NOTD - Rimmel Grey Matter

Happy Holidays Everyone!

I've been awful with my updates. I just buy nail polish when I'm stressed out (which is frequent) and never get around to blogging about them. Ugh...

Here is a review of Rimmel 60 seconds in Grey Matter that I have promised months ago -.-

First of, the new brush design, "Xpress Brush", that I was skeptical about did not bother me at all. I actually like it! I didn't have the colouring outside the line issue with my little finger like I did with the Sally Hansen Insta-Dri brushes.



Here are some swatches of this light grey creme. Staying power was good as always, with only minor wear at the tips after a week.

RANDOM - Faves of October

This is my first favourites post since moving from xanga to blogger.
Here are the products that have been working for me :)

1. Shiseido Extra Smooth Sun Protection Cream SPF 38

My biggest splurge but so worth it. No other sunscreen from the drugstore has ever managed to keep my face looking this smooth, shine-free, and minimize how big more pores look like this product has. Love.

2. Jason Tea Tree Gel

I use this to treat my acne. It's an all natural product, cheap ($5), and most importantly works. My face has been so much clearer since trying this out.

3. Stila Barbie Lip Enamel in Happiness (light pink on the far right)

I got this trio of Stila Lip Enamel Luxe Gloss last year and forgot about them :/ I would describe it as a liquid lipstick because it goes on very opaque. The pink is especially good for everyday. It also contains rhodolea rosea which is supposed to improve your mood and alleviate depression. It's probably a placebo but everytime I think about it, it makes me smile.

4. Lipsmacker Sprite Lipbalm & Caboodles Kissing Stick in Cherry

I'm pissed that the Caboodles Kissing Sticks are discontinued. The colour payoff from this balm is crazy. Cherry is a pretty red that shines like a gloss but comes in a lipbalm form. When paired with Sprite, my favorite pink is born. Sprite is an opaque white that works pretty well to tone down those too dark lipcolours.

5. Sephora Eyeshadow in Alpine Snow

Yuuuup that's the one that came as the birthday gift from Sephora this year. I love this in the inner tearducts to brighten up my eyes after pulling all-nighters.

6. L'oreal Studio Hotstraight

I have never recovered from that lesson from grade 10 where I curled my hair so much that I fried it. Now I'm freaked out just by a hairdryer. For those minor panic attacks, I use this as a heat protectant. It seems to take less time to dry my hair, appears to make it even straighter than usual, and gives my hair a really nice texture. Really unexpected for something I got on clearance.

7. Aussie 3 minute Miracle

Verdict: It's a miracle
This $3 product trumps my Joico hair treatment. In 3 minutes, my hair went from fried to soft :)

That's a wrap.

REVIEW - Revlon Top Speed

My thoughts on the two Revlon nail polishes I tried out last week.
They were pretty bad. I love Revlon (especially their lip glosses) but their nail polishes are a total miss.
On the same day that I did my candy-land manicure, the polishes chipped. Since I had two different colours on my nails and they both chipped, I'm pretty sure it wasn't because I bought a bad bottle - it was the formula of these things. It is frustrating when nails cannot keep up with life (that peeves me!).
Today - they did not just chip, they peeled. I'm talking about the entire coat just coming clean off while I was in the shower.
If you want great quality drug store nail polish I'd go with trusted Rimmel. Don't waste your money!

NOTD - Have the cake, eat it too.

School starts and all of a sudden, everything (well most things) falls off the planet. My nails become stumpy short because I had a job interview and I've spent a while trying to grow them out!
All the girls on the bus with their nice polished nails made me a little envious and I caved today :) Hence this post in a very very long time.

I really couldn't pick among the new polishes I haven't tried so I chose two =P
The green is Revlon's Jaded (that I promised I would swatch) and the pink is Revlon's Pink Lingerie. They're both from the new Top Speed line.


Pink Lingerie is a mid pink creme that's bright without veering into obnoxious. It was pretty streaky going on. I'd definitely recommend three coats.

Of course...
the Jaded (pastel green creme) hype. I find these pastel green colours reminiscent of hospital scrubs if you choose one that clashes with your skin tone. I heard Minted was streaky so that's why I went with this one. I am not disappointed. It was opaque and streak free in two coats :)

I have at least three projects and a quiz happening either before or on Tuesday. Wish me luck!

PS - there has been no sun so the lighting sucks.

ALT - OPI Brights 2009

[This is a half finished post from my last site]

OPI's Brights Collection for 2009 was absolutely fitting for the summer. Although summer does not offcially end until September 23, I think part of it has already died when school starts tomorrow.


I really like the blue (No Room For the Blues), pink (Shorts Story), and orange (In My Back Pocket) in this collection.

When I was at Walmart, Sally Hansen's Hard As Nails Xtreme Wear nail polishes reminded me of these colours so much that I thought they'd make good alternatives to the original OPIs.



Power Pink: shimmer mid-pink with flash.
Can be worn up to 6 days with only minor tip wear (no base or topcoat).
Two coats.

(shade)


(sun)


Blue Me Away: sky blue creme.
My favorite. I've been into a lot of blues this summer.
Two coats.

(shade)


(sun)


Sunkissed: pumpkin orange creme.
Darker than I expected. Three coats for total opacity.

(shade)


(sun)

What impresses me most about these Xtreme Wear polishes are the range of colours available and the different finishes. It used to be so hard finding a good creme polish.

ANNOUNCEMENT - Spotted: Rimmel, Sally Hansen, Revlon

Rimmel products are 25% off at London Drugs so use the opportunity to pick up some new shades from Rimmel's 60 seconds line:
Grey Matter (London exclusive shade)

Portobello Pink (which reminded me of a lighter version of Pink Punk from their Lycra Wear 10 Line, now discontinued)
Silver Bullet (London exclusive shade)
-a lilac colour with flash that I forgot the name to -.-

They all have a new brush design: the "Xpress Brush". I do not know what's with the dense brush designs these days (like Sally Hansen Insta-Dri)... Not really a fan. I bought Grey Matter just because I study brains and thought it would be fitting, hah!



[actual swatches of 60 Seconds coming in the near future!]

Sally Hansen Limited Edition Xtreme Wear Polishes
I just read about these on Noveaucheap's site today. Usually the release dates of polishes are so screwy between Canada and the States so I was surprised to see these in store.
First impression? Blehhhh really. The hologlitter in these just looked out of place.

Revlon
They have their Christmasy display out already. I'm not joking.
On the flipside, I just got my hands on Jaded and I can't wait to test it out :)

NOTD - Shooting Star Over A Midnight Blue

I got a letter from the Canadian Space Agency about my grant application so I thought it would be fun to do something a bit...sparkly!



First I used one coat of Rimmel Lasting Finish Pro Midnight Blue, a dark -almost black - navy shimmer. I've always been impressed with Rimmel's nail polish formulas (e.g., Lycra Wear and 60 Seconds lines). It glides on smoothly and has good staying power. The packaging now is just so sleek too! I'm not too thrilled about the brush though. It's one of those super dense ones a la Sally Hansen Insta Dry.


(natural light)


(direct sun)

For the "top coat", I layered on Sally Hansen Hard As Nails Extreme Wear: Shooting Star (Seriously a mouth full!). It's a holo-glitter (square shaped ones and my favorite, circular ones) suspended in a light blue base. You will never get the colour in the bottle so it's best to layer it over another polish. Th picture below is 4 layers of Shooting Star alone.

NOTD - Rides, Stuffies, Cotton Candy, and all thing born from Fairs&Carnivals

Fun times call for fun nails. Especially when it seems like everyone is pouring in from the surrounding cities to partake in 4 hours of free PNE entrance and commemorate the annual Vancouver fair's 100th anniversary.

I found OPI What's With The Cattitude? (Part of the Shrek collection) to be so fitting. It's bright, but not obnoxiously bright. A pretty sky blue creme that reaches total opacity in 3 coats, although I got away with 2.

In a way, it reminds me of the cotton candy I bought today ^^


I decided to do a comparison between this and LA COLORS Breathless Blue. Which do you like better?

RANDOM - Wet N' Wild Throughout The Ages

The first bottle of nail polish that you ever had... did it look anything like this?


Mine did because it was from Wet N' Wild and the oldie (mid 90s, 99 cents) bottles looked like this! Then the company went through this evolution and well, I picked up some trinkets along the way.



The Crystalic Collection (nearing the millenium) 14mL
Cheapie polish claims to be enriched with calcium and be toluene, formaldehyde, & phthalate free? I didn't believe this but it's what I told me mom way back then when I polluted the livingroom with polish fumes :)

483B GOLDEN ROSE
Mid pink-peach with gold shimmer.
Last summer (when Sephora first opened in Vancouver), I swatched Nars Orgasm polish at the store and thought the colour looked darn similar to something I had. This was it.
What's with the labels always disappearing on these bottles eh?


491B N.Y.P.D
Greyish blue with purple flash.
I dare you to go up to a police officer and put this against his uniform. For comparison purposes, of course.


471B MOONSTONE FROST
Pearl white frost.
Not overly sheer or frosty (which results in streak overload).
I fell in love with this colour and even though I have so many polishes this one is my all time favorite. I wore it to two proms and I even did my bff's nails with it :) It's almost near empty but the consistency is still as creamy as ever.




The Crystalic Collection: Revamped (somewhere around the millenium) 14.5mL
Still cheap, affordable and look - there's an extra .5mL in the bottle! Unfortunately, that doesn't hide how ugly the bottle itself has become. What were they thinking?

479C FEMME FATALE
Hot fuschia with super fine shimmer.
The colour just seemed appropriate after watching Legally Blonde.




The Wild Shine Collection 12.7ml
$1.99? Really now? The packaging still looks incredibly cheap but the formula is not bad.

BLAZED
Mid coral creme.
Finally drugstore polish has creme formulas! I caught a girl on the bus checking out my nails when I wore this colour :)




The Craze Collection (2009) 10mL
Toluene & phthalate free (formaldehyde's status remains unmentioned) but let's be serious. The bottle was the first thing that got us oohing and ahhing in the first place. Then the whole toluene and phthalate thing was just a bonus. I didn't even care about the missing 4mL.
At $2.99 a pop, they used the extra money towards the packaging fund.

285 MORBID
Dark green (almost black) with forest green & silver shimmer.
If the colour's too unique to be from a drugstore, I'll be happy to put it in my cart.


237 GLITZ
Purple (predominantly), blue, silver glitter.
This one is a 3 (or more) coater. I don't like how gritty it feels when layered over another colour. Heard it was similar to Sally Hansen Rock Star.




The Megalast Collection (2009) 9mL
Mmm, denser brush. Getting smaller by the minute... I really loved the colour selection (more than the Craze collection) and there were a lot more cremes. Unfortunately, I bought one to try out and... sigh.

202A BREAK THE ICE
Greyish white with silver shimmer.
This is the kind of colour you wear when you want to be an 'ice princess', but the formula was awful. The application was too sheer for my taste, uneven and resulted in streaks. It chipped in one day. I was disappointed because I did want it to work out... Tell me the other ones aren't like this colour!




The Craze Limited Edition Collection (2010) 6.5mL <--stop this, I'm serious. I demand you go back to being 99 cents.
Pretty!!! Every creme had it's own shimmery counterpart. I hope you had a chance to pick some up. I don't like things being limited edition =/

33450 BORA BORA
Dark pink shimmer.
This is a sheer shade - a three coater at least. I've had this on for five days and there is only minor tip wear.


Here's a picture comparing the size of the regular and limited edition Craze collections. Far right is Sally Hansen Strawberry Icing if you prefer similar formula but a lighter color than Bora Bora.


That ends today's long history lesson. Comments? Questions? Suggestions?

NOTD - Risky Business

Don't ever underestimate how often people see your nails. I can't help but feel bolder wearing OPI Catch Me In Your Net [part of the Summer Flutter collection], an absolutely stunning teal shimmer that flashes green or turns blue in different lighting! Gives me a pop of color among the drab dreary weather of Vancouver while having coffee with my penpal from Korea :)


CMIYN is opaque in two coats. A plus for anyone who gets easily annoyed by sheer glitters/shimmers. It's so beautiful, even my camera is confused on what to focus on: the shimmer in the bottle or on my nails (so one or the either will always end up blurry -.-).


Can you see the green flash in the bottle?!

LOOT - NYC In A New York Color Minute

Oh NYC nail polishes, you make me nostalgic about elementary school when I first got my first bottle of vampy blue (similar to West Village) polish and I was the shit because everyone else was still into reds and pinks.
I came to expect more from you as you launched later collections...



Honestly, when I first saw this collection last year with names inspired by NYC itself (SoHo, Times Square, Penn Station, Chinatown), I was just not that excited. The colors were blahh (except one). The formula was outright awful, ranging from streaky, watery to chipping the next day.
Even when this cheap polish is on sale, it's still not worth it :(

222B SOHO - a princess pink pearl (3 coats)
Pros: Love love love this color. Not overly cool-tone. A tad darker than OPI Bubblebath which is a favorite of mine.
Cons: The most watery of the batch. Hard to get an even application (tell me I just got a bad bottle)



224B TIMES SQUARE - Bright coral (going into red) creme (2 coats)
My camera has a habit of making reds more orange than they really are. I had high hopes for this colour but our relationship just didn't work out.


230B PENN STATION - Cherry red with red shimmer
Super appropriate for xmas which is the only time I wear it =P


210B CHINATOWN - Grey-blue ink shimmer
If you're reading my colour description and asking what? That's right. This was the only unique shade in the entire collection...


If you're on a budget, I still wouldn't recommend you buy these BUT if you're a colorholic, definitely check out Chinatown. Soho makes a nice alternative to OPI Bubblebath (I'm not saying it's a dupe so don't be confused).

ANNOUNCEMENT - Nail Craze and NYC

Spotted - Wet n Wild Nail Craze Limited Edition nail polishes now at Zellers! Pick them up. They're going fast.

Sale - NYC In A NY Minute polishes are a dollar off ($1.29) at London Drugs. Do you sense a new polish line coming in?

Happy shopping!

//Edit//
Just came home from shopping.

Spotted - OPI Swiss Collection for Fall 2010! [released 08/01/10]
$7.50 each



Now, I am particularly biased towards this collection because I have a penpal from Switzerland (HI SABRINA) who has made me love everything Swiss the more we talk :)))))

I really wanted to get at least one bottle from this collection since I couldn't resist the names like From A to Z-urich, Color So Hot It Berns, or Glizterland! I can just see it now, me stepping off that plane at Zurich airport with one of these babies.

Having said this, none of the colours really wowed me :( Apart from Lucerne-tainly Look Marvelous, everything looked like they've been done before. I wanted to love The Color To Watch but it was just... horrible.

My picks (after trying them out of course) are heart tattooed in the picture: Lucerne-tainly Look Mavelous, Glizterland, Yodel Me On My Cell, and Cuckoo For This Color.

LOOT - LA COLORS (Swatches Part II)

This is the final part of the swatches. Finally!!! :D
LA Colors have a wide colour selection. The formulation of these are creamy (not too thick or thin) and long lasting. I'm not sure if they were meant to be a cheaper version of China Glaze since both state that they contain hardeners. The brush could be bigger, but I can live with that. For $1 each, these are definitely worth it :)

Unless otherwise stated, these are all two coats.
**Link available for more details about this shade.

VIBRANT VIOLET
Light purple-pink shimmer.
Pretty, in a classic away.



**PINK SATIN
Barbie pink shimmer that flashes light purple in the light.
Cute & girly.
In the previous post, I didn't love it as much but it just looks too good to resist now =P



APRICOT
Peach shimmer with yellow-green flash.
Cute with a tan.


**SOLAR GOLD
Light gold shimmer.
LA Colors manages to do gold right! Other brands end up with shades that are too yellow or too dirty looking.



**GREEN SATIN
Pale green with a slight shimmer.
Not too streaky like how pastels can turn out to be.
*Three coats.



**BREATHLESS BLUE
Pale blue with slight shimmer.
Green Satin's fraternal twin. In winter when you want to stand out from all the drab dark polishes, this looks awesome with some snowflake nail art.
*Three coats



SEA GREEN
Aquamarine with shimmer that flashes gold.
My least favorite.



SHOCKER
Magenta shimmer that flashes bluish-purple. A bit sheer.
This shade has already been done by so many brands, but I always gravitate towards it!
*Three coats



GRAPE
Berry red shimmer.
A tad darker in real life.



METALLIC PINK
Dusty red-pink & silver glitter.
Doesn't this remind you of Live from the Color Craze collection?
*Opacity in one coat



METALLIC GREEN
Leaf green & silver glitter.