Monday, May 31, 2010

Borghese Swatches

I picked up 2 Borghese polishes a little awhile ago when CVS was having their 50%-75% of beauty products sale. This is still going on so you can still probably find some of these. These retail for $8, which is a price I'd rarely pay for a polish sold in drugstores.

I got two colors Dolce Vita Fuchsia and Siena Gold with 75% off these ended up being $2, so I saw no reason to pass them up! There was an amazing color I really wanted to called Stellare Notte, but it wasn't on sale :(.

Siena Gold


Siena Gold is a warm toned almost coppery red with gold shimmer throughout. The application was nice and the color is great.

Dolce Vita Fuchsia


Dolce Vita Fuchsia is a bright fuchsia with silver shimmer throughout.

My thoughts: I like these colors, but I think many of the Borghese colors are pretty standard where you can find duplicates or similar colors in less expensive brands. There were a few stand out colors like Stellare Notte (Vampy Varnish's swatch), which I adore that is being sold for their regular price (I may cave in and get this). If you find these at the reduced price I say go for it. If you find an awesome shade for regular price you don't see anyone where else I'd so go for it to. However, the majority of these colors I don't think are worth the price for a brand sold in drugstores. This is purely my opinion though, don't let me sway you!

I hope you all enjoy your day. Happy Memorial Day to all those in the US!

Sunday, May 30, 2010

Essie Starry Starry Night Franken

If you're not familiar with Essie Starry Starry Night, it is one of those rare hard to find polishes. I'm not sure when the original release of this polish was, but I know it must of been 2-3 years ago before I got into nail polish. I've seen this polish multiple times on ebay being sold for ridiculous sums of money, and I've also heard about some shady dealings.

I always really loved this polish, but hell would have to freeze over for me to pay a large some of money for it. Please, I cringe at paying over $4 for a nail polish, but...$50...$100...$300+ for a nail polish it better have magical powers, cure the common cold, or make cheeseburgers and milkshakes zero calories for me to purchase it!

Anyways here are some pictures of the original from e-polishblog, Scrangie, and The Edge of Sanity (You may need to scroll down a bit in a few of these to find the swatch).

It is a deep blue jelly with lots of silver glitter throughout. The name fits huh? It's beautiful. One thing I've learned when trying to replicate polishes is there is no way to get a perfect match. You're always going to end up thinking you need a touch more blue...a bit more glitter...etc. It will go on for hours, so just make it the way you like it!

Here is what I used...

-2/3 of a bottle of Wet n' Wild Nocturnal (dark blue jelly)
-1/2 of a bottle of Sinful Colors Queen of Beauty (silver glitter in clear base)
-1/8 to 1/4 a bottle of clear nail polish
-2 silver ballz/BBs you can learn ore about these from Dr. Frankenpolish
-Empty nail polish bottle

I ended up using silver ballz from an old nail polish I didn't use anymore. I also emptied a bottle of clear polish into an empty top coat bottle and used that now empty clear polish bottle to mix my franken in (I hope that made sense). In total, assuming you have an empty bottle and some silver ballz you can make this franken for around $5. You spend $2 on WnW polish, $2 on Sinful Colors, and $1 on clear nail polish.

My result...


Indoor w/ Flash


Outdoor w/ Sunlight


Close-Up


Overall, it is definitely not a dupe, but it's similar and has the right components. My version is much darker and doesn't have same amount or size of glitter, but it works! I love it! It does have the same effect which is what I was aiming for. I love how the glitter shines through the blue jelly..some of them pop more while others are more subtle. It is just like the night sky!

I hope you enjoyed this. Also, I hope it encourages you to start making your own creations!

Saturday, May 29, 2010

China Glaze Holos-Kaleidoscope Collection

Reminder: You only have 6 more days to enter my giveaway!

I wanted to share with you some of the holographic polishes from the China Glaze Kaleidoscope collection. I only have a few of these and they are now discontinued :(. However, you can still find a few of these on Head2Toe Beauty.

These are the ones I have.

L-R:Sexagon, Tickle My Triangle, & Lets Do It In 3D
These are different than the OMG collection. The OMG collection the holographic look is much smoother. These holographic look in these isn't as smooth as OMG collection and are broken up into little particles. I know that made no sense. Fail. Hopefully, you'll be able to get what I mean with the swatches. The names of this colors are very risque! I like it!

Sexagon- a silver holographic


Tickle My Triangle-
A medium pink-purple toned holographic


Lets Do It In 3D-
a charcoal grey holographic. I was a bit disappointed in this one. I still love it, but when I purchased it I was expecting it to be black holographic, but it definitely isn't. It's a dark grey.


That's all for today! I hope you liked these pretties! Do you have any of these? What are you favorites?

Friday, May 28, 2010

Pure Ice Swatches

Today, I'm going to show you some Pure Ice swatches. You can find Pure Ice polishes at Walmart for $2 each. I have mixed feelings on them more good than bad. They make some great layering polishes and have some neat colors in general. There are a few ones that are hit and miss formula wise. They're a great price though and have some great funky colors!

Purple Reign

Purple Rein is a muted purple with gold glitter/shimmer throughout. I really like this color. I find it unusual. You don't typically find muted colors with a pop of sparkly glitter in it. Thumbs up!

Celestial Frost

This is a royal blue frost. I know frosts are not in style anymore and are not faves among many, but I really like this one. I know you can see brushstrokes, but I don't mind frosts if they're in funky colors. It's a great blue, plus I like the name. :P

Super Star

Please excuse my graphic description
This is one of those cases where this looks better on the bottle than on the nails. I grabbed this so quickly because I thought it look gorgeous. It's a cranberry with iridescent glitter thought. This looks terrible on my nails. It looks as though I left my fingers soaking in a glass of wine all night and then Tinkerbell came over and threw up gritty pixie dust all over my nails. This stained my nails rather than gave me a shiny pretty finish. It felt gritty and overall looked ugly. I tried painting on another coat. I tried using top coat before taking the picture. I don't know, perhaps if I did another coat of top coat this would look better. I don't know. I'm very disappointed with this one. I still want to try to make it work, but I can't get over how it looks like it stains my nails -tear-

Those are my swatches. I have more Pure Ice polishes I'll share with you all later. I think I may go look for some too. I see they have some pretty blue creme I want!

Happy Friday!

Thursday, May 27, 2010

Going down the funky rabbit hole....

I won My Lucid Bubble's Funky Fingers giveaway a bit ago. I just received these polishes, so I figured I'd swatch them for you all.

Five of these polishes are based off of Alice in Wonderland. I LOVE Alice in Wonderland. I even went to Alice's day in Oxford, England (I didn't go for that it happened to be going on when I was there!). It is one of my favorite stories can you tell? I'm very picky about movie versions though. My absolute favorite Alice version is the one they made for TV in 1985. I wasn't even born until 1986, but I know they replayed it a lot. It featured a lot of old famous stars, like Carol Channing, Sammy Davis Jr., Ringo Starr, and etc. Did anyone see that one? It had all these catchy songs. It was my favorite and I have it on DVD now. I'm a nerd. I know this. :P

Back to polishes!
L-R: Off With Their Heads, Mad Hatter, Cheshire, Alice, Jester, White Queen, & Moonwalk

These are great polishes! I don't own any Funky Fingers polishes, so I was excited to get these. I think these are only sold in the Northeast of the US. The application of these were great! I am very impressed. I also love the names obviously...

Off With Their Heads
-a bright raspberry creme, reminds me of China Glaze Heli-Yum


Mad Hatter- a bright sky blue creme


Cheshire- a bright purple creme, probably OPI Funky Dunkey's lighter brighter cousin


Alice- a sapphire blue foil-GORGEOUS!!!!


Jester
- a grape purple holographic


White Queen
-a chunky iridescent white glitter, probably best for layering.
Index finger- White Queen over Black, Middles & Pinky- White Queen on its own 4 coats, & Ring Finger- White Queen over white.


Moonwalk
-a black creme with holographic glitter


These are great! Thank you so much Lucid Bubble for this giveaway! :D Which ones are your favorites?

Wednesday, May 26, 2010

Some China Glaze Holos-OMG Collection

I wanted to share with you some polishes I have from the China Glaze OMG collection. These are all awesome holographic colors. You can still find many of these on Head2Toe Beauty.

These are the ones I have.

L-R: BFF, DV8, 2NITE, IDK, & LOL

When I first used these I used them the same way I did with any other nail polish. I started out with basecoat. This is where you go wrong with these holos. If you put these on with basecoat the application is terrible. It will go on streaky and you will have bald spots. After this happened I did some research. I found Scrangie's post about these. That's where I got the idea to not use basecoat. These do not stain, so you can get away with it. The application is so much smoother. You can get the perfect application in 2 coats with no streaks or bald spots. She recommends not to use topcoat because she said it dulls the holographic effect. I used Seche Vite and I personally didn't find this to be an issue. The one down side to these is they chip quickly. They don't chip nicely either they will usually chip off in big pieces. I'm on day 2 of wearing 2NITE and I'm just noticing 2 big chips on my index finger and thumb. It's not bad if you're someone who wears a mani for 2-3 days, but these will not last a week in my opinion. I still think they're worth it because they're so pretty! Now, I'm going shut up and show you the colors!



BFF- A holographic cool toned pink.


DV8- A holographic turquoise blue.


2NITE- A holographic sky-periwinkle blue


IDK-A holographic lavender


LOL-A holographic violet-purple


Overall, I really like these polishes and recommend them. Even though they have some negatives I think the uniqueness of the finish and the price make them worth it. I've also heard these are great for Konading! I hope you enjoyed these colors!

I have to add my boyfriend likes these colors. When I ask him to pick my mani he always picks one of these. I think it's because holographicness reminds him of electronics and cars....-sigh- Men are weird :P!

Tuesday, May 25, 2010

Milani Fresh Teal & Blog Award

Today I want to show you Milani Neon Fresh Teal!

This is a true bright teal creme. I love this color. I have to tell you I've been re-discovering my love for cooler colors. Before blogging I had convinced myself these colors do not look good on me. I have so many in my collection but I allowed a few failed colors to change my view on similar colors. Shame on me, I was missing out big time. I really like this color on me. I think teals and turquoises are flattering on most skintones. I'll be giving away a bottle of this color in my summer giveaway!

This is the only Milani Neon I've tried and I'm impressed so far? Anyone have this color or recommend some others in the neon line?

Yesterday I was tagged by both Lacquerware for Tips and Toes,polish insomniac, & The Phalanges Files for the sweet blog award!! Wow! Thank you so much!



Give this award to 10 sweet bloggers.

visions in color
Chrysanthemum
Gold Dusk
Frazzle and Aniploish
NY.NAIL.DIVA
Libby's Pink Vanity
War Paint
Bec's Beauty Buzz
Art: my way
CANDY COATED TIPS


It's very hard to pick just 10!!! :(

Make a post about the award including the picture and mention the person who gave it to you.

Put the award on your blog.

Let your nominated 10 know you've awarded them by leaving a comment.

Monday, May 24, 2010

Maybelline Oldies

Today I'm going to show you some old Maybelline polishes. Two of these I got from Ross and the other 2 I got from polish insomniac who happens to be a new blogger! You can sometimes luck out and find these at Dollar Tree or Ross.

Purple Aluminum

This is purple-blue toned foil metallic. This is a great color with a nice finish. I really like this on my nails, but I'm thinking this would awesome on my toes too!

Red Aluminum

This is cool toned red foil metallic. It's rich and sexy color. I really love the finishes of these aluminums. Foils in generals are awesome, but I especially love colorful ones.

Sand Coral

This is a bronze foil metallic. I'm usually not one for more neutral shades, but this one is beautiful. It definitely doesn't disappear into the background. I love this shade also because it can go with anything!

Turquoise Seas

Index Finger- Turquoise Seas over Black, Middle Finger-Turquiose Seas, Ring Finger- Turquoise Seas over Milani Fresh Teal, Pinky-Turquoise Seas
I knew when I picked this up what I was getting myself into. This is a sheer duochrome. I couldn't pass it up though. It's pale turquoise shimmer with blue/purple/gold duochrome. To get it to be opaque you need 5-6 coats. It looks great on its own or over other colors especially black. It's rare I'd every put 5-6 coats on of one polish, but I think I'd do it for this one!

I hope you enjoy these! I haven't been very lucky in spotting these at my Dollar Tree. I think there another nail polish addict out there getting to them before me! I did find some sets of Maybelline polishs 5 for $5 at Ross though, so do some searching. I don't think these go out of style no matter their age.

Saturday, May 22, 2010

Summer Giveaway!--CLOSED

Time for a small giveaway! Giveaways will not be frequent for me, but since it will soon be the beginning of summer I figured I could do a small one. According to the poll I got the most votes for a mixed giveaway as far as finishes go. Cremes came in second so I put in more cremes than the rest!

Here is what you can win! (click to enlarge)


L-R:
1.Wet n Wild- Heatwave (red-orange creme)
2.Milani- Pink Out Loud (medium pink jelly-like shimmer w/ gold glass fleck throughout)
3.N.Y.C.- White Lights Glitter (iridescent white glitter great for layering)
4.Milani Neon- Fresh Teal (bright teal creme)
5.Milani- Molten Rock (blue-turquoise metallic shimmer)
6.Wet n Wild- Through the Grapevine (Medium bright grape creme)

All these are brand new never used or swatched.

Guidelines:

- You must be 18 years or older to order to enter.
- This is open internationally. However, if an international winner is chosen I will be shipping to them the least expensive way possible.
- Giveaway will end Friday, June 4th @ 11:59 EST
-Winner must reply to my email within 48hours or another winner will be chosen.
- I will be choosing a winner using random.org
-Leave your entries in the comment section below. Please try to put all of your entries in to one comment (except for the special freebie one). :)
-Winner will be announced Saturday, June 5th.

How to Enter:


Mandatory:
1. You must be a follower of this blog. Please let me know you are a follower and provide me with your email address. If you do not leave your email I cannot enter you because I will have no way to contact you if you win.(1 entry)

Optional:
I wanted to provide everyone with some fun freebie entries so everyone has the opportunity to have many entries in case you don't blog.

2. Blog about this giveaway either in a post or your sidebar and please leave me the link. (1 entry)
3. (Freebie) If you could make your own nail polish collection what would you base it off of or what would the inspiration be? What types of colors/finishes would be in it? (1 entry)
4. (Freebie) What is brand of nail polish you're dying try but haven't? (1 entry)
5. (Special Freebie) Send me an email to imperfectlypainted@gmail.com of a picture of your favorite getaway/vacation/holiday location or a place you'd like to visit. It can be your own photo or photo you find on the internet. Let me know where this place is what your Google Friend Connect name is so I can add it to your entries. (2 entries)

That's a possible 6 entries. :)

If you have any questions regarding this giveaway you can email me at imperfectlypainted@gmail.com. I look forward to reading your comments and see your
pictures!

Milani Liquid Metals Color Swatches

I spotted these at my CVS yesterday and decided I needed to pick up a few. If you remember around a month ago I posted some swatches from an earlier Liquid Metals collection. Those colors were more neutrals, blacks, and whites. Now, Milani has introduced a new part to this collection which is made up of bright colors.

Here is the display (sorry for the bad phone pictures)

I'm not entirely sure how to describe the finishes of these. They're have way more dimension than a typical shimmer. Perhaps they are microshimmer metallics? They look like look crushed up gemstones on a bottle!

Here are the colors

L-R:
Melt Down: Darker Red shimmery metallic
Melt With U: Pink toned red shimmery metallic
Metal Gear: Copper-orange shimmery metallic
Melt in the Sun: Yellow toned gold shimmery metallic
Molten Rock: Blue-Turquoise shimmery metallic
Hot Metal: Fuchsia w/ slight blue duochrome jelly w/ violet,blue, and gold glass fleck

I can't say this enough how impressed I with Milani nail polish. I think they have the best selection of finishes and colors of any other drugstore nail polish (excluding the ones you find at Sally's). They are reasonably priced and come out with stunning collections.

I didn't purchase all of these, but I did purchase Hot Metal, Melt Down, and 2 bottles of Molten Rock. I'll be giving one of those bottles of Molten Rock away in my small summer giveaway I'll be posting tomorrow!
L-R: Molten Rock, Melt Down, & Hot Metal


Molten Rock (Indoor w/ flash)

This is a turquoise-blue metallic shimmer. I'm not sure how I can really describe it exactly. I've seen people question if this is similar to Zoya Charla. I do not have Zoya Charla, but from what I've read it is a similar color, but Charla's finish is much more blingy. I think this would be a great alternative if you don't have Charla right now or don't plan on getting it soon.

Molten Rock (Outdoor in sunlight)

Sunlight definitely brings these too life. This photograph does not do it justice. These shimmer and shine like treasure!

Melt Down (Indoor w/ flash)

This is a darker red metallic shimmer.

Melt Down (Outdoors in sunlight)

Again, this photo does not do it justice. This looks like you painted crushed rubies on your nails!

Hot Metal (Indoors w/ flash)

This is the most unique of the bunch. This is a fuchsia blue-toned jelly, w/ a slight duochrome effect, and tiny blue,violet, and gold glass fleck glitter throughout. If anyone has MAC Dazzleglass in Funtabulous this somewhat reminds me of that just darker, richer, and with more depth.

Hot Metal (Outdoors in sunlight)

Gorgeous! I love this one!

Overall these are GREAT!! I think the best ones are definitely Hot Metal & Molten Rock. If you are unsure of which ones to get I'd definitely recommend those for sure! Remember, I'll be throwing my extra Molten Rock in my giveaway that I'll post tomorrow!

What do you think of these colors and this collection? Have tried these or are planning on getting some?

Have a great Saturday night!