Top Five Polishes of 2013!

Even though I have so much more polishes than lipsticks, picking my top five was so much easier... and faster. So, I'm just gonna go ahead and just jump right to the list because I'm kind of excited to see the pictures again.


1. Zoya Storm
I always wanted a really pretty holo polish, since its always bright and sunny here in Texas, and this completely blew me away. I've never really like my nails black, but there's so much sparkle that you forget its black. The only con to this polish is that you need sunlight or bright lights to see the full effect. In normal light, it just looks like black with silver glitter.

2. Zoya Neely
Out of all the mints, this is my all time favorite. I think because of how good it goes with gold.

3. China Glaze Flip Flop Fantasy
This is the most amazing neon peach ever. Goes great with a ton of colors. The only cons are that the color is not consistent with each bottle. This is definitely a summer color, and I cannot wait until I can wear it again.

4. Julep Raegan 
I cannot get enough of this color. I wish there was another brand with this exact color and formula. Its just so nice and opaque in one coat. I'm scared to use it as much as I want because I do not want to repurchase.

5. Julep Gloria
This is basically the same as the julep above, I love it sosososo much, but I don't want to use it all up. I would buy more if Julep wasn't so unreasonably priced.

Looking back at 2013 I am so glad that I got into painting and nail art more than I was before. I am, however, surprised at how much nail polishes I have gotten within the year. Just like my lipsticks, all I used to wear was red. I didn't think that anything else looked good and now, I do anything to avoid wearing red. Only because red seems to stain the most out of any polish. Happy New Year!

Top Five Lipsticks of 2013!

Oh myy... Let me just start off by saying this was one of the hardest decisions to make. I love all my lipsticks and I wish I could wear them all in one day. Luckily, all I had to do was look at my pictures and see which ones I wore the most. So, in no particular order, because that would take another 5 hours to decide which is better, here are my top five favorite lipsticks of 2013.

1. Urban Decay Anarchy Revolution Lipstick

I first tried this as a sample, from ipsy, and I immediately fell in love. I went out and got the lipstick and matching lipliner. A year ago I thought bright pinks made me look horrible, boy did this change my mind. The formula of the Revolution Lipsticks are great, but with this one you definitely need the lipliner, or at least in my experience, it would not stay on my lips. 

2. OCC Black Dahlia Lip Tar

Again, the first time I tried this was a sample and I loved it so much I bought it. It was my first "dark" lip color. I had so much trouble with this lip tar because I really wore it all the time. I think the only con with this is when/if you need to reapply. What I did after a few times wearing and applying with the brush is,  heat up a Burts Bees Lip balm and mixed some in. Now theres not so much work to applying/reapplying.

3. MAC Touch (Lustre)

After getting lots of pinks, reds and berries I craved nude lipstick. It took me about a week of searching online to find a good nude lipstick that would go with my skin tone. At first I was totally set on MAC Spice until I learned that it was LE and the wrong finish. Luckily someone recommend this one to me. It is totally my go to lipstick. I even wear it when I don't have any makeup on because I love how it looks with my skin. 

4. Homemade Red

Like I mentioned with Black Dahlia, I mixed the lip tar in Vintage with Burt's Bees Lip Balm. This is the most perfect red lipstick. Vintage is more of a dark brick red, but when mixing with the lip balm it became more of a true red. My only regret is not paying attention how much lip tar I mixed with it, so when its gone, its gone.

The paper swatch came out pink, but it is a true red.

5. Mac Film Noir (Satin)

So after wearing Black Dahlia all summer I craved something darker. I went to the MAC counter and bought this on a whim. The only thing that saddens me about this lipstick is that it does not photograph well, on me its a nice dark chocolate color. Lately, this is the lipstick I want to wear everyday. Partly because every time I do, I have big dramatic hair to go along with it and get PLENTY of looks. But, oh well. I.LOOK.FABULOUS.

There are a ton more lipsticks I wish I could add, but these are the ones I wore the most and kinda wore them for weeks before changing to a different lipstick. I think looking back I am very surprised. all I used to wear was red. Actually, My lip actual "lipstick" was Revlon's Just Bitten Kissable balm stain in "Adore." I hate anything but red and anything pink was repulsive. Now, I have more pink lipsticks than I can count and I absolute love each and everyone of them. I know it might sound cheesy, but I hope this encourages you to try different lip colors. Who cares what people think, if you think and feel fabulous, you are!

Influenster Violet VoxBox review!

A few weeks ago I received influensters Violet VoxBox, I unexpectedly fell in love with a few items I would have never gotten myself, so I decided to review my box for you. I was very under-whelemed with the package so I just let it float around my room for while. In my box I received: Goody Athletique Ouchless Headwrap, Goody Quickstyle water absorbing brush, Sally Hansen Triple Shine Polish in Sparks Fly, and a banana SOYJOY bar.

REVIEW:

Goody Athletique Ouchless Headwrap: I admit this took a few tries until I decided I like it. It has a velcro strap, which to my still hurts if the harder side gets to my hair. When I wear this I have to put it at the very ends of the velcro or else it falls off my head. I wish it were a bit smaller, or there was more velcro. I definitely would not have bought this for myself, but it does come in handy while running to keep the little hairs out of my face. I probably won't buy this again in the future because I will always have this one.

Goody Quickstyle water absorbing brush: This brush is to be used after showering to soak up all the access water. I was very very skeptical of this brush. For one, it didn't seem like it could soak up that much water, and two, these type of paddle-like brushes, with the air inside have always broke when I attempt to brush my extremely curly hair with it. So anyways, I get out go the shower, wring out as much water as I can, hair is still dripping though, and I use this brush. WOW, was I shocked, it worked! Of course my hair wasn't bone dry, it was still damp and you could still tell that I just showered, but it wasn't dripping at all, dry enough not to leave watermarks on my shirt. Would I have bought this for myself? No way. Will I purchase in the future? Yes!! My hair takes forever to dry and this really speeds things up.

Banana SOYJOY bar: This was the very last thing I tried from this box. I stalled as much as possible. When smelling it, all it smelled like was banana, maybe banana bread... that had extra banana in it. I took the smallest bite out of it and did not like it at all. Mostly because i'm not too fond of banana and it had raisins that were totally unexpected. Other than that, it tasted like a protein bar. I will most likely not be purchasing this in the future.

Light blue base is Zoya's Kristen

Sally Hansen Triple Shine polish: This polish is a silver/light blue glitter. It has small, medium and large hexagonal glitter. At first, I wasn't too exited about the color I got. I would have maybe wanted a creme instead. When first using it I realized it had a wide brush, I love wide brushes, but the only thing that put me off about this one is that its so large, the stem of the brush is always scraping the sides when you take the brush out or put it back in. Also, it has an unnecessary square cap, much like Butter London, to keep the shape of the bottle going, but the actual brush cap is big enough to not need the square cap. TO THE POLISH! It was very surprising to me that the glitters base was not clear, it was still very sheer but its blue. That being said, to me, it would be very limited to what polishes I will put it over, since it will give everything a blue hue. It does however distribute polish nice and evenly. And YES! Its has LOTS of shine. I think that surprised me the most. It was so shiny I couldn't stop staring at my nails. I will most definitely try other triple shine glitters. I probably wouldn't have bought this for myself but I am glad I have it now!

Mint Differences

As I mentioned in a post before, I love mint polish. Over the past few weeks I've collected a few more, while people called me crazy for buying the same color over and over, and I wanted to compare them and show the differences.

L-R: Julep "Susie", Zoya "Neely", BL "Fiver", CG "Re-Fresh Mint", Essie "Mint Candy Apple"

From this picture you can see that despite looking like the same color in the bottle they do show up differently on my nails, especially the Essie.

Julep - Susie

two coats

Susie was one of the mints I was extremely excited to get, but after I put it on the first time I swore to never use it again, until I decided to compare all my mint polishes. From the swatches I've seen and even wearing it is a very very pale blue, described as a "muted mint green creme", it's almost white. It is very comparable to China Glazes "Re-Fresh Mint" but, this bottle of mine has the worst formula. Whenever I try to paint my nails with this polish it goes everywhere no matter how careful I am, its just too liquid-y. Also, I wait as long as possible before I add a second coat and I don't shake the bottle but I still get bubbles.

Zoya - Neely 

two coats

Described as a "creme spring green" that is basically what Neely is, but a pale, dusty green. I think Neely was the most anticipated out of the five and it is my favorite. The formula in this is amazing just like the other Zoya creme polishes. Even though this polish does look a lot darker against the other mints, it's not. It is like BL's Fiver but a bit darker.

Butter London - Fiver

two coats

Fiver, a "Mint-green creme", is the perfect blend between blue and green, even though it falls more on the green side. As I stated above, this mint is a lighter version of Neely, but just as beautiful.

China Glaze - Re-fresh Mint

three coats

Re-fresh Mint is basically the same color as Susie but a tad bit darker. With this polish I usually need at least three coats to get it evenly opaque. Despite loving Neely and Fiver, this polish is my go-to mint, it's a lot more attainable than the others and doesn't cost that much.

Essie - Mint Candy Apple

Mint Candy Apple is described as a "Menthol light green creme" which in this case is mostly wrong. It is a creme, however, it's not the slightest bit green, but it is the prettiest baby blue I've ever worn. To me, this polish does not qualify as a mint because its just too blue.

Side by side

As you can see here, unless you have all of them on at the same time, Susie, Re-fresh mint, and Fiver will look almost the same when applied. 

Butter London Swatches and Review

BUTTER LONDON

MACBETH

Macbeth is described as a "orange-y-coral" but against my skin tone it just looked like a hot pink-coral. I think its an amazing color though, its not too bright and summery, also the polish was very opaque. With Macbeth I added my first Deborah Lippmann glitter in Happy Birthday. I should add that Happy Birthday may be one of the best glitter polishes I have tried, I only needed to do one coat of glitter. Over all this mani lasted the two days I had it on with no chips.

TROUT POUT

Trout Pout is described as a "pale, retro cantaloupe" and again against my skin tone it was a different color. When looking at other swatches of Trout Pout it looked like a really pretty coral but it ended up looking more like a bright Barbie pink. This polish was not as opaque as the other butters and needed the second coat to really get the color evened out. Despite not being opaque, it did last the two days before I changed it.

ROYAL NAVY

Described as a "navy blue," that's exactly what Royal Navy is. It is very opaque and may only need one coat. I definitely did not want to take this polish off, the color was so beautiful. When I first painted my nails with Royal Navy I was genuinely surprised that it was a cream polish because in the bottle it looks sheer. Unfortunately, I had to take this polish off later on in the day because the tape came off.

Mani Prep Tutorial

Before every mani I like to do this to my nails to make sure my cuticles don't get too dry from the nail polish remover. It can be very time consuming but keeping your cuticles hydrated and nails clean is part of achieving a great looking mani. Let me know if you found this tutorial helpful and as always I hope it is easy to understand and follow.

For my clean up brush I use a cheap eyeliner brush. Also, a normal wooden cuticle pusher works too!

Also, If needed, clean under your nails. My nails happen to be very thin and always look dirty.

One finger at a time!

Washing hands after prevents oil mixing in with your polish.

After your mani is dry you can add a little bit more oil to keep your cuticles hydrated all day.

Bonus Pics

Shark Week Tutorial

I have gotten multiple requests for a tutorial of these nails, so a bit late but here it is! I'd like to add that I did forget to add nail polish remover and clean up tools on the list of things you'll need, also beware of dry cuticles and fingers from the pure acetone polish remover. I hope this tutorial is understandable and easy to follow.

* if you do not have these items good substitutes are: Striping polish(thin brush), a bobby pin(bigger dotting tool), and a toothpick(smaller dotting tool)

After this step I added a sheer blue/green glitter polish.

My original shark week mani

Nail Art!

So, I've realized that not everyone will have the chance to take a look at my nail art pictures besides what's on the sidebar. Here is a list of pictures containing all of my old and newer nail art in no particular order.