Showing posts with label charlotte russe. Show all posts
Showing posts with label charlotte russe. Show all posts

Monday, November 29, 2010

Ooh, Goodies!

I was literally just about to post my NOTD when I heard a knock at the door. When I went and looked, I found a mysterious package...actually, it wasn't that mysterious - I knew my Reviva products from the Painted Lady Fingers giveaway had arrived! But first, nails. I added a matte top coat to yesterday's The Girl Who Played with Fire manicure, and while I don't think I like it quite as well as the glossy version, I do like it.

indoors, artificial light

And here's the package I got from Reviva Labs. It included Rosewater Facial Spray; Organic Cleansing Milk; Organic Skin Tonic; Sun Protective Moisturizer; Alpha Lipoic Acid, Vitamin C Ester, & DMAE Cream; a Vitamin E Stick; Firming Eye Serum; Hyaluronic Acid Serum; and DMAE Firming Fluid.


I can't wait to try all of these! Would you be interested in reviews of these products, or not?

Sunday, November 28, 2010

Ahh, I'm on Fire!

Okay, not really...but my nails kind of look like it. And yes, that was a very cheesy title. Sorry. Moving on! I did my first attempt at sponging today, adding an unnamed Charlotte Russe gold polish to BB Couture Sex on the Beach. I'm not completely happy with the results, but I think it's okay for my first try:

indoors, artificial light

I'm a huge (HUGE) Harry Potter fan, so I suppose this could be a Gryffindor mani...but I'm a Ravenclaw. I feel kind of disloyal. So maybe it's a Millenium trilogy-themed mani:


Yes? Yes, I think so. Anyway, that's almost all I have for you today. Here are some new and new-to-me polish blogs I've discovered and enjoyed recently.


Okay, now that's all! Happy Sunday!

Tuesday, November 9, 2010

Charlotte Russe...um...

I really hate it when polishes aren't named. Really. A lot. I mean, numbers for names are bad enough, but no name at all? Come on! *sigh* However, its namelessness doesn't make me love this particular polish any less. It's a silvery taupe-y greige that I got in spring 2009 before all the greige craziness started. It's a bit of a pain to apply - kind of thick, though nothing a little thinner wouldn't fix - and a bit streaky, but I think it's pretty nonetheless.

 outdoors, sunlight
outdoors, shade

Okay, so these pictures make it look green for some reason, but there's no green in it in real life. But, wait...where are the indoor pictures? Well, I took these pictures around 8:00 this morning, and didn't get back to my desk lamp (where I take my indoor pictures) until about half an hour ago. By that time, my thumbnail had split all the way into my nail bed, and I am now in the process of doing some sort of mending job on it. So far it's not going terribly well, but hopefully my nail will be mended tomorrow!

Sunday, July 18, 2010

China Glaze Golden Enchantment

As I mentioned in a previous post, I snagged this recently at Sally Beauty Supply for $1. Yup, I was pretty ecstatic. I have been in love with anything glittery lately, so I was really looking forward to wearing it both on its own and layered.

First, I tried wearing Golden Enchantment on its own. Since it's a holo glitter in a clear base, I knew that it wouldn't be opaque; however, I wanted to see what it would look like by itself since it was so amazing in the bottle. I was pleasantly surprised to find that one coat actually gave decent coverage--I think it'd be great as the sheer color in a French manicure. However, I wanted the full monty (I'm not referring to the butter LONDON lacquer, though I'd like that too), so I exercised some of the little patience I have and layered on five medium coats of this baby. It took me forever and a day, but eventually I got this hotness as a result:


sunlight
shade

Golden Enchantment is much more gold and much more holo and much more glittery than these pictures show. However, the pictures are accurate in that Golden Enchantment looks like a simple gold glitter until you get into the sunlight - it looks very unobtrusive until the sun hits it, and then it visually explodes. I am in LOVE. I know I say love at least five times in most of my posts, but this is...I don't even have words. My mom actually scolded me for looking at my nails constantly instead of joining in the conversation at lunch with our extended family. It's probably a good thing I don't drive, don't you think? Anyway, this is one of the only polishes that I would actually be willing to use five coats of, because it's absolutely stunning. It's stunning with just one coat, even, but five is just amazing. Oh, and might I mention that it wasn't rough at all? I did apply topcoat, but I didn't need it to even the polish out. Reluctant as I was to take off that gorgeousness, I wanted to see what Golden Enchantment looked like on other polishes.



From left to right and thumb to pinkie, the base colors are: Charlotte Russe unnamed, Zoya Roxy, Sally Hansen Xtreme Wear Blue It, Sally Hansen Diamond Strength Diamonds, Borghese Sonata Berry. I used two coats of the base colors and one coat of Golden Enchantment on each nail. I took a bunch of pictures, but none of them do any justice to how amazing these combinations look. The Charlotte Russe gold looks like it has holo glitter in the bottle, but it doesn't show up at all on the nail, so the glitter top coat basically made it look like what it should have been in the first place. The image of Diamonds is particularly crappy--the actual base polish is a sort of glass-flecked shimmer that is kind of holo if you look really, really closely, and it looks amazing with Golden Enchantment. The Borghese is actually very distinctively a berry, though it looks almost black in my picture, and Blue It is darker than it looks above. The glitter is just amazing in real life, and I'm disappointed that I was unable to capture it accurately. Roxy and Blue It are my favorite combinations (I'm going to wear one as my next pedi), but they are all gorgeous.

If you've made it to the end of my post, congratulations and thanks for reading! If not, well, I understand--I can get kind of long-winded. :) 

Saturday, July 17, 2010

Charlotte Russe Charcoal Holo and Mini Haul!

I got this unnamed Charlotte Russe polish about a year ago and had only worn it once or twice. Today, I decided to get it back out again. It's a charcoal holo, and this is what it looks like in the bottle:


This picture isn't the greatest, but you get the idea. In the bottle it looks like it's jam-packed with gorgeous holo glitter. On the nail...it's not. It's still looks great, but in most lights you have to look really closely to see that it has any glitter in it at all--it just looks like a charcoal shimmer. I had forgotten this since the last time I wore it, and was pretty disappointed. In an effort to make it more impressive and sparkly, I added a coat of Sephora by OPI Only Gold for Me glitter top coat. The results: 

indoors, artificial light
outdoors, shade
outdoors, sunlight

Gorgeous! My pictures are kind of blurry and crappy, so sorry for that--I don't know if it's because I've been tired all day and can't operate a camera properly or if this combination is just too amazing and glittery for my poor camera to capture properly. Anyway, while it does look black in really, really dim light, the base in clearly charcoal, and it looks absolutely wonderful with the glitter top coat. The combination actually kind of reminds me of Ke$ha's album cover for Animal...totally unintentional. At any rate, I really love it, and I'm not sure I'll ever wear the charcoal alone again!

In other news, I went to Sally Beauty Supply today and then Walgreens, and I ended up buying five bottles of nail polish. The middle three had been lemmings of mine, and the other two were just really pretty. :) Here they are:

 
From left to right they are: Sally Hansen In the Spotlight, China Glaze Golden Enchantment, Orly Luxe, Orly Rage (both Orly polishes are from Cosmic FX Spring 2010), and Nina Ultra Pro Grin and Berry It. I was especially excited to find the China Glaze because I knew it was being discontinued and figured I'd never find it, but it was on the sale table for $1! I can't wait to try all of these and show them to you in more detail.