Sally Hansen Xtreme Wear Lacey Lilac

Happy New Year's Eve, Dear Reader!

I really wanted to use another of the new Sally Hansen Xtreme Wears today even though it was just a creme (last year's NYE mani was so blingy I broke off a nail removing it!), so I decided to just go with it and add a little glitter.

It turned out that Lacey Lilac, the lavender creme from the Xtreme Wear display I recall nothing about, is a fantastic layering polish.  It's super pigmented, so it only took one coat to be completely even and opaque.  For a pastel, that's a big deal.  If I were to wear Lacey Lilac alone, I'd do two coats so it would be nice and shiny, but as a base for some glitter, one coats was plenty.  I added one coat of FingerPaints Floatin' on a Cloud to it, topped it off with top coat, and now I have a glitterific pastel manicure.

Sally Hansen Xtreme Wear Lacey Lilac and FingerPaints Glitter
Sally Hansen Xtreme Wear Lacey Lilac with FingerPaints Glitter, One Coat Each
I hope you have a safe and happy New Year's Eve, Dear Reader, and until 2011, love and nail polish to you!  


My 2009 Best of the Best Polishes & Collections

Above: A difficult decision, but these are the top ten picks of my favorite polishes acquired in 2009. In no particular order of preference, the winners are: Top L-R: GOSH Golden Dragon, Lippmann Don't Tell Mama, CND Effects (brilliant invention!), Essie Matte About You (another brilliant idea!), Chanel Gold Fiction. Bottom L-R: China Glaze BFF (or any of the OMG shades that I bought this year!), Essie Huckle Buckle, MAC Toast of the Town, Sephora by OPI Absinthe Makes the Heart (also wins for Best Name of a Polish based on alcohol!), BB Couture Pipe Bender.
Below: 2009 saw some incredible collections filled with beautiful shades, unique textures and creative names. These are my personal choices for the Best All-Around Collections in 3 categories: small, medium and large. This post is long enough as it is, but had I chosen an 'extra-large-jumbo-ginormous' category, that honor would definitely have gone to China Glaze's Glitters, Shimmers & Cremes.
Above: My winner in the 'Small Collection' category is Orly's Metal Chic Metallic Mattes. Coming in with only 3 shades, this collection brought us one of the biggest trends of the year, the matte finish. The colors are metal shades, a favorite of mine, and the application and wear are perfect.
Below: The winner in the 'Medium Collection' category is Color Club's Wild at Heart. This 6 piece collection offered a variety of finishes, including 2 holographic shades and a duo chrome. The colors themselves are truly breathtaking shades.
Below: My choice for the winner in the 'Large Collection' category is Barielle's All Lacquered Up. A wide range of 12 colors and finishes including an olive green, a stunning black-based teal glitter and a deep periwinkle with copper glitter helped make this an easy and obvious winner.
The votes have all been tallied and the results are in. Granted, I was the only one participating in the voting, but that's all right! I thought it might be fun to go through all of my photos from this past year and choose my personal 10 favorite polishes that I've acquired during the year. While I was at it, I also chose the top 3 collections in the large, medium and small category. This has taken me several weeks to go through the photos, but I thoroughly enjoyed revisiting many of these polishes. I'm happy to say that they still bring me as much happiness as the day I got them. Ah, the many powers of a simple bottle of nail polish!

I want to wish each one of you the the happiest of New Year's, and also thank you for your continued support, comments and friendship. When I started writing my blog 10 months ago, little did I know how much enjoyment I would get from it. I remember how excited I was when I had my first couple of followers, and I recall thinking how happy I would be if I could have 50 followers by the end of the year. The fact that you take a little time out of your day to spend it here with me, continues to motivate and inspire me. So cheers to you all as we ring in the New Year. You are truly the Best of the Best!


Vampy Varnish BB Couture Collection: Part II

Above & Below: Redwood Forest, shown in 2 coats. This is a vibrant, deep Kelly green shade with a jelly-type base and aqua glitter. Pardon the mess on my cuticles! This was my last swatch and I was getting tired!
Below: Vampy Varnish, the collection's namesake polish, is actually a very complicated color to explain. It seems to have a charcoal base, but there is definitely green in there as well, although it is difficult to capture with a photo. The glitter is actually Emerald green and quite obvious in real life. When I applied this shade, my first thought was 'this is China Glaze Emerald Sparkle's deep, brooding older brother'. Simply beautiful.
Below: Kelly's Green, shown in 2 coats. Now this is what I call a unique shade, and I adore it. I showed my husband this collection and he chose this one immediately as his favorite. Not that he'd ever wear nail polish, but he does like the color. I would describe this as a pastel olive, if there is such a thing. It has tiny silver, gold, green and black glitter...those are the colors I see anyway. Click here to read Kelly's more detailed color descriptions.
The last 3 shades in this collection are just as beautiful as the first 3 I showed earlier today. I'd have a difficult time choosing my personal favorite, because I honestly love all of them. These shades are all unique to my collection and the finishes, although all glitters, seem to have quite a bit of variance as well. I wish the sun were out, because I just know they'd impress me even more...especially Napa Valley Red and Vampy Varnish. All 6 of these polishes covered perfectly with 2 coats, although I was able to get away with just 1 coat of Union Square in the post below. Scroll down if you missed the first 3 shades in this collection developed by Kelly, of Vampy Varnish fame. These are available at Overall Beauty for $9.00 each.


Vampy Varnish BB Couture Collection: Part I

Above: Napa Valley red, shown in 2 coats. This is a deep violet red or deep burgundy red-toned jelly base with coordinated glitter. No matter how many photos I took, they simply do not do this shade justice. Kim at Overall Beauty believes this is the best-selling one, and I can certainly understand that.
Above & Below: Union Square, shown in just 1 coat! Unbelieveable coverage on this metallic bronze shimmer with what appears to be tiny silvery pink glitter. Below, with a matte top coat.
Below: Mendocino Midnight has a special place in my heart, because I have always been partial to tealish green shades. I used 2 coats on this shade. It looks like a deep evergreen with hints of teal on the nail, and the small glitter reflects an emerald green sparkle in less direct lighting.
As many of you know, the lovely Kelly from Vampy Varnish recently had the opportunity to work with BB Couture in developing her own polish collection. You can read about her experience and see her swatches here. BB Couture polishes have always impressed me with their formula, their color selections, and their range of finishes. Combine that with Kelly's eye for color and style, and I knew these would not disappoint. I purchased mine from Kim at Overall Beauty last week. I happened to be on Twitter when Kim announced one of her fabulous sales...buy one get one free, limit 3 free. I jumped on that opportunity immediately, because it was only available for one day, and ordered the entire collection. This is the perfect trifecta of nail polish...the quality of BB Couture, the unique and beautiful polishes that Kelly designed, and the customer service of Overall Beauty! Congratulations to Kelly for doing such a wonderful job turning the colors in her imagination into such beautiful polishes!


My Beauty Highlights 2010

After being stranded in Paris last week and being ill, all I wanted to do was eat, sleep and watch Christmas TV, hence the major backlog of blogging I have caused myself.

I'm going to kick off with my beauty highlights of 2010, these are all products I recommend as my 'Star Products' and have experienced noticeable results with. 

The first brand I highly commend is Liz Earle. I had heard a lot of talk about the Cleanse & Polish
product, but had never tried it until this year, it's a lovely cream cleanser which removes all traces of make up, dirt and oils with a muslin cloth. I am most impressed with the whole ethos of the brand, the natural ingredients, the extensive range of glorious products and the wonderful affordable price point. 

I also had the greatest pleasure in meeting Liz Earle at the launch of the long awaited (and amazing) Botanical Shine shampoo and conditioner range. I have been using the shampoo and conditioner since August, the shampoo makes my hair smell like lemons and feels squeaky clean. You can read more here.

Trish McEvoy has always been one of my favourite brands from my days as a MUA (Make Up Artist), there are a couple of products from Trish which will always sit in my day to day collection;  

Instant Eye Lift: a long wearing under-eye line filler and brightener, this does not budge at all! It makes such a noticeable difference.

24 hour Eyeshadow and liner in Topaz, I have never come across a cream eyeshadow which doesn't crease (without an eye base). This is my favourite eyeshadow for quality and colour.

Eye Base Essentials, this is a brilliant eye base which is nice worn alone or under eyeshadows to keep them in place all day, zero creasing! 100% true!

Finally, the Lash Enhancer, which I spent a few weeks monitoring the results, I need to stock up on some more because I have really noticed the difference since I have ran out. You can read more here.

This year, us gals went doolally for the new hybrid gel polish, yes, a manicure that REALLY does last for 2 weeks with no chipping and no smudging. I knew about gel polish way before Shellac launched due to the industry I work in and I can also tell you that Gel Polish will be BIG business next year too with other brands jumping on the bandwagon. Harrod's Urban Retreat is offering EzFlow Gel Polish called 'Gelez' manicures and Space.NK's Spa have chosen IBD's Gelac Gel Polish.

I am really happy to be a part of the beauty blogging world because the beauty bloggers I have come across are so lovely and helpful. I have made some great blogger friends, some I have met (the 6 inch stilettos, beautywowza, i heart cosmetics, hell candy) and some I would love to meet in 2011 (to many to mention, but you're all on Twitter). 

Beautywowza introduced me to the ultra glam eco body range 'Davina Peace'. This was one of my favourite launches of 2010 and I can't wait for the face range in 2011! I'm so excited! The Wowza also took me along to the launch of a beautful natural and halal cosmetic range, called 'Inika'. The Kabuki make up brush is magnificent, I wonder what Inika will bring out in 2011?

Boots launched the Nip + Fab range, my sisters and some friends have all went and bought the eye brightening concealer because they were so impressed. It's way better than YSL's Touche Eclat and half the price!

Friends and readers will know how much I LOVE Korres (I wish the store on King's Road was still open), this year I got to meet the beautiful Lena Korres, where she presented some new product launches. I can't wait for the perfumes to be launched in March, the plum/pear one smells just like my Creed Aqua Fiorentina. I'll be stocking up! I'm also predicting that the Quercetin Antiageing & Antiwrinkle range will be flying off the shelves of Liberty and Zuneta.com, this range is delectable. The primer (which has NO silicones like conventional primers) is a wonderful make up base.

This year, I finally got my paws on some OCC Lip Tars, thanks to beauty fulfilled, she sent me to www.geniecosmetics.co.uk! I didn't even know OCC was available in the UK until this little beauty sent me the link (she is wearing the bright pink lip tar on her home page, I also have it, he he, but it looks way better on her).

Other websites I discovered this year and love are; www.zuneta.com and www.thegreengrocery.co.uk.

I feel like I've rambled on a bit much now, there are many more products I could mention but these are definitely my top ones.

Thanks for reading.
x


Sally Hansen Complete Salon Manicure: Gilty Pleasure

Gilty Pleasure is the last of five in this line I have to show you. You can find Yellow Kitty just below this post, and 3 others I shared a few weeks back here. I always love shades of metals, so I wanted to give this one a try. It looks like it could be a foil-type finish by the appearance in the bottle, so I was pleasantly surprised that it's not, because I sometimes have problems with streaking on those types of finishes. This is a lovely light gold shimmer that covered very nicely in 2 coats. It dried exceptionally fast, which is always a bonus. The brush on this one was cut evenly, and again, the formula was excellent. I'm very pleased with this shade, because of it's simplistic beauty. It's such a light and bright shade of gold, yet it seems to have a very noticeable richness to it.


Sally Hansen Complete Salon Manicure: Yellow Kitty

Above & Below: Yellow Kitty shown indoors with an Ott light, no flash. I used 3 coats and still had some streakiness, so I added a thin fourth coat. Surprisingly, it dried quickly even with that many coats.
Yellow Kitty is from Sally Hansen's newly re-formulated polish line called Complete Salon Manicure. I picked several of these up at Walmart a few weeks back, and although I'm not too impressed with the formula on Yellow Kitty (this is 3-4 coats!), the color range is excellent. I did add a few drops of thinner to this after trying it once and ending up with quite a mess. I'm not entirely happy with this manicure either, but trust me, had you seen my first attempt, you'd think this one looked perfect! I posted a few of the other shades here, and found the formula to be much less problematic on these, than I did with Yellow Kitty. The brush in Yellow Kitty was cut better than the one I previously had issues with, so that was a relief. I do love this shade of yellow, because it's the perfect Butter yellow shade that I've always been attracted to. I have one more to show you later today from this line called Gilty Pleasure. I'm not discouraged with these, but I do find the combination of the handle/brush a bit difficult to work with. And of course the $6.50 price tag seems high, but as I mentioned, many of the shades are quite unique and different.


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