Shrek had a Birthday!

Ok guys, I am seriously in love with this manicure. I think my photos turned out a bit better than the last post, so that is a huge plus. I've been wearing this for three days now and I have no intention of taking it off. It's so gorgeous! If Shrek had a birthday party, this is what would be everywhere. =)

This is Zoya's Mitza from their summer 2011 matte collection with Wet n' Wild's Party of Five Glitters on top. I really like Zoya's Mitzi and their matte polishes are some of the easiest that I've worked with, but this colour was such a pain to apply. It took five coats on some nails to make it opaque because the colour kept cracking in weird places. Stupid matte polishes. Party of Five Glitters is amazing. It has large silver hexagonal glitters and and smaller purple, pink and green glitters. I quite liked the matte effect but wanted to jazz it up a bit, hence the glitter. I also needed something to cover up the bumpy effect that Mitzi gave me. Here's a photo before glitter, so you can see the awkward bumpy-ness of Mitzi.

Arg! It makes me so sad. But all in all this mani is perfect, in my eyes. =) I covered it all with a coat of Sally Hansen's Insta-Dry and it covered up all the glitter bumps fairly well. Here is one more photo to drool over =)

I hope you guys enjoyed this manicure as much as me! If you like awkward Shrek-y colours then I hope you did! Till next time, <3

First Nail Post!

Hello ladies and gents. I'm doing my very first nail of the day post.. Woah. I've been slowly becoming more and more obsessed with nail polish over the last couple months and I probably read nail polish blogs more often than watching makeup youtube videos now. Which is so surprising. Anywhooo, I apologize that these photos aren't the best but I'm just getting used to taking awkward photos of my nails. I have no idea how all the wonderful ladies that I read do it =)

Recently-ish I made an order off of fabulousstreet.com when the coveted Nfu Oh 61 came back into stock. Surprisingly I haven't worn that yet but I also bought Nfu Oh 51 which is an amazing purple-reddish-gold-blue flakie. It looks purple when simply on the nail but every single light reflection will bring out a different colour to it. Amazing!

The photo clearly does not do it justice but you can see the different colours that show up when wearing this polish. I promise that there is more gold and bluey-green snuck into the formulation of this polish than my photos show.

Oh this polish is beautiful! I applied two coats of it over Barry M's Berry Ice Cream, just to have a nice base underneath.

Nfu Oh 51 is a little goopy to apply and my brush came a bit distorted, but it is definitely worth the hassle. The only downside was tip wear. After one day the the tip wear was ridiculous, even with my usual top coat of Sally Hansen Insta-Dry. But there was no chipping even after three days. I would have kept it on longer but I was itching to try out another nail combo.. But that is for the next post! Hope you guys enjoyed this post, let me know if you want to see more nail of the days =) Have you tried anything from Nfu Oh? Any recommendations?

GDE Tutorial - Smoky Gold

New tutorial! Here is a list of all the products used

Shadows:
GDE - Trophy Wife
GDE - Hello Brooklyn
GDE - Electric Lemonaide
GDE - Girlfriend Sweater
GDE Family Secret

Brushes:
ELF - professional blending brush
Quo - definer shadow
Quo - shadow smudger brush
Crown Brush - C200 deluxe crease
Crown Brush - C222 round contour
Crown Brush - Angled Liner

MAC - eyeliner in fascinating
Smashbox - Jet Set waterproof eyeliner
Rimmel - Sexy curves mascara
Rimmel - Moisture Renew Lipstick 600 Soft Coral

And here are some extra photos like I promised!










Enjoy!

Project Pan Update!

It has been almost two months since I've started project pan. And it has been hell! Ahh! It's so hard to not buy any makeup. Especially when so many haul videos pop up and the MAC Wonderwoman collection is amazing.. But I have finished 5 items and that means I'm only 15 away from my goal of 20! So far but closer than 4 I suppose.. =( So I'll show you guys what I've finished and let you know if I'll ever repurchase!

First off is the MUFE Smoky Lash mascara. This is my favourite mascara of all time. The downside? The price is over $20. Will I repurchase it? Definitely. Not till IMATS thought, where I'm going to stock up because it was $15 last year. This mascara gives such beautiful fullness of the lashes that I'm lusting over it just as I type.. Siigh.



Then I finished up my Annabelle volumelash.com mascara. I know, I know. Mascaras are a cheap way out of Project Pan. But this mascara was on its last legs too. I like this mascara, because on one side it has bristles and on the other side there is a plastic comb. So if you just use the bristles its a very natural looking lash, but if you run the comb through it too it becomes super dramatic and awesome. But I probably wouldn't repurchase it. It wasn't a WOW product, but definitely fun to try.



My Yes to Carrots Lip Butter was my first lip product to be used up, which is cool because I have way too many. This is a good lip balm, but I still prefer my Nivea ones by far. No thanks to rebuying it.



Fourth on the list was my Covergirl Translucent finishing powder. And yes I had it in the old school green packaging. I had this forever and used to carry it in my purse where it smashed into a million pieces.. And the last couple months I decided to use up those smashed pieces. Which was painful and hard to work with. But I did it! Nothing special about this powder, I'd purchase it if I needed a powder but I'm going to try looking for something else once the time comes.



My fifth item of this round is my UDPP. Now, I regret to say that I did not cut open my bottle of this for two reasons. One, I would have cut myself. Two, it was really old and probably beginning to go bad so no reason to prolong its misery. Would I repurchase? No. I now use my $1 ELF primer and it works just the same if not better because more money stays in my pocket.



Alas, that is all for my project pan update! Hopefully I won't go 3 months between blog posts again and hopefully my next project pan update is very soon! Cheers =)

Christmas Wish List

I thought I would share with you guys (or probably ladies I should say :P) my Christmas wish list. For me this serves a couples purposes. First off, for those buying me gifts, I'm giving them ideas. =P Secondly, if you are trying to find a gift for someone and you need some makeup ideas, read this blog post. And finally, it's kinda like a check list for me to realize what I really want and to share it with you =)
So lets get down to it!


The first is the Tarte TEN Limited Edition Collectors Palette. OH MY GOSH. This palette is so incredibly gorgeous. I've swatched it in store and all the colours are so pigmented and smooth. And the packaging is so pretty. I like that there are different finishes to the shadows too. Major plus. The colours are winter friendly too, and I can just imagine all the wonderful smoky eyes that can come out of this palette. LOVE.



Next, I want the Nina Ricci perfume which I'm assuming is just called Nina? They had this as a beauty insider 100 point gift at Sephora a little while ago and I thought the bottle was cute so I got it. It smells amazing! It's fruity and sorta smells like a raspberry.. Just go and smell it please! My little sample is almost done and I'm going to have to buy this because I'm addicted.



I also want the NARS shadow in Galapagos. I don't own any NARS products, except for a lip pencil which I received in a set, and I know that their blushes are one of their most popular products, but I love shadows. And this shadow has always looked so loveable and like it needed to be in my collection. The picture does it no justice. It's a brown with a ton of gold sparkle, that actually shows up. Win.




This next want will make me seem crazy because all I do is buy ELF products. But... I want to try out the Mineral lipsticks as well as get the rest of the Mineral lipglosses which I don't have. I want all the lipsticks because I'm attempting to build a kit and I think that at 5 bucks each, and with good reviews, those lipsticks would be a great addition. As for the lipglosses, I just really like em.



Finally, (last item? what?!) I want, need, the nail polish Party Hearty by China Glaze. Have you seen the swatches? It's absolutely amazing. I ordered some China Glaze to try it out recently but Party Hearty was sold out. The second it comes back into stock, I have to buy it. I've never been so obsessed about a nail polish before.



Surprisingly that is it! Since I started "project buy no makeup" (tell nobody about the elf cyber monday sale.. shhh....) I've been rationalizing myself out of wanting many makeup items. Soo.. really thats all that I want which is on the shelves right now! My logic is helping my credit card bills. Wooop! Till next time =)

ELFs Cream Eyeshadows

ELF recently released some new products and among those were their cream eyeshadows. They come from their studio line and are $3 each. Currently they only come in four colours which isn't too exciting, but I bought all of them =P




Left - Right
Bronzed, Candlelight, Eggplant, Dawn.

This is what ELF has to say on their website about them.
Line, shade and contour your eyes with this ultra pigmented and creaseless cream shadow. Easy to blend for layering and building color. The silky smooth and smudge-proof formula provides long lasting color for a beautiful look all day.

I am head over heels about these shadows! There is one downside, and only one, so I'll start off with that. The packaging is huge! This is a pic of their cream shadow compared to their cream eyeliner.. The difference is ridiculous. The funny part is, the cream shadows dont appear to hold that much more product. (I couldn't find weight measurements)It is going to be annoying storing these as they take up so much room.



Now onto all the positives! These colours are very richly pigmented. I use them on top of a regular eye primer as a coloured base and they make all my colours on top pop more as well as adhere better as it is a creamier base. I found no creasing when used on top of a primer (such as the elf eye primers, UDPP etc) although I would not recommend using it by itself, directly on the eye. I haven't tested it out, but the texture leaves one to believe that it would crease. Ready for some swatches?



Bronzed, Candlelight, Eggplant, Dawn.

The selection of colours is not large as they were just released, however the colours they chose to put out are wonderful. Bronzed is beautiful underneath a regular everyday brown/neutral smoky eye as it adds a certain depth to the colours. Candlelight I use the most because it's just a great base underneath shadows to help them adhere better and add a bit of shimmer. Eggplant is gorgeous under purple shadows or even blue to change the colour a little! Dawn is nice under taupey colours, as well as on its own. Very versatile colours.

I was asked to compare these to MACs paint pots. Here is a swatch. On top is ELFs cream shadow in Candlelight, and on the bottom is MACs paint pot in Bare Study.



The colours are very similar. If you are beginning with makeup I would say if you have one you don't need the other. If you're a crazed addict like me, you need both. With back ups =P JOKES! ELFs shadow has a more yellow undertone, while MACs is more pink. Do they do the same job? Yes. Is MACs worth the extra expense? I don't think so. The only real upside to the paint pots are that they can be worn without an eye primer on some people and not crease whereas I don't see that happening with the ELF shadow. However, I don't think that is enough to justify paying that much extra when you can buy ELFs eye shadow primer for $1.

Definitely 5/5!! And I can't wait for them to release more colours =)
And where can you buy them?? http://www.eyeslipsface.com/

Top Ten Fave Songs

Hey guys. For some reason I felt like making a top ten songs of the moment post. So here it goes. These aren't my favourite songs of all time, because that would be impossible. These are just songs that I adore and listen and sing to all the time currently. Don't judge. =P

Gaslight Anthem - Old White Lincoln
These guys are freaking amazing. Everytime I listen to them I just feel like rocking out, as cliche as that sounds.

Aqua - Back to the Eighties
If you only look up one song from all the ones I list, please let it be this one! This is such a flashback to the eighties but in a nineties sounding way. Oh my gosh! I dance like crazy when this is on and love the lyrics. Maybe cause I always wish I grew up in the eighties.

Said the Whale - My Government Heart
This is a local band from my hometown Vancouver. But I think you should check them out. This song just has super cool lyrics.

Said the Whale - Out on the Shield
Ok so another one from my current fave local band. Maybe I'm just excited because I'm seeing them live this week. This song is catchy beyond belief. I'm always humming it. Youtube it. Now.

Florence and the Machine - You've Got the Love
This is what I call an "orgasm" song, where it like lifts up your heart till it feels like it's gonna burst. Makes sense eh? But seriously, this song is beautiful.

Mumfrod and Sons - Little Lion Man
This song reminds me of when I first moved out of my parents house because this album is all I listened too. Very soothing, very catchy, very nice.

Celine Dion - You and I
I'll admit it. I have a harsh love for Celine Dion. And I'm always obsessing over one of her songs. This is the current one. It makes me think of travelling with my loverr. =P

The XX - VCR
I used to listen to this song and drive. It's ridiculously calming.

Black Kids - I'm Not Gonna Teach Your Boyfriend How to Dance With You
OMG. If this song doesn't make you dance, I dunno what will. My friend and I used to belt this out at the top of our lungs in the car and everyone in the backseat wanted to stab their ears. I hope you do the same.

The Script - Man Who Can't Be Moved
I just think of my best friend. And this song is very nice. I smile during the whole thing. Woop.

That is all. Let me know your fave songs too pretty please =)