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December 2012

June 2012

Sally Hansen Grape Going & NOPI Let's Get Star-Ted

I'm in a Facebook group for Nail  Polish-aholics, and we just started a weekly challenge. First one was purple nail polish, and this is my version. My 7yo daughter got the Sally Hansen polish for me for my birthday, but I haven't had a chance to swatch it yet. I normally don't love duochrome polishes, but this is actually really pretty. It's purple and it flashes blue. I wanted to jazz it up a little for the challenge so I added Nicole by OPI's "Let's Get Star-ted" which has purple holo stars. They look purple but looks holo in sunlight. There's also holo microglitter in it too.

Initially out of the bottle, the stars are really tough to get out, so you have to either use an orange stick or take all the polish off the brush and try to fish them out. Getting them on your nail is also difficult too. Once they're on, if you have rounded nails the ends of the stars stick out. To minimize that, I push them into the polish once it's almost dry. Then I added Gelous Advanced Nail Gel Coat on top then topped it off with Poshe. Even then, you can feel the edges of the stars. If you like your nails smooth, I wouldn't recommend it.

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IMG_1290b (853x1280)

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Zoya Myrta and China Glaze Riveting Comparison

I got the Zoya Pinterest mini trio that included Myrta (from the Zoya Surf collection) recently, and I really wanted to try it out. It's been really sunny this weekend so I was in an orange mood. When I put the polish on, I realized it reminded me of another color I had, so I took a look in my stash box. I have China Glaze Riveting from their Hunger Games collection that I absolutely LOVE, and so I decided to do a swatch comparison. It's not quite a dupe though very close.

Myrta is not as sparkly as Riveting, and it has more  of a tangelo look to it. It's definitely a foily shimmer polish vs. a glitter polish. Take a look and see if you can spot the difference. (By the way, sorry about the finger print smudge on my middle finger. I was in such a hurry, I ended up squishing it while taking photos.)

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Zoya Myrta - 1 coat
Poshe top coat 

Riveting is on the thumb in the comparison photo. It has more of a jelly look to it with an inner sparkle. Both are very pretty, but I think I prefer Riveting more. It just has this intensity about it that I really love. Myrta is also pretty, but it has more of a foil look.


Zoya Pink Polish Comparison - Lara, Areej, Audrina, Rory, Reagan

I really wanted a medium pink polish, and when a Zoya promo came up, I ended up ordering a few that I thought were dupes because I just couldn't make up my mind from the photos on their site. It's also hard to decide with other people's swatches since my Asian skin tone really makes polishes look different than the way it looks on others. Anyway, I already had Audrina, but I didn't LOVE it at first sight so I thought perhaps either Reagan or Areej might work.

Here's the comparison swatch I did with some of the ones I thought would be dupes.

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As you can see, Areej and Reagan are near dupes. Areej is a bit dustier looking than Reagan, but if you have one then you probably wouldn't want the other. In the bottle, Audrina looks soooo much like the other two, but on the nail has more blue than the other two.

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Audrina is on the left, and I can't even remember which two are on the right, but they look exactly the same to the naked eye. One's SLIGHTLY darker... MAYBE. :)

I added Rory and Lara since I got them for funsies. Rory has a lot of silver shimmer in it so although in the bottle it looks similar to Reagan and Lara, it shows up as very light on the nail. It's not as sparkly as Zoya's Sunshine collection. Lara has a bit of a softer neon quality about it. I just purchased a bunch of neon pinks, so I decided I don't want to keep Lara.

After the swatches, I decided that Reagan looks the best on my nails. It pops more than Areej which is what I really wanted. Audrina might be a keeper since I do like the bluer pinks, so it's going back in my nail polish box.


New Burt's Bees Lip Shimmers Plum & Cherry

I finally picked up my Frontier order, and it was a pleasant surprise to find two of the new colors for Burt's Bees Lip Shimmers. They are one of my go-to lip products. They're kind of a cross between lip stick and gloss, and I use them when I want a bit more coverage than lip gloss. I have several, and maybe I'll do a comparison photo some time.

Anyway, here are the two new ones I got: Plum and Cherry. On my skin, plum looks very dark brown with a bit of purple tone but it's not very obvious. The cherry shows up kind of orange-ish red. You can see the swatches.

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IMG_1278 (1280x853)