SWATCH & REVIEW: Rimmel Mintilicious + Similar Colors

A couple of weeks ago, I visited my sister and fell in love with Julep Dianna while going through her nail polish. I HAD to have a similar minty-blue color, and so I got Rimmel 60-Second Nail Polish in Mintilicious:

This color is slightly bluer than Julep's Dianna. (I had issues getting the color in the picture to match the actual polish; this swatch is the closest match I've seen.)

I did 2 coats here. This polish did, indeed, dry very quickly, which was nice. The polish was a little bit thick, and when I applied it, brush marks would show easily. NYC's top coat evened out the color and covered any bumps, though.The other downside was that the brush is a little fatter than I would have liked, and it made it hard to paint neatly. However, this polish was just $1.69, and so I'm still really happy with the polish.

Make sure you use a base coat with this! I used my PVC peelable base coat, and Mintilicious stained my nails a little bit. :(

Have you tried out any minty-blue polishes?  I have also seen minty-blue polishes by Essie (Turquoise & Caicos), Sally Hansen (Jaded; it's a bit greener than the others), and Revlon (Eclectic). If anyone has these, I'd love to know how their formulas compare to Minitilicious and Dianna!

Paint it Blue: Swatch and Review: Sally Hansen Mermaid's Tale Nail Polish

April is Autism Awareness Month and to show my support I decided to paint my nails blue.

I have helped put on my college's version of the Special Olympics the past 3 years, and so this is something that is dear to my heart. The children who come, which include autistic kids, and their friends and families go through so much, and so I always loved the day of the Special Olympics when I watched how much the children enjoyed the activities we planned for them as well as heard from parents and families who told us how much our event means to them. There's still a lot that we don't know about Autism, and awareness about Autism is the first step to learning more about this disorder.

I thought this would be a perfect time to try out Sally Hansen's Mermaid's Tale. OH MY GOODENSS. IT'S SOOO PRETTY. I fell in love with it immediately!

Mermaid's Tale is a dupe of Deborah Lippmann Across The Universe. This polish has blue and green hexagonal glitter in a blue jelly base. Because of the base, it would take probably around 3 or 4 coats by itself, and so here, I did one coat of it over one coat of Julep Donna, which is a dark teal/blue-green that is similar to Nicole by OPI's Khloe had a Little Lam-lam. Mermaid's Tale was really easy to use: there's a LOT of glitter in it, and the brush made it easy to get a lot of glitter onto your nail. It only took me one swipe to get the amount of glitter and color I wanted; I didn't have to try and place the glitter like you have to for some polishes.

Because it has a jelly base, it did take a while to dry, so try using it before you watch a movie or do something where you won't be moving. I used it before my boyfriend and I went out since I knew we'd be stuck in traffic for an hour, which was plenty of time for it to dry. :)

I really hope you guys like this color, because I am IN LOVE with it!!! I haven't been this excited about a polish in a LONG time!!! I definitely recommend getting it!

Hope you guys are having a great week!

xoxo,

Polka Dotted Nail Art with Milani Hot Pink + Tutorial

Happy Easter everyone!!! I got a bottle of Milani Jewel FX in Hot Pink as a part of my Spring Break shopping haul, and I used it this week to do nail art. One of my roommates said they reminded her of Easter eggs, so I thought it would be appropriate to post it today:

Nail art using Wet n Wild Tickled Pink and Milani Hot Pink

This Milani polish took some patience to use. It was nice that there was a lot of glitter in the bottle, but when I applied it, it would come on my nails in clumps. I had to put a drop in the center of my nail and then spread it on the rest of my nail.

Picture of Milani Jewel FX in Hot Pink

I did 2 coats on my accent finger and then used a toothpick to pick a few pieces of glitter out of the bottle and cover the remaining bald spots. If you're interested in how I did the polka dotted nails, see the tutorial below:

1. Paint a base coat and a coat of the color of your choice (here, I used Wet n Wild Tickled Pink).
2. Wait for the base to COMPLETELY dry. Use a toothpick to pick one glitter piece off of the stem of the brush. It's easier to avoid getting pieces that have clumps of the clear base this way.
3. I started out by making a row on the bottom of my nail. Then, I put the next set of polka dots in the spaces between my first row.
4. After making my first two rows, I lined the dots in the third row up with the ones in the first row and the ones in the fourth row with the ones in the second row. I kept doing this until I finished the nail.

I actually really liked how this turned out and may try it with some of my other glitter polishes in the future. I hope the tutorial is helpful!! Let me know if you try this! :)

Maybelline Caffeine Rush Eyeshadow Palette - Swatches and Review

Hello everyone! Today I'm doing a review of Maybelline's EyeStudio Color Explosion Eyeshadow in Caffeine Rush. Here's a picture of the packaging:

Here are swatches:

Clockwise (ish): white, peach, gold, the brown in the "V", and the brown/grey in the triangle

All the colors are creamy and go on easily except for the gold. The gold is very grainy; its texture almost reminded me of loose glitter. When I used the gold, I had to go over my lid several times to ensure that I had even coverage. For the other colors, you can get away with using your fingers to apply them, but for the gold, I'd strongly recommend using a brush.

I've worn the gold and the browns. They blended pretty well. I needed a primer to keep the eyeshadows from transferring or moving around. (I used the Mary Kay white jumbo pencil as a base.) After removal, I did have lots of tiny specks of glitter around my eyes, especially from the gold.

Overall, I'd recommend this palette; it's very good, especially for a drugstore brand. The colors look great on brown skin. Are there any other drugstore eyeshadows that you've found that are really good? Let me know below!

Have a great week everyone!

xoxo,

Anna

Butter London Knackered Swatch

Hello!! :)

I just wanted to do a quick post about Butter London Knackered. It's a beautiful purple/teal duochrome polish with microglitter:

This is a very sheer polish, and so it took three coats to make it opaque enough. It dries fairly quickly, though.

The color looks great on a brown skintone. I also like that this polish has glitter in it, but is still subtle. I took another picture right under my lamp to try and capture the amount of microglitter in it because I thought the glitter was so lovely:

Enjoy your weekend, everyone!! :) Our Post Holiday/New Year's Giveaway ends in 4 days!!

-Anna