I'm Captivated By Cult Nails' Devious Nature

Geez, all my blogging motivation seems to have *poofed* away. So I guess you'll continue to see sporadic posts from me until it comes back. And seeing as my last several posts have all been about nail polish,  I seem to have lost my makeup mojo as well. Working at a cosmetics counter seems to have burnt me out on it a little. One thing that never wavers in my undying obsession with polish. This layering combo is from a few months ago when two of my Cult Nails polishes jumped out at me from their Helmer drawer. Looking at it in these pictures makes me want to do this again. Actually I just bought Scandalous from Cult Nails so I might try Captivated over that next.

This is one coat of Cult Nails Captivated over two coats of Cult Nails Devious Nature.

Cult Nails Captivated over Cult Nails Devious Nature

Cult Nails Captivated over Cult Nails Devious Nature

Cult Nails Captivated over Cult Nails Devious Nature

Here is an uncropped picture just for fun. My hands are huge!

Cult Nails Captivated over Cult Nails Devious Nature

Wet n Wild Limited Edition ColorIcon Ice Baby Nail Color Collection Swatches

I was so excited to find these nail polishes along with the baked palettes and the matte palette at my local Walgreens. The drug stores near me NEVER carry any limited edition collections. Instead they have ugly gift sets of cheap cologne and rock hard eyeshadow palettes. The display was missing two of the colors, 24 Carats and Give Me A Price, but I'll post pictures of those as soon as I can get my greedy little hands on them. I absolutely love these glitters! Apparently a few of them are dead on dupes of some Nails Inc polishes (see Scrangie's comparison here) and a few look like the limited edition mini set of Deborah Lippmann polishes from Nordstrom (see swatches here). Of course I prefer Wet n Wild's because they're cheaper!

I used three coats to get full coverage with all 6 polishes. Some you could probably get away with using 2 coats. The formula wasn't terrible for being opaque glitter polishes in a clear base, but some thinner might help the thickness a bit. And these do dry very... textured. You will need a few coats of top coat to get that glass-like finish I'm obsessed with. Some thicker glitters don't layer well, but I found that one coat looks amazing over black. I'll show the layered swatches at the end. Also, those are the only ones with top coat. All others are left in their natural, gritty glory.

Sorry for the bad clean up on my nails. That's what i get for doing swatches while sick.

Rockin' Rubies in the sun

Rockin' Rubies in the shade

Cost Is No Issue in the sun

Cost Is No Issue in the shade

Believe Me, It's Real in the sun

Believe Me, It's Real in the shade

Back Alley Deals in the sun

Back Alley Deals in the shade

It's All In The Cut in the sun

It's All In The Cut in the shade

Diamond In The Rough in the sun

Diamond In The Rough in the shade

From left- Rockin' Rubies, Cost Is No Issue, and Believe Me, It's Real over black

From left- Back Alley Deals, It's All In The Cut, and Diamond In The Rough over black

What do you guys think? Do any stand out to you, or do you plan on picking any up?


Available:

• These retail for $2.99 and are limited edition. Check out this interactive map by Nouveau Cheap to see if the collection has been spotted in your area.

Thank you for reading and have a great day/night/whatever!

Revlon Just Tinted Nail Polish Swatches

I had a poopy day today (well, technically yesterday by the time this posts in the morning), and I'm exhaaaaaaausted. It's only 9pm and I'm already ready for bed. 9 pm is obscenely early to me. No matter what time I have to wake up, I can't sleep unless it is already the next day, aka after midnight.

Here are swatches of Revlon's Just Tinted nail polish collection. This one is a limited edition summer collection. I'm not sure if it's still available in stores or not as I bought these like 2 months ago and am barely posting them. I'm such a procrastinator!  I was really looking forward to these as I thought they would be similar to OPI's "sorbets" from the Texas collection, which I surprisingly liked. These are more sheer. I don't love them and can't decide if I even like them. Oh, they also dry to a semi-matte/satiny finish, which is weird since they look kinda jelly-ish. I didn't like the satin look so all of these are swatched with a top coat.

These are all 2 coats of the polishes over one coat of an opaque nude polish on my index finger and 4 coats on my other 3 fingers.

Revlon Dawn in the sun

Revlon Dawn in the shade

Revlon Victorian in the sun

Revlon Victorian in the shade

Revlon Desire in the sun

Revlon Desire in the shade

Revlon Mystical in the sun

Revlon Mystical in the shade

Okay, now I'm really going to bed. Sleep sounds freaking amazing right about now.

Thank you for reading and have a great day/night/whatever!

Wet n Wild Everybody Loves Redmond and Party of 5 Glitters Swatches and Review

Eep! I'm super late posting. And I'm a bad girl today! I use the alarm on my phone to wake me up for school in the morning, but I forgot to take my phone of silent from when I was in class the previous day! So I overslept and missed my lecture AND my lab. I feel bad, but I have to say, all that extra sleep was reaaaaaally nice. Oh well, I'm doing really well in my classes so I guess one day isn't going to hurt me.

I received Everybody Loved Redmond and Party of 5 Glitters from Wet n Wild recently for review. I have been lemming Deborah Lippmann's Happy Birthday polish for a long time but didn't want to pay nearly $20 for it. So I was really excited to try the less expensive Wet n Wild version (they aren't exact dupes, but the concept is the same, large and small pieces of multicolored glitter in a clear base). I wasn't expecting much from Everybody Loves Redmond because it is just a red jelly, but I ended up loving it the most.

Wet n Wild Everybody Loves Redmond

I LOVE this red. Like most jelly-finish polishes it is a tad sheer. I used 3 coats to get the polish as opaque as possible, but I was happy with it at 2. This is the perfect red and it only cost around $2! The formula is smooth and non streaky and it builds well. It is a bit on the thicker side, but it didn't cause me any problems in application.

Wet n Wild Everybody Loves Redmond and Party of 5 Glitters in the sun

Here is 2 coats Party of 5 Glitters over Everybody Loves Redmond. I REALLY wanted to love the glitter, but I just don't. It was too sparse at one coat, but 2 coats made it way to thick for me, I think it would have looked better with a third coat, if it was possible. And I just don't like the way the large glitter looks on me. I love looking at it on other people and in pictures, but it's just too... messy and unorganized and it bothers me (a weird quirk I have).  And this isn't the fault of this particular polish; I would dislike ANY polish like this one. So really, I'm glad I never bought Happy Birthday because I know it would have disappointed me.

It's so strange, I like the way the glitter looks in the picture, but when I wore I didn't like it at all. I disliked it so much that I removed it immediately after taking the picture. Yeah,  I'm weird.

Wet n Wild Everybody Loves Redmond and Party of 5 Glitters in the shade

Available:

•  Fast Dry polish retails for $1.99 and can be found at most Wet n Wild retailers such as Wal-Mart, Walgreens, CVS, and Rite Aid 

Thank you for reading and have a great day/night/whatever!

Disclosure: These polishes were provided to me by Wet n Wild for review purposes. As always, all opinions are completely my own.

Cult Nails A Day At The Races Collection Swatches

I'm gonna post this in the morning, but right now it's night and I'm writing this post, drinking strawberry daquiris, and cooking dinner (steak, shrimp and vegetable skewers, and twice baked potatoes- yum!). I drink like twice a year and am notoriously bad at holding my alcohol so I'm going to go ahead and make this a quick post! Hopefully I finish dinner before I'm too far gone... (Apparently I did get too far gone because I forgot to set this post to actually you know, post when I wanted it to)

Today I'll show you guys Cult Nails' A Day At The Races collection.  A few of these polishes are sold out and won't be coming back, but at least it gives you a good idea of the awesomeness that Cult Nails creates. I'll let you know which you can still buy (although really, you should be buying them all!). Check out my review of Cult Nails' polishes and swatches of their Inaugural Collection here.

Cult Nails Captivated in the sun

 This was 2 coats on my left three fingers and one coat over Cult Nails' Quench on my index finger.

Captivated is my favorite of these, but unfortunately it's sold out!

Cult Nails Captivated in the shade

Cult Nails Always Winning in the sun

This one was 3 coats and is still a bit sheer. It's pretty and unique but isn't my favorite just because I wish it looked on the nail how it does in the bottle!  It does look better in real life than my picture shows, however.

Always Winning is currently available.

Cult Nails Always Winning in the shade

Cult Nails Cruisin' Nude in the sun

This was 2 coats. I love this polish! I just wish the pink shimmer was as apparent in the picture as it is in real life.

This is not currently available but it available for pre-order.

Cult Nails Devious Nature in the sun

This was 2 coats.  This one isn't quite as bubblegum pink as it looks here and has a more purple tone.  The shade picture is more color accurate.

This shade is currently available.

Cult Nails Devious Nature in the shade

Cult Nails Let Me Fly in the sun

This was 2 coats.  Let Me Fly is sold out online :(

Cult Nails Let Me Fly in the shade

Available:

• Cult Nails polishes are sold through their website and retail for $10 each.

Thank you for reading and have a great day/night/whatever!

More Frankenpolishes!

Do ever have one of those weeks where you question everything? For some reason I'm feeling especially out of whack and with that comes the self doubt. Am I doing the right thing with my life, am I making the right decisions, what if I'm doing all of this and I end up hating my life.  My life seems to be composed of "what if"s and doubts.  It's probably because I'm tired.  I haven't been in the best shape for most of my adult life, but I didn't know how bad out of shape could be until after surgery. After a regular day I am thoroughly exhausted.  I keep hoping it will get better but it doesn't.  I need to get off my fat bum and DO something about it.  That's the thing about me, I'm very active in my mind and always plan on doing things yet it somehow never happens.  People say that the road to hell is paved with good intentions.  Well, I'm glad I don't believe in hell or I'd be knocking on the door about now with all my intentions!

The damn weekends go by too effin' quickly, but thank gawd it's FFF (finally fucking Friday)!

Here some frankens I swatched a long time ago and made even longer ago (at least a year and a half ago).  I don't have any clue what I used to make them because I'm terrible at writing things down.  My usual strategy for creating frankens is just to keep adding random crap until I get bored. Sometimes it works out okay. Oh and none of these have names because I'm terrible at naming.

Shimmery blue franken in the sun

Shimmery blue franken in the shade

Shimmery purple franken in the sun

Shimmery purple franken in the shade

Ugly gold/coral franken in the sun

When making this one I had a specific goal in mind- to make the ugliest polish I could.  Well, it turned out that I kinda liked it.

Ugly gold/coral franken in the shade

Thank you for reading and have a great day/night/whatever!

Cult Nails Inaugural Colection Swatches and Review

Cult Nails is a new nail polish brand started at the begining of this year by a fellow blogger named Maria.  I thought it was really inspiring that she had this dream to start her own company and actually followed through with it and is doing everything she can to make it a success.  Of course I immediately wanted the whole collection.  I couldn't afford it at the time so I saved for awhile and about a month ago I bought both the Inaugural collection (5 polishes) and the Day At the Races collection (5 polishes and mostly limited editions). Their collection for Fall called Hypnotic is up for pre-sale on their website and I love their polishes so much that I purchased the collection the first day they put it up!

And now I know why Cult Nails is quickly becoming, well, a cult favorite.  The formula of the polishes is amazing.  I didn't have any issues with streakiness, or too thibk or thin formulas, or bubbling.  All of the ones that are supposed to opaque were opaque in two coats. Every time I would start applying one I would think it was sheer with the first coat.  And then with the second coat it would become perfectly opaque.  I shouldn't have been surprised when this kept happening over and over, but this held true with the entire line.  There are a few polishes that are intentionally sheer and even those build up pretty well.

At $10 each these aren't the cheapest polishes around.  But I wouldn't expect them to be.  This is a small company with no employees but the owners. Unless you are producing/selling in massive quantities like brands that are sold at drugstores and such, you have to charge more.  $10 really isn't so bad if you think about.  You can tell that Maria puts a lot of thought and love into the polishes and her company and it really shows.  You know that your $10 is buying quality.  Sometimes you aren't even guaranteed that with $25 Chanel polishes.

Cult Nails Quench in the sun

This was 2 coats but would need more to fully eliminate VNL. This is a glossy jelly red, so like most jellies, some VNL is expected when using fewer coats.

Cult Nails Quench in the shade

Cult Nails Iconic in the sun

This is a berry reddish pink with gold shimmer and flakies. I've heard somewhere before saying this is a dupe for Barielle's Elle's Spell but I have that one also and it is most definitely not a dupe. (Here is Elle's Spell for proof) I think Maria should do more polishes with flakies! (hint hint)

This was 2 coats.

Cult Nails Iconic in the shade

Cult Nails My Kind of Cool Aid in the sun

This is a greyed lavender with silver shimmer. But not the ugly frosty silver shimmer. This one is subtle and pretty.

This was 2 coats.

Cult Nails My Kind of Cool Aid in the shade

Cult Nails Living Water in the sun

This is a deep blackened blue jelly base with blue and green glitter. This is so gorgeous and I can't think of any colors that look similar to this.

This was 2 coats.

Cult Nails Living Water in the shade

Available:

• Cult Nails polishes sell for $10 each and are available on their website.

Thank you for reading and have a great day/night/whatever!