Vamped Up

<a href="http://www.bloglovin.com/blog/11198763/?claim=x5tw5zcguw9">Follow my blog with Bloglovin</a>

I usually shy away from lipstick because I personally feel (my own insecurities) that I cannot pull the look off. I did come to the realization that I prefer matte shades over a glossier lipstick. This is Wet n Wild "'cherry bomb". I bought it on sale at Walgreen's for 99 cents (a steal) and decided to try it out. I've always been a fan of a vampy lip.

I started by applying a concealer to my lips for a base, and then lined and filled in my lips with a lip liner one shade darker than my lip color. I then applied the lipstick with my finger, pressing down like it was a stain. I applied one coat of a pressed foundation powder to my lips, and one more coat of lipstick. That is the best way I've found lipstick, especially of the more inexpensive variety, to have significantly more lasting power.

On my face, I am wearing revlon nearly naked, and benefit sugar bomb blush. I used the too faced chocolate bar on my eyes and finished with an essence mascara!

Wet n Wild Black Light Party

Recently, Dollar General massively overhauled their beauty department. Dollar General greatly expanded their Wet n Wild selection and is now carrying their new lines of cosmetics. I spotted quite a few new Wet n Wild megalast polishes for $2 a piece. I have one of them for you today - black light party!

This is a JELLY for one (ahhhhh). I love jellys. I'll never own enough. It applies evenly in three coats with no VNL. In extreme sunlight it's a bright violet with flecks of pink and purple glitter. In normal/florescent lighting, it looks more like a dark royal blue and the glitter isn't nearly as noticeable.

This is super gorgeous, the name is entirely fitting and I can't get enough of the color. It's very unique, I can't think of anything I own like it, or in general. If you can, let me know in the comments! 

Bottle shot!

What do you think? Have you purchased or spotted any of the new WNW megalast shades?

CORAL SHOWDOWN.

L-R: Wet n Wild Blazed, Sinful Colors Island Coral, Butter London Trout Pout, Sally Hansen Coral Fever

I have a coral problem. They speak to my heart and are the perfect shade for my skin tone regardless of the season. I was going through my collection and noticed these four shades look super similar, so I swatched them on a nail wheel to see how they all compare to Trout Pout..and ... here we are!



WnW Blazed is more peach toned and darker than Trout Pout. Sally Hansen Coral Fever is also darker, but more pink toned.

Now, Sinful Colors Island Coral is a bit thin. That's three coats. I obviously didn't wait for any of these layers to dry so it looks like my nail wheel is melting. ANYWAY! Sinful Colors Island Coral, in my opinion, is a dupe for Butter London Trout Pout. Trout Pout has a much better formula. It's a bit thicker. That's two coats in the photo. But, ignoring the bald spots in Island Coral and the colors aren't that discernible!

If you want Trout Pout but don't to shell out $14 for it, go buy Sinful Colors Island Coral for .99 cents this week (regularly 1.99 at Walgreen's). The formula is different but the color is the same! I'm sitting here with my nail wheel right up to my face and I cannot see a difference.

Thoughts?

Wet n Wild Fauna Giveaway

I was in Walgreen's the other day and I saw this display of Flora and Fauna sets. I figured they were sort of popular so I grabbed the fauna set. It's selling on amazon for twenty dollars and I thought about selling it for a minute, but then decided I would rather give it away to someone who will truly appreciate it for free. :)

The giveaway is open until 4/30. I have a lot going on right now. My daughter's 2nd birthday is the 10th of April, I'm headed out of town this weekend, next weekend, AND the weekend after that. So you guys have plenty of time to enter. Good luck. Here are the rules.

1. Must live in the continental united states.
2. Must be 18 years or older to enter.
3. I take a long time to ship giveaway prizes. I get busy, I forget, I spend my shipping money on polish. Rest assured, you will totally get your prize in due time. I'm honest and love making people happy, I am just really lazy, too.

Kanye Meme

I was taking a shower after my workout tonight and got the best idea...I get all my ideas in the shower. ANYWAY.

You guys remember when Kanye West got on stage when Taylor Swift was accepting an award and was all "Yo I'ma let you finish, but Beyonce had the best music video of all time!"

I just made this:

gradient cheetah print

Last night I was browsing pinterest and came across this tutorial on a sponged gradient manicure. I love gradients, always have. They're just so pretty and sunset like.

I grabbed a make up sponge and went to town. I painted my nails with one coat of Essie's Topless & Barefoot. Then I painted three layers of the sponge with the colors I wanted: China Glaze For Audrey, Zoya Pippa, and some nameless pink Color Club. Then I sponged, reapplied the nail polish and sponged two more times. I should have followed the directions and started with a white base, but I didn't feel like dealing with the mess and patience that a white nail polish requires. White is definitely the way to go, though.

After a few easy sponge applications, I ended up with this:



As gorgeous and awesome as that looks...yeah, not what I was going for. It took me 30 minutes to clean that up, and I ended up with this:



Topped it with Out the Door, and continued on...



I used Spoiled Correction tape for the white and Wet n Wild black creme for the black. I used my dotting tools and topped it all with Seche Vite. I did my right hand as well, but I have a hard time trying to photograph it.



Things I learned:

1. Use tape, just like a water marble.
2. Use white as a base.

St. Patrick's Day Mani

Here is my St. Patrick's Day Mani. That is supposed to be a rubber duck, haha. I submitted this to the Nouveau Cheap  blog because she requested for St. Patrick's day manis.

The middle finger is Sinful Colors green ocean, a very colorful, green-blue flakie that comes out during the month of March. I'm not a huge fan of flakies, but I thought everyone might be interested in seeing this one. It retails for 1.99 and you can find it at Walgreen's. I used two coats.

The colors I used are....

Spoiled: Permission to Proceed
Zoya: Pippa
Wet n Wild: Black Creme
Spoiled: Correction Tape
OPI: A Good Man-Darin is Hard to Find
Sinful Colors: Green Ocean
China Glaze: Ga Ga for Green
L.A. Girl Glitter Addict: Synergy

I had not used Spoiled Permission to Proceed until I did this mani. To my surprise, it's a beautiful jelly, making the color very wearable. I love jellys, they're my favorite finish. Half the time, if you tell me a polish is a jelly I will buy it before I decide I like the color or not. It's the reason I bought Velvet Lounge by Megan Miller, and I rarely ever wear that color.

Here's a swatch of just Permission to Proceed. This is two coats. It definitely needs three or four for full opacity. Jellys are like that, but they're totally worth it. I only did two coats of this because I was planning nail art on top. Honestly, I have yet to meet a jelly I don't like.

OH SNAP I HAVE AN IDEA NOW!!

The Vikings

It isn't nail art saturday, but who cares! Maybe it's Striped Sunday. This is my first try at a tape manicure and while I am not entirely pleased with how it came out, I definitely learned a lot:

1. Do something to protect cuticles to prevent lots of cuticle flooding
2. Don't do nail art when your toddler is in "helpful" mode.
3. Use a better base color

I live in the mid-west. The closest decent football team is the Vikings, so here is my...Viking manicure! They're not my favorite team at all. My favorite team is THE SAINTS! I'll be doing a Saints Mani soon, and with baseball coming up, I'll be doing my favorite team, The San Francisco Giants!

So here it is. I used Wet n Wild Color Icon "give me a price quote" for the gold (crappy bottles, wth?!) and Sinful Color "dream on" for the purple. The purple is very intense and dries matte. Even with a top coat, the WnW gold is still really gritty feeling which I do not like at all - however it's a very awesome, textured gold.

These two colors were really great choices for a tape mani because the almost-neon "dream on" dried really quickly and the glitter dried quickly as well!

Remember, today is the last day to enter the giveaway! Tomorrow I'm hoping to have some color club spam for you guys. :) Enjoy your Sunday!

Nail Art Saturday

I'm new to nail art. This is my first attempt at nail art EVER. First, I love Star Wars. To my friends, that is no secret. I think Star Wars is amazing and easily one of the most epic series of movies ever. I decided for my first nail art attempt, I would do:

Storm Trooper Nails!

I used Sinful Colors Snow Me White for the white polish. It is my favorite white polish that I've used so far. The black was just a Wet n Wild black creme and I used a Sinful Colors nail art brush from this red bottle I bought recently. I just cleaned the brush off and am probably going to franken the red.

Be gentle. ROFL. Like I said, this is my first attempt and as dorky as they look, I'm in love with them! I took off all but two and am saving my two best fingers for my better half to see when he comes home from work. He'll probably just roll his eyes and turn on his XBOX. :)

I should add my middle finger is indented like that because my lens cap holder for my camera snapped off and smacked my finger! It still hurts 15 minutes later!

Well, what do you think? :)

Drugstore Week, Day 2: Spoiled

Spoiled is a line at CVS by Wet n Wild. I bought four, but I'm only a fan of two so those are the two I'm posting. I'm going out of town to visit my mom next week and I am definitely stopping by CVS. I don't have one here, so that's one of the first places I go besides Sephora!

Anyway! The first color that I absolutely love is:

Toad-ally Awesome

Green is in right now. It's everywhere in every shade and this is one you should buy. It's the perfect dark mint green with sparkle. I feel like if this were a bright brighter and more green than blue, it would be a dupe for Dior Waterlily. Either way, this is a very serene, nice color. The application is a little thick but it isn't impossible. The brushes are thick so if you like that sort of thing, Spoiled is a line for you to check out. There are hundreds of colors to choose!

Let's Get Sushi

 

I'll admit it - I bought this color for the name. Sushi is my favorite food. If I had to eat one thing for the rest of my life, it would be sushi. I'm a bit disappointed with the color. I thought it would be more salmon instead of the bright orange that it is. It is a great shade of orange but it isn't the color I was hoping for. Application on this color was a bit difficult for me, I kept getting a lot of "bleeding" into all the crevices and cracks in and around my nail. If I had the time and patience I think I could make this look really nice - however the thick brush also gets in my way. I prefer a thin brush most of the time. This is not a neon shade but it is definitely bright.

I really like the Spoiled line. The polishes are thick, sometimes that's a good thing, sometimes that's a bad thing. The brushes are relatively nice, they're just not my favorite. You can only buy this at CVS for 1.99 a piece. These are definitely a good deal for your money. Hopefully next week I have a few more to show you so I can do a part II to this post.

Tomorrow? REVLON!

Wet n' Wild Mega Last: Swatches+ Review

Yesterday I went to Walgreen's and they had the Wet n' Wild Megalast Salon Color polishes Buy One Get One Free. They're 1.99 at Walgreen's which is a great deal in itself, the BOGO makes it even better. I only bought four because the colors left did not really jump out at me.

I purchased: Candy-licious, I Red a Good Book, I Need a Refresh-Mint, and On a Trip. Here are the bottles, in that order from left to right:

I'll be honest. I haven't used Wet n' Wild for a very long time - at least ten years. They were one of the first brands of nail polish I used and definitely sparked my interest, but once I started I left them behind and never looked back. I've been eying this bottles for awhile and decided that  BOGO sale was the best opportunity to try these out.

When I first opened the bottle (I love the design, by the way) I was excited to see a very thick brush:

But wait, do you see what I see? Little prickly brush hairs sticking out. Problem number one. These little hairs definitely made application difficult for me. Now the colors:

                                            We'll start with the one color that really popped to me:

                                 I Need a Refresh-Mint

The second macro shot is more true to color than the first.This is a one coat polish, very thick formula and I have no VNL. The color is very now and very spring. I'm very attracted to these dusty sea-foam greens

that are popping up everywhere. When I saw this color it instantly reminded me of Zoya Bevin. Application for this color was a little difficult for me because I'm not used to such a thick polish or large brush.

Candy-Licious

I love bubble gum cremes and I am always on the hunt for the perfect one. This is not it, unfortunately. This color gave me the worst time out of all of them, unfortunately.




This color is so gorgeous (minus my dry skin, thank you, acetone!). It's just a perfect pink creme that I think would look beautiful on any skin tone. I really wanted to love it. I tried to love it, but I had to redo each nail a few times because it was goopy and hard to deal with. Maybe when I don't have an angry toddler at my feet I can take the time to really concentrate on my mani, and get a better result. I love pink and red cremes, they're my favorite color to wear out of everything. Unfortunately, this is either going to the giveaway/swap pile. If anyone can point me in the direction of a beautiful, non-goopy bubble gum pink creme, I'd be much obliged.

 On a Trip

This is a blue-ish purple shade. I don't have much to say about it except it also gave me a hard time. This brush had a lot of tiny bristles sticking out that interfered with getting a smooth finish. It's such a beautiful color and is very fun, but I was again disappointed with the brush. Maybe I'm more of a tiny brush fan than a big brush fan?

 

 I Red a Good Book

This is a very pretty cherry-red and was the least thick of the bunch. In the photos below I used two coats, and I still had VNL going on. This was also really messy when I took it off, however, I've yet to meet a red that doesn't stain my entire hand, so that isn't exclusively a WnW issue. The first photo is more true to color than the close up macro. I love reds, as I said above, and this one is alright. I will definitely keep it and add it to my row of red polish.

 

 All in all the colors are absolutely beautiful, however the brush can be a bit of a pain to use. As you can see in all the photos, the colors are glossy and shiny. I didn't use a top coat in any of these photos! They definitely have the gift of shine on their side. They also dry incredibly quick, I'd say these colors dry in half the time compared to any other polish I own. The clean up is minimal if you can keep the brush on your nail (I'm messy and impatient, ok!) and if you put Out the Door on top, you truly have a finished manicure in at least 10 minutes. I'll definitely be reaching for these polishes if I need color on my nails in a hurry but don't want to use a neutral.