Wet 'n' Wild 8 Pan Eyeshadow Palettes

Last weekend I picked up the 3 new 8 pan Wet 'n' Wild eyeshadow palettes at my local Walgreens. They retail for $4.99 and are a great value for the money. For the most part I like them, despite generally being a total brand whore, but Wet 'n' Wild has always been one of those exceptions for me; the quality is always great.


First up is the beautifully neutral toned Comfort Zone. The quality on this one is nice; it's soft and pigmented and delightful to apply. I do feel like the left side of the palette is too warm for my taste, but I love the green side of the palette (minus the ugly warm brown duochrome shade)

The second palette is Petal Pusher, the purple toned palette in the new collection. Again, one side is cooler toned than the other. The cooler toned left side is far less pigmented than the other. I had a bit of trouble applying the lid shade without packing it on, and even then it didn't show up too well. I haven't applied the right side yet, but it swatched pretty nicely. I would say that this is the least pigmented of the 3 palettes, which is a bit dissapointing to me because I'm fond of purple eyeshadows.

The last palette; Blue Had Me at Hello is the most pigmented of the 3 palettes, and oddly enough my favorite. I'm wearing the right side of the palette today, and it applied smoothly and coordinated perfectly. The silver shade is also the most amazing silver I've come across. I feel like this palette is worth it for that shade alone if nothing else. I am a little bummed that they shoved two black shades in this palette that are nearly identical; the glitter in the right side of the palette falls off pretty much immediately leaving it identical to the other black shade. The blue on the left side is also black based; making it come off as nearly black on my lids. I really wish that the creative team at Wet 'n' Wild had seen fit to put a different shades in here, but I'm still happy with the palette overall.

The last thing I have for you ladies today is my manicure for the day; China Glaze Cracked Concrete over ORLY Cashmere Cardigan. It's not my favorite combination, but it works I guess.

Here Come the Rainbows

The sun has been kind enough to come out the last few days, so I've been enjoying my last couple of days of freedom wearing some holo polishes. Between staring in abject horror at my cat walking across the top of my TV and browsing through my folder, I also realized that I had a few pictures I had also never sorted/uploaded..so here they are.

This is China Glaze DV8..to give you an idea of just how lazy I am, this picture's from December...there was cake involved though so I'm not entirely sure I can be blamed for this.
I believe that this was 3 coats...no particular application problems stick out in my head..though I do remember being pissed off because a couple of nails chipped on me on the first day. I also think that this was the last mani I did before my daily changes started.
Here is Dimond Cosmetics Chainmail Charm. It was my first black holo polish and will certainly not be my last (I've since obtained My Private Jet and Revvvolution) This is 3 coats, and in indoor lighting.
You'll have to excuse this next pic of Milani Hi-Res...it's from a couple of months back..and not only was there no sun, but it was one of those days where I ran around like a chicken with its head cut off. I snapped a quick picture in indoor lighting without oiling up my cuticles before I removed it and chopped down my nails. Interestingly enough, this was the most rainbow action I'd gotten from the polish all day. The milani holo polishes are more holographic indoors, and way better on the nails than in the bottle (it looks kind of like bits of glitter in the bottle, with very little holo effect) If you compare it with the other holos I'm posting today, you can see that the finish of the polish is very different from the others...it's still cool though. I did 3 coats of this..no application problems whatsoever.
OPI DS Glamour was my mani of choice on Thursday. It photographs less impressively on short nails than on longer ones I guess, but the holo effect is still there. It was the usual easy to apply OPI and I did 3 coats. I can definitely see the love for this polish...it's a great deep blurple/indigo colored holo polish...very unique.
Here's the polish I've had on for the last couple of days...China Glaze LOL. I actually think I love this polish..it's a beautiful vibrant purple holo. This is one of those rare times where I only did 2 coats. One thing to note about the application of this one is that it's best to work as quickly and with as few strokes as possible on the first coat of this. It's okay to leave the first coat uneven since once it dries down a bit it will self-level out. If you go over parts of the polish again, you're likely to end up dragging the polish off and causing trouble.

That's all from me today...with any luck though my Nubar order will come decently early tomorrow and I can go about swatching the Fortress Collection.

Nail Polish Stash Part 2- China Glaze

China Glaze dominates my stash...so it gets its own post. As far as I can tell, the only one that's missing is Rodeo Fanatic...which is kind of ironic since I had ended up with 2 (I bought one, and was then given one. My sister got one...my mom borrowed the other and never gave it back...it's basically lost to the world now) The desk...isn't mine...it's my sister's..she gets better lighting in her room..and since she's not home...










stragglers...lol...by this point I didn't want to retake pictures to satisfy my OCD
Dorothy Who? got knocked behind my bed by the mischievous one...so it was a straggler.
additions from Sally's sale
Old ass China Glaze...

That is all for now. If you want swatches/comparisons of anything, let me know. I'll be happy to shove it on my list to do.

New mini set at Icing, Sally's extra 50% off Clearance Sale, and China Glaze Lemon Fizz

There's 3 topics today...the first being the new set of polishes Icing has available for Spring. It's a nice collection of pastel creme-like polishes with peachy pink shimmer. I find them kind of exciting, and will be slowly swatching them soon (the new Maybellines will probably come first..I'm wearing 2 of them right now, though one's on my toes and therefore won't count..lol) Anyways, the minis are 12 ml each, which is a pretty decent size for minis. (a full sized China Glaze is 14 ml, for reference). The set retails for $16, but Icing always has their buy one get one 50% off deal going, so you can always pick up a different, 2nd set of minis for $8, or one of their other polishes. They've also got a lot of nice colors on clearance right now too, so it's worth making a trip if you have an Icing's nearby. I'm a pretty big fan of Icing polishes, the brushes are pretty wide, so I find them easy to use, and I've liked the formula on all the ones I've tried so far.

Secondly, if you didn't already know, Sally's is having a sale right now where you can take an additional 50% off clearance items. It's a pretty sweet deal, I picked up 4 China Glaze polishes (pictured below) as well as a set of travel sized bottles, and Orly Twilight (not pictured), which was only $0.99! Depending on your Sally's stock will vary of course. By the way, all of the China Glazes I picked up were under $2 :]
Here's my NOTD with China Glaze stroll. It's indoor lighting because I didn't get a chance to take a picture during the day and I promised I'd swatch Lemon Fizz...It's a bit darker rl than pictured here, but you can see the cool finish of the polish. (My skintone's also not that color, though there's a difference in color between my two monitors so what you see may differ)
And as promised, here's Lemon Fizz. This is 3 coats, mostly because I wasn't too careful in the application after a certain mishap, (you'll see it later) I actually like this color way more than I expected to, though I still feel like the polish was never fully even. It's not to a really noticeable extent, but unfortunately, working in inspection for a period of time has made me overly observant to tiny defects and it will bug me from time to time.
This polish has a pretty unique quality to it...as in it seems to attract other living creatures..here you see my cat sneaking up on it...
And when I was applying it the first time, this little guy decided to fly into my nails, he got his legs stuck in, managed to pull them free, but still fell over and died on my nail halfway through my 2nd coat on my right thumb (and yes, I definitely make thicker coats on my thumbs, since I have trouble with thin ones on those fingers..haha). How's that for 3D art though? (I removed it of course, and started over, since I messed up a lot of fingers taking a pic of this)
Anyways, tomorrow I'll start posting my polish stash bit by bit. I know when I polled you guys you wanted to see both my polish stash and makeup stash together, but with the way I'm doing the pictures, it's not really feasible (the page would never load)

Some Up and Aways

I bought the entire China Glaze Up and Away collection, but I've been slow to wear them. (I've only worn 4 so far..unfortunately I forgot to take a pic of Four Leaf Clover). It's like 6 am and I can't seem to go back to sleep, so here's the other 3 I've tried.

First up is Angry Go Boom...
Did I say Angry Go Boom? Sorry, I meant Happy go Lucky. It's a bright-ish yellow creme that's an absolute nightmare to apply...it's a streaky mess, even at 3 coats. I smoothed it out with topcoat though, so the end result was fine.
I've already kind of posted pics of Light as Air, but here it is on its own. Despite being very light, I still like it. I believe this is 3 coats, though it's opaque at 2. Formula was easier to work with than Happy go Lucky.

Heli-yum is a decently bright raspberry creme. I kind of like it, despite it being pink. This was 2 coats, and is the easiest to apply ou of the 4 I've tried so far.
Indoors, indirect natural light. I couldn't quite get the color to show the way I wanted it to. It's probably due to the fact that by the time came out it was starting to set.
Bonus pic...because she's cute...

Some lilac polish comparisons (OPI Done Out in Deco, China Glaze Light As Air, OPI Do you Lilac it and Essie Lilacism)

Earlier today, someone was asking for a comparison between OPI Do you Lilac it against Essie Lilacism, and China Glaze Light As Air, so I decided to swatch them for her. Since I had done so and labeled them already, I've decided to post my comparisons of these 4 polishes. All of these were done with 3 coats, except Essie Lilacism, which was 4 coats (It might be opaque in 3, but I forgot to shake the bottle before I started applying it so the first coat was very runny) Light as Air, you can probably get away with 2 coats of..I was being kind of quick and sloppy with it, so I ended up having to do 3. The formula's pretty decent on this one..too bad China Glaze's brush sucks. I'll also apologize for the lack of cleanup..I got lazy.
The first comparison is between OPI Do You Lilac it, China Glaze Light As Air, and Essie Lilacism. Light as Air is the lightest of the 3, with a dusty quality to it that I'm fairly fond of (Dusty cremes are my favorite cremes) I did a full mani of it after these swatches..and sadly I'm not entirely sure it's a color that works well on me...my face is neutral..but my hands are fairly warm...I love it in some lightings..and in others not so much. It's closest to Essie Lilacism, though Light as air is definitely lighter and dustier than Lilacism. Personally, I like Lilacism's color more. The difference is most apparent in the picture below, but there's definitely a stronger difference in person. OPI's Do You Lilac it is not very similar at all to either of these two.. it's more vibrant and less cool toned, and much less of a pastel.
I then compared OPI's Done Out in Deco with the the two, since it's lighter and cooler colored than Do You Lilac It..it's closer to these colors than Do You Lilac It, but is still not a dupe of either color. It is again more vibrant than these two and possibly a bit bluer, though it does carry a nice dusty quality to it.

This ends my comparisons of these colors. Unfortunately I do not own Lucky Lucky Lavender from the Hong Kong collection, so I cannot compare it to Light As Air and Lilacism. I hope this satisfied somebody's curiosity.

Happy Chinese/ Lunar New Year! New Year's Konad and OPI Alice in Wonderand

Happy New Year Ladies! Here is my New Year's NOTD: China Glaze 2030 over Essie Love, Beverly Hills XX. There was no tiger plate, but I tried...lol. I'll apologize in advance for the flipped pictures..blogspot is freaking out on me..and refuses to upload them properly.

Today I have for you the other 2 polishes I bought from OPI's Alice in Wonderland Collection. First up is Mad as a Hatter. This took 4 coats to be fully opaque and was still bumpy after 2 coats of Poshe. I don't like this polish at all..it looks like a New Year's Eve party threw up on my nails...and not in a good way. Despite being a glitter polish, this one just doesn't shine.

2nd is Absolutely Alice. It's not so sparkly here, but really only because my camera couldn't handle the glare from this in sunlight. It's a beautiful polish, way shinier than China Glaze Dorothy Who? and although they're similar in that they're both blue glitter polishes, Absolutely Alice is much nicer to me. It's a vibrant blue glitter with a lot of gold sprinkled throughout vs the silver in Dorothy Who? and just gorgeous. It looks totally bah until you topcoat it though...as you'll see below. This is 3 coats, 2 coats of Poshe..and still kinda bumpy after it, but not too bad.

Despite the bad lighting in the following pictures, these are here to show you the quirks. This is what it looked like freshly Topcoated...nice and shiny
This is what it looks like before the topcoat. Note that it's dull and boring and kind of ugly...
I'm not sure if this had to do with my topcoat or not, but I've heard this happen to a few people with both Absolutely Alice and Mad as a Hatter..but they have the tendency to pop off in full pieces...Anyways..that's all for now..I did finish taking stash pics of my polishes, but I did also just order some Elizabeth Ardens, so I'll wait to post those after I get them...I will not be posting polish stash with my makeup stash however as the polish stash alone was over 100 pictures.