Showing posts with label Reviews. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Reviews. Show all posts

Sunday, February 16, 2014

Indie Review: St Patricks Day with Glitterfied Nails

Well this post took forever to get written up…because of…lemon cake. My sister and my dad decided to whip up some cake and gosh it takes forever to cool down before it can get frosted. But yum!!
Tonight I have 3 polishes to show you from Glitterfied Nails for St. Patrick's day. One you have already seen that I recently showed you in her Valentine's Day set. You can see those again here.

Up first is Golden Glow.


I know, you already saw this one, but just feast your eyeballs on that again, please. Literally looks like there is a fire off to the left there huh? Yes, you need this one. 2 coats shown, perfect opacity.


Next up is Lucky You. I am not 100% sure, but I believe I swatched this over Sinful Colors Nice Stems. (either that or it was Funky Fingers Mrs. Mint - but pretty sure is was the former).


Lucky You is a packed glitter topper made up of small green hexes and squares, as well as medium green and white hexes, large green hexes AND gold circles (GOLD COINS! gahh). I would have loved this polish without the gold dots -- but seriously -- tell me those aren't the whipped cream and cherry on top!


This is just 1 coat. I had a little trouble getting the circles out, but with a good upside down standing and a shake, I was able to fish some out and place them on my nails. As I usually do, I used the glob and spread method for great coverage!
My accent nail is Revlon Posh with white dots.


Here is another photo of Lucky You over the next polish I will show you. I really love how jam packed with glitters Andrea's polishes are. Even with massive amounts of glitter, the formula is always perfect and they dry smooth and even.


Meet the gorgeous Shamrock. This color makes me want to head outside and roll around in the grass!
I absolutely loved the way this dried. Without topcoat, it dried to a nice soft satin finish. It looked so fantastic. You can see what I mean in the above photo. 2 coats.
Because I loved this one so much, I did 2 bits of nail art with it.


First I wanted to do some sort of rainbow action jackson on my accent nail. I was kind of meh on how this came out. I wanted more of a rainbow looking thing but I suppose this will do.
I used about 5 polishes for the water marble.
Then I wanted to do stripes, so those ended up on my pinky.


I liked the stripes on my pinky nail in the first nail art spot, so I decided to settle on this mani since it wasn't so loud. My accent nail is SH Mint Sorbet as the base, with Essie Mojito Madness (bright green stripes), an Art Club white striper and then Shamrock (the dark green).

I think Golden Glow and Shamrock are definite must haves and will be perfect for your St. Patrick's Day festivities!


Last but not least, I have Nola for Mardi Gras!
I used her above in some nail art, but I have better swatches below to show you all the glitter goodness in here!



Nola is made up on small green and yellow hexes, with holo purple hexes, large green and gold hexes and purple squares! I think my favorite part about this little is the little yellow hexes! It really makes it stand out, plus I love yellow glitters!


Here I swatches it over a light lilac. This was really packed with glitter and using the glob and spread method I was able to get great coverage in 1 coat.
Andrea has another Mardi Gras theme glitter for sale in her shop too!

You can find Andrea/Glitterfied Nails here:
Facebook | Etsy | and now on IG

Her polishes retail for $8.75 for a full size bottle and 3 minis for $14. Go check out her Etsy because she has already posted her Spring collection and oh man it looks gorgeous!

Talk to you soon!
Christa







Monday, February 10, 2014

Indie Review: Carpe Noctem Cosmetics

Hello! I am back from vacation and unfortunately - am not tan in the least. I might have been a little tan for about half a minute but non-the-less, I am back to be shades of sad winter. I cannot stop thinking about pudding. I am not sure why. Anyway, lets get right to the polishes!


First up is Calypso. I love purples with bits of pink shift in them, simply because they are reminiscent of the infamous Man in White.
The above swatch shows the pink shift perfectly.


Calypso is a grey purple packed with a linear holo punch and a duo chrome flash of pink from certain angles. I love how muted of a shade this is. It's definitely my top pick for a perfect winter to spring transition shade! Shown here as 2 coats, no top coat.

Next up is Literary Lady.


This is a very sweet subtle shade of red. This one has a very slight linear holo to it, but the duchromatic goodness of this one really gives it its character. Shown here as 2 coats, no top coat.


From some angles you can see a yellow-orange shift, while from others you see the beautiful pink you can see in the swatches above.
This was a surprise favorite for me. I tend not to like orange-y polishes very much, and while I saw a lot of the orange shift in the bottle, it didn't translate onto the nail as much. The pink and red shifts were way more prominent.


Next up I have Venus in Love. These swatches simply don't do this polish justice. It is filled with some of the most beautiful sparkle I have ever seen. There are bits of purple, pink, black and red with a very fine micro sparkle throughout the lilac base. There are also red hearts, black hexes and squares, iridescent squares and holographic and pink dots suspended in this lovely lilac base.


I swatched 1 to 1 and a half coats over 1 coat of the custom Lilac Pastilles that Emily created for me. However, this would be opaque on its own in 2-3 coats. It was very difficult for me to get out the dots, but letting the polish sit upside down for a little and using the dab and spread method, I was able to get plenty of hearts out!


Last but not least was the most interesting polish out of the bunch - Chromatic Drake. Emily created this polish for Ashley from Potions in Motion and holy smokes! It is such a neat polish. I can definitely say I do not own another one even remotely similar.


This polish is a chocolate brown base, which you can see perfectly in the swatch just above. But what makes this most unique, is the red and beetle green shifts. In the first photo and the one below you can really see the beetle shift. It was tougher to capture the red, but you can see it on my tips in the photo above.


This was a really funky polish. I loved that it gave an otherwise boring neutral brown some fantastic flare.

Currently Emily is having a 25% off sale in her shop and her shop will be closing while she recovers from her surgery so you better go grab what you want now otherwise you will be pining for some of these for a few weeks!

Use code RECOVERY25 to claim the 25% off!

Will you be grabbing any of these in Emily's sale?

Talk to ya later!
Christa

**Disclosure: The products in this post were provided to me by their manufacturer for my unbiased review. Please see my Disclaimer page for more info**



Sunday, January 26, 2014

Indie Review: Glitterfied Nails

Hello! Sunday. Again. 
They always sneak up on me! I actually got a lot done this weekend and even completed packing for my vacation coming up on Thursday. I am usually a pack the night before kind of girl. And when I say 'the night before', what I really mean is 3 hours before my flight leaves the morning of. 
It makes me a little sad that I am all packed but am not leaving for 3 days still. :(

I was recently sent an AWESOME nail mail package from Andrea at Glitterfied Nails. Since she sent me so many for several different holidays I am going to be breaking the review up into a few pieces.
First up, I have the Valentine's Day polishes she sent with some others mixed in!


First up is Majestic Magenta which you may have already seen on my IG account if you follow @possiblychrista.
I layered it over Revlon Extravagant on my ring finger and did a glitter gradient over Revlon Naughty on the rest of my fingers. I loved this combo!


To show the color of the glitters better, I layered it over Carpe Noctem Under the Cover of Light and on my ring finger, I layered it over OPI Suzis Hungary Again. 


This polish was seriously packed with glitters as most of Andrea's polishes are! It has large and small magenta hex glitters with some awesome holo ones thrown in. This was a really beautiful glitter on and packed some serious sparkle!

Next up is Golden Glow. This one is part of her St. Patrick's day collection, but it went so well with pink I just had to wear it as a V Day mani!


Golden Glow is a seemingly sheer white-gold polish with bits of holo glitters. I used 2 coats and a top coat for this photo. Believe it or not, this built up to perfect opacity in just 2 coats.


I wanted to use this in a V Day mani, so I started with 2 coats of Revlon Extravagant and used Golden Glow as an accent.


Then I stamped using a Bundle Monster plate and SH Pink Satin.
This came out so cute and Golden Glow really complimented this shade of pink!
Next up I have another polish from Andrea's Valentine's Day line, Fuchsia Fantasy.


This one is packed with ultra fine iridescent and fuchsia glitters. It built up perfect in 2 coats (as shown) and was a lovely bright pink, perfect for Valentine's Day!
I paired this with Sinful Colors Mint apple and an Art Club white striper on my accent nail.

Last but not least is the cute Teal me you Fantasy!


This one I purchased because I loved the combination of teal and pink glitters with some iridescent glitters mixed in and just had to have it. This is completely unique in my collection!


I layered this over one of my favorite polishes ever, Revlon Not So Blueberry.
I used 1 coat of glitter over each nail. On my accent nail I used a pale pink Revlon polish and a CoverGirl for the waterfall look.

What do you think about these new polishes? 
Andrea makes some of the best glitters around and you have to head over to her page and check out some of the other pinks for Valentines Day!
I bet Pink Carnation is another gorgeous one!

All of these polishes are available for purchase in Andrea's shop now, follow the links below to find out more!

See you later!
Christa

**Disclosure: The products in this post were provided to me by their manufacturer for my unbiased review. Please see my Disclaimer page for more info**

Monday, January 20, 2014

Indie Review: Carpe Noctem Swatch Spam

Hello there! Happy Monday! In just 10 days I am jetting off to the Bahamas, so I can't even complain that it's Monday because I am a day closer to being reunited with my oldest friend. 
Tonight I bring you some swatch spam of Raspberry Beret, that you have seen before with a little nail art and Don't Panic!

First up is Don't Panic!


Shown here is 2 coats. I can't remember if I used a topcoat or not. I love how awesome the holo is on this one! Don't Panic is black base, but has a bit of a plummy shift too it.


The holo really seemed to lighten this polish up and despite the black base I didn't find that it was too dark for my skin tone. 

Next up is the lovely Raspberry Beret from Emily's most recent Jelly holo line.


I just loved this one and couldn't resist wearing it again with some nail art. I got the inspiration for this look from this pin HERE.


I used Zoya Thandie and Sinful Colors Mint Apple for the dots.

See you later!
Christa


Monday, January 13, 2014

Indie Review: Carpe Noctem the Jelly Holo Collection!

Well, these would have been up a lot sooner, but I gave my little brother my wi-fi password and now, I don't know anything about these things, but I have an inkling his Xbox game 
playing is sucking up all my wi-fi. 

Tonight I have a new collection from Emily over at Carpe Noctem Cosmetics.

She created a fantastic 3 polish set of JELLY HOLO's! When I unwrapped these, I was so excited, because the set is a perfect trio of Blue, Green and Red!

First up is Diva D in Diamonds, a bright, yet subtle ice blue.


This is 2 coats. This built up perfectly and despite being a jelly, was completely opaque. I was impressed with how shiny they were on their own, but I did add a top coat for these photos.


The holo was a bit of a scattered linear and unfortunately the sun wouldn't show their true potential. You can see in the bottle shots, that these are all JAM PACKED with holo though!
Next up is Moss Agate.


Moss Agate is a nice leafy green.
This one probably needed 3 coats as it is the lightest shade of the trio. However, 2 coats built up reasonably well and there is minimal VNL.


The sun is still hibernating, but you can see hints of the rainbow in the bottle shot!
Last but not least, was my favorite of the bunch Raspberry Beret.


Oh god, the perfect berry shade that I love so much. This was a deep raspberry that just made me want to lick jam off my fingers. This is 2 coats and you can see this one built up to be the most opaque. Shown with 1 coat of topcoat.


The sun obviously showed its sunny face for this one. I was able to capture a bit of the holo. You can see it most on my ring and middle fingers. A subtle, scattered linear. You can see from the bottle shots, that the holo is much stronger in real life.

I will definitely be picking up Raspberry Beret again for a sweet Valentine's Day mani since it is the perfect shade for that holiday!
Overall, I think Emily hit it out of the park with these holos. All too often it is hard to get Jelly polishes to build up to opacity and these did well with just 2 coats!

You can find Emily on
Facebook | Etsy | IG (NEW!)

**Disclosure: The products in this post were provided to me by their manufacturer for my unbiased review. Please see my Disclaimer page for more info**


Thursday, January 9, 2014

Pink on Thursdays (because it isn't Wednesday)

All my days are starting to blend into one. I chose, cropped and watermarked photos, to load into this post that I would call "We wear pink on Wednesday's". Except it isn't Wednesday. So we are going to do Throw Back Thursday to WWPOW!

I received this lovely light frosted pink in a Julep Maven box ages ago. I didn't think I would even like it, but it has become one of my favorite nude pinks and one that I reach for over and over.


Meet Lois.
This is the absolute perfect sea shell pink that is the perfect shade for my skin tone.


It has a bit of a subtle shimmer to it, but is still a "barely there" type of shade. It is so simple and classy!
Surprisingly, it was perfectly opaque in 2 coats. 
Shown here with a base coat, 2 coats of color and a top coat.


Since this one, I have been snatching up any Maven boxes that come with nude frost type shapes. I received 2 in my past box, and neither disappoints! If you are looking for a great nude shade, Julep is my go to!

What is your favorite nude shade?

Until next time,
Christa

Sunday, January 5, 2014

My very first Chanel!

Today was probably the most relaxing Sunday I have had in awhile! I did nothing but lay all over the house and read books. I am in the midst of the Divergent series and finished the 2nd and am now onto the 3rd! I dreaded every text I got today, because I was hoping no one would text me to suggest any activities that required me to put on real pants. Hah.

Tonight I have my very first Chanel polish to show you. My mom surprised me with 3 polishes for Christmas. I was definitely really surprised!! I never ever would have guessed what was in the box!


Tonight I have one of them to show you, Rouge Moire!
 This is a gorgeous raspberry red, shown here with 2 coats and 1 coat of the Chanel Topcoat.
I loved the top coat! It made this polish shine beautifully!
I used Loreal's new textured polish The Statement Piece as an accent nail. I have reviewed a few of those before and you can see the others HERE
Hint: I love them!


I absolutely loved this polish. It was so beautiful on. The only qualms I have with it, is that for such a high end polish, the formula was kind of runny, the brush was really small and wear was not what I would have expected. I got 3 days at most out of it before some chip page started to happen. 
Even so, I loved this and am happy to have it in my collection! I will definitely be putting it on my toes!
Happy Sunday!
Christa


Tuesday, December 10, 2013

'Twas the Night before…Another Giveaway

The only terrible part [for me] about all these awesome giveaways I am involved it -- is that I can't enter ANY of them!

So yes, this makes FOUR giveaways that you, my lovely readers, can enter!
Did you miss one?

Nail Art Goodies up for wins is HERE.
$100 Sephora or Ulta Giftcard is HERE.
Holiday Themed Prizes is HERE
and read on to see the latest!

Tonight I have 4 polishes from Spellbound Nails 'Twas The Night Before Christmas collection!
Let me start off by saying that while I love very a many indie polish brands, none inspire nail art, like Ashley's do. Maybe it is the collection or polish names or the colors or whatever, but I am always itching to get one of her latest on my fingers with some cutesy nail art.

Tonight I will show you the latest nail art inspired swatches!
I will show them in the same order they appear in the poem:
First up is Visions of Sugar Plums.

The children were nestled all snug in their beds,
While visions of sugar plums danc'd in their heads,


VSP is actually a bit of a softer, lighter purple in person. It leans more dusty lilac than the purple in this photo. Suspended in the jelly are pastel pink hexes and stars, that really give it depth! 
Shown here is 2 easy coats, with base and top coat used. You can see that it built up nicely. There is not much visible nail line at all. Unfortunately, I don't think I mixed it well enough because I wasn't able to get any stars out :(
On my accent nail I used one of the L'oreal Nail stickers from their summer candy collection.

Next up is Eight Tiny Reindeer.

When, what to my wondering eyes should appear,
But a minature sleigh, and eight tiny rein-deer,


Eight Tiny Reindeer is a red-brown jelly with dark brown and light brown hexes suspended throughout.
Shown here is 2 coats with base and top coat used. I think is built up nicely and while there was a bit more VNL on this polish than VSP, it still isn't very noticeable. I tried my hand at a Rudolph accent nail, but was kind of meh about it. Eh, I tried!


Next up is my favorite one of the bunch!
Bowlful of Jelly!

He had a broad face, and a little round belly
That shook when he laugh'd, like a bowl full of jelly:


I used 2 coats here, with a base and a top coat. I loved how squishy this one appeared. It is filled with red hex glitter and gold holo glitters. I will gladly put up with the VNL for this red. 
Everything about this red is just perfect!
I made a Santa Accent nail to go with this awesome polish!

Last but not least is
And to All a Good Night.


This is a deep blue jelly with blue holo glitter and even holo moons! I had a bit of trouble getting the moons out but other than that it built up nicely in 2 coats. It is dark enough that no VNL is showing. This one was a surprise like for me. The first coat went on kind of murky and it wasn't until 2 coats that the blue really came out.
I added a Rudolph and another reindeer as accent nails. Santa is heading home!

Ashley also has a ton of scents that she offers for her polishes! For these 4 I chose Hot Cocoa, Red Hot Cinnamon, Peach and Christmas Tree! I loved all the scents. They are nice and light, not over powering, but truly smell like the description.

You can find links to the other Bloggers who have swatched other polishes in this collection in the Rafflecopter widget below!

Now on to the giveaway!
Good Luck!

**Disclosure: Some of the product(s) in this post were provided to me by their manufacturer for my unbiased review. Please see my Disclaimer page for more info**


a Rafflecopter giveaway

Thursday, November 7, 2013

Essie Fall 2013 Collection

I am starting to see all the Winter Collections cropping up in my local Ulta and drugstores, but I don't want to chase the Fall weather into Winter weather just yet! Tonight I have 4 of the 6 Essie Fall 2013 polishes, with some fun nail art!


First us is Vested Interest. This is a nice deep, dusty teal. I love this one and have worn is a couple times since I bought it.
It went on great! Swatch shown is 2 coats, plus 1 coat of NYC top coat.


Next up is Cashmere Bathrobe, a slate grey, with a subtle shimmer. The name is perfect I think! It definitely makes me think of bathrobes! I wish the shimmer in Essie polishes was a bit more pronounced, as the shimmer in this one was barely there!
Grey is such a trendy color right now and this one is a really nice shade!
This one also went one great! Swatch shown is 2 coats plus 1 coat of NYC topcoat.


Out of the bunch I purchased, For the Twill of It, was my least favorite. I had high hopes for it when it was in the bottle, because the duo chrome shift was really awesome! This was sort of a "beetle" type duo chrome with shifts from greens, to purple and grey hues. I wanted it to be more purple!


There was a lot of green shift. Overall, it was a cool polish BUT what I didn't like about it - is that it chipped SO easily! Within ONE day I was seeing major chippage! Bummer!


Now this one, The Lace is On, was my absolute favorite!! I swear it glowed from within. This color was just such a vibrant fuchsia, I could hardly stand it! I have worn this one a couple times and I had it done on my toes too!
Swatch is shown here as 2 coats with 1 coat of NYC topcoat.


Last but not least, since The Lace is On and Vested Interest were my 2 favorites, I ended out wearing them together in this funky interlocking dotticure. This looks a million times more complicated than it really is. I loved these together!

What do you think? Did you pick up any of the Fall 2013 polishes?