelly. Great formula but you have to be careful about getting it on your cuticles because it doesn't clean up easily; the red is very staining and I actually had to remove and retry because I allowed it to pool in my cuticle and it just would not come off without a fight.