Showing posts with label Blue Cross Beauty. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Blue Cross Beauty. Show all posts

Snow=Snowman Polish!

Above & Below: The bright pink neon shimmer Snowman polish dries to a satin finish, so I used a top coat. A Nailene snowman decal seemed appropriate! The shimmer looks silver and pink in the bottle, but once applied, it's shows as a beautiful baby blue and violet iridescent look.
It's been snowing all day, so I think a Snowman polish from Blue Cross Beauty is in order. I posted last month about how I'd picked some of these up at Rite-Aid, mainly for the 'cute' factor. This bright pink shimmer was not one of them, however. When I stopped in again last week, I walked past the display and they were all gone. Except this one. He looked so sad and lonely, so he came home with me! These are not the greatest polishes...the brushes are sometimes wonky, some of them need 3-4 coats (as in this case), and I don't hear any ballz when I shake the bottle. But for $1.99, you get cute, festive, and fun. In my opinion, for the entertainment factor alone, they're worth it!


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Tip Toe (Old Navy) After Party & A Purple Snowman Polish

Above & Below: Top Toe After Party shown outdoors in partial sun (above) and shade (below). No flash was used.
Below: In full sun, the micro glitter becomes more noticeable.
Below: Close-up of the finish. You can see some blue in there along with the red.
Below: After Party topped with a coat of one of the Blue Cross Snowman polishes, shown in full sun and shade. These have some great glitter in them in various shapes and colors, and can be found at Rite-Aid for $1.99. The bottles are difficult to hold when taking pictures though!

After Party is a dark purple shimmer that isn't as interesting as I thought it might be. The micro glitter is most notably red, but only comes out in brighter lighting or sunshine. It's not a bad shade, but I'm sure I have others that are similar. The Tip Toe polishes have excellent coverage though, and they're only $3.50 at Old Navy. Some of the colors are unique, while others are clearly dupeable. If you scroll down, you can see several of the other polishes I've swatched from their line. I used 2 coats with After Party, and then decided to top it off with the Blue Cross Snowman polish in the red-based purple shade. These don't have color names, but they're cute as can be because of the bottle. I have tried them all by themselves, and they're really too sheer to use alone, unless you take the time to do multiple (3-4) coats. They make excellent top coats though, because the glitter is densely packed and it distributes itself very evenly on the nail.


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Tip Toe (Old Navy) Midnight with a Snowman Top Coat


Above & Below: Tip Toe Midnight shown outdoors under cloudy skies with no flash.

Above & Below: Midnight, shown indoors with a flash.


Above: Close-up of Midnight. It has a black base with various shades of blue shimmer/glitter.
Above & Below: One coat of Blue Cross Snowman polish over Tip Toe Midnight.
Below: Close-up of the glitter in the Snowman polish.
This morning I have another polish from the Tip Toe brand, this one is called Midnight. If you missed my previous swatches from this line, just scroll down and you'll find a couple more. I've still got 3 to go, but I haven't had the time to sit down and do them all at once. Midnight is a fabulous shade of deep Royal blue with non-descript colored shimmer. In the bottle, it looks to have a red iridescence to it, which had me believing it had micro red glitter. It doesn't have red glitter at all on the nail, but I'm completely satisfied with this shade. Like the others, it covered perfectly in 2 coats. I decided to try out one of my Blue Cross Snowman polishes from Rite-Aid over the top and it works perfectly as a multi-colored holographic-filled glitter top coat. The Snowman polishes come in a variety of shades and the 3 glitter ones I bought all just have the name as Snowman on the label. What do you think of these Tip Toe polishes so far? I am really quite impressed with the shades and the application.


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Random Musings: Snowman Polishes, My Elfster, Palette Storage Idea

Above & Below: My Elfster package from Kae! She sent the sweetest notes and included not only polishes from my wishlist, but also a Stila set. I love Stila and actually have an order coming later this week from them. She sent some of the Milani Black Magic (is that what they're called?) polishes, China Glaze Ravishing, Dahling, and the Stila set, which I can't wait to play with!
Below: I picked 2 of these Caboodles vanity cases up at TJ Maxx today to store some of my palettes and other cosmetics in so they won't be hidden away so much. They're the perfect size and have a fabric exterior, and the best part? They were only $2.99 each!
Below: Rite Aid had the Blue Cross Snowman polishes and yes, I bought them because they're cute! I posted their Halloween ones last month and didn't care for the quality, but these look like they'd make fantastic top coats if they're too sheer.
Below: I don't have too many CQ or Petites brand polishes, but these colors caught my eye. They quality isn't always the best, but I couldn't resist the swirls of gold in CQ's Cosmic Plum or the simplistic beauty of CQ's Silver Taupe. And one can never have too many black glitter shades, so Petites Midnight Frost jumped into my cart also.
It's been cloudy and rainy all day, so I didn't see the point in swatching and picture taking. But I do have a couple of things to share with you! First up...my Elfster package arrived and I couldn't be happier with my presents. I was happier still to find that Kae, the multi-talented lady behind The Hungry Asian blog, had drawn my name. If you're not familiar with her blog, check it out because she has one of the prettiest sets of nails I've ever seen, and she also does some extremely beautiful nail art. Simply put, she is lovely, talented, and very sweet. Thank you Kae, for selecting such a wonderful array of of my wishes and turning them into a reality! I'd also like to thank Nicole for all of her hard work in setting up "Elfster 2009" for us.

One of the gifts Kae sent me was the Stila Gift of Glow set and if you saw my post about a month ago regarding re-organizing my nail polish stash, I'm also starting to re-organize my makeup stash. After I finished up the way I store my nail polish (out in the open as opposed to in drawers where I can't see them), I realized that so much of my makeup is also stored away in drawers and the bathroom closet, making it difficult for me to enjoy them...out of sight, out of mind...so to speak. Just looking at the colors and textures of polishes and makeup is something that makes me happy (crazy lady, I know!), and I thought it might be nice to bring some of my palettes and newer items I get "out". I think I'll rotate them occasionally, so they all get used instead of being forgotten about. I'm just starting this project, and I think it's safe to say that if I have a nail polish problem, I also have a problem with cosmetics. Admitting it is the first step, isn't that what they say? I picked up the cutest little Caboodles vanity boxes at TJ Maxx today for $2.99 each, and I think they'll be perfect for some of my palettes. I also saw some nice sturdy photo boxes with lids that have a black and white damask pattern, so those may come home with me someday soon to assist in my project. I stopped at Rite-Aid to see if they had Wet n Wild's 2 new Holiday palettes, but they didn't have them yet. I always feel bad walking out of a store without buying anything, so I picked up some Blue Cross Snowman polishes, a Petites polish, and a couple of CQ polishes. Now I'd better go do something productive and start organizing my makeup!


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Blue Cross Beauty Pumpkin Polishes

Above & Below: Blue Cross Beauty Pumpkin Polishes. Above is a pretty shade of teal or turquoise green, although it's an odd color for Halloween. I thought it might glow in the dark, but it doesn't. It took 4 coats and the application and formula quality were not good. It dries to a semi-matte finish. Below is 4 coats (on top of 4 coats of the base color!) of the glitter polish.
Below: These don't have names, other than "Pumpkin Nail Enamel" and "Glow-In-The-Dark Nail Enamel".
This is a bit of a "fail" to me, but failures are okay as long as we learn something, right? What I learned is that although Blue Cross Beauty can make some beautiful, quality nail polishes (Liquid Euphoria comes to mind), these are not in that realm. The seasonal Pumpkin Polishes, found at stores such as Rite-Aid, are inexpensive and cute, but don't really impress me otherwise. The colored ones take too many coats (4) and are streaky. The glow in the dark ones do glow, but don't have much of a color payoff. The glitter polishes are difficult to apply, and get an even distribution of the glitter in less than 4 coats. But that's alright, because I only bought them for their "cute" factor!


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Finger Paints Fall 2010

I needed to renew my Sally Club card today, so I asked them if the new Finger Paints for Fall were in yet. She was kind enough to go in the back and bring me a set, and while they have a nice array of colors for Fall, nothing really jumps out as being exceptional.

Above & Below: The top photo shows the colors more true to life (indoors with flash) with the exception of Autumn Allure, while the bottom photo was taken in full sunlight. Autumn Allure looks more true to life in the outdoors photo. There's one creme in this collection (Shades of Fall, a plum color) and the rest are shimmers.
Below: I made the mistake of looking around while I was waiting for her to bring the Finger Paints out, and naturally I saw some other things that interested me! The Savvy polishes are from a collection called Shimmer Time (now I have Hammer Time stuck in my head) and they have beautiful iridescent shimmer.
Below: I couldn't capture how pretty the shimmer is, and I'm wondering if they might work better over a darker color. L-R: Purple Potion, Fairy Twinkle, Glass Slipper. I love the names, so hopefully I'll love the polishes.
Below: Two of my favorite treatment products, Blue Cross Cuticle Remover (gigantic bottle for only $4.99) and Mango Mend in the perfect size tube ($3.79). The Mango Mend is pricier in this packaging, but I like to keep one on my desk for a quick and easy application in between swatching and before I go to bed. I saw a green polish from Nina Ultra Pro that didn't look quite like other greens I had, so into the basket it went. This one is called Salsa.
Without swatching the Finger Paints yet, they're pretty and Fall-like--nothing earth-shattering though. That could change once I put them on my nail...who knows. The names are lacking a little in originality, as I notice they use the word Autumn in three of them. The one most appealing to me right now is Autumn Allure, the taupe shimmer. It reminds me of Ingrid from the China Glaze Vintage Vixen collection. Finger Paints are on sale this month buy 2 get one free, and they're priced at $4.49 with a Sally Club card.


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