ORLY- 'Ember'

I have a lovely throwback polish for you today.

This is a polish I scooped up on clearance from Sally's a couple years ago

& am JUST NOW posting about it, smh.

Fall is the perfect time to show off this baby, though.

Here's 2 coats of ORLY's 'Ember'!

^*shade

^*sunlight

'Ember' is a fire engine-red with gold shimmer,

and seemingly orange undertones.

POLISH INFORMATION

Brand: ORLY

Type: Shimmer

Formula: Awesome!

Opacity (1-5): 5

Application:  Great

Price: $7-$8

Get This: Amazon/eBay; maybe some beauty stores, still

Pop Culture Cosmetics- 'Harvest Moon'

I have one of my remaining Fall themed PCC polishes for you today :)

This one is deemed 'Harvest Moon'.

It may be a little Halloween-y still,

but whatevs.

Here's 2 coats of it over ORLY's 'After Party'.

'Harvest Moon' is a black based crelly with holo half moons, red stars, red, orange, & gold hexes, and giant black circles (which you can't really see).

This one you have to do some digging,

but I really love the different glitter shapes.

POLISH INFORMATION

Brand: Pop Culture Cosmetics

Type: Crelly

Formula: Pretty good

Opacity (1-5): 2-3

Application:  Good, but gotta do some digging to get out the bigger glitters

Price: $4 for a mini

Get This: no longer sold :(

Even though this polish is no longer available,

THEY HAVE TONS OF AMAZING NEW CHRISTMAS POLISHES.

:DDDD

So go check those out!

PCC- 'Not So Scary'

I have another Halloween polish form Pop Culture Cosmetics for you today

:)

Here's 2 coats of 'Not So Scary' over 1 coat of ORLY's 'After Party'.

'Not So Scary' is a black based crelly filled with small, neon orange hexes, medium neon orange, black, & neon yellow hexes, and neon red stars.

I really liked the contrast between the black & neon colors in this polish.

It felt like a really cool, Halloweeny mani :)

POLISH INFORMATION

Brand: Pop Culture Cosmetics

Type: Crelly

Formula: Good!

Opacity (1-5): 2

Application: Okay, but you're definitely going to need to dig for those glitters :)

Price: $4 for a mini

Get This: no longer available :/

*GUESTPOST* by NailsLikeLace

Ok guys,

I've been a little busy lately, so i'm on the hunt for people who want to guestpost for me.

(email me at: taylorhelana@gmail.com if you're interested!!)

I'm super stoked to have NailsLikeLace guest post for me today.

I've followed her blog for quite awhile now,

and her nail art (among other things) is FANTASTIC! :)

Hey everyone! 

This is Amber from NailsLikeLace, posting for Taylor, today!

I was playing with some new polishes, trying to come up with an idea for a good guest post, 

and I ended up deciding on Grease inspired nails (if you haven't seen that movie,

you are really missing out!).

On all of my nails, I started with a gorgeous, vibrant, neon pink, ORLY Passion Fruit,

then topped off most of my nails with Sally Hansen Star Burst,

one of the very few crackle polishes I actually kind of like.

On the middle nail, though, I wrote the word 'Grease', loosely based off the logo image,

with black and white acrylic paint.

A final coat of Seche Vite to smooth everything out, and I was good to go!

I love how these turned out, and I hope you do, too!

Sleek acid raver's look & nails!

Happy Monday!

So one thing i LOVE about summer is all the neons.

I bought Sleek's Acid Palette not that long ago,

and have been itching to use it.

Also, i love going to shows (be they raves, dnb, edm, what have you- i'm actually seeing FLux Pavilion, Skism, & Ana Sia this weekend :DDD)

and often times neon is everywhere there.

Keeping both these things in mind,

here's the look I created using Sleek's Acid Palette.

I used:

Too Faced's Shadow Insurance

 unnamed neon yellow, orange, pink, & green from Sleek Acid Palette

Covergirl Line Exact liquid eyeliner

L'Oreal Voluminous Million Lashes

You can see I had some issues with fallout that I just couldn't get cleaned up properly,

but i'll get it next time.

I was VERY impressed with these shadows.

When I initially swatched them,

I wasn't sure how pigmented they would actually be...

but they blew me away.

Super pigmented & were easy to work with, even for mattes.

Also, (despite the primer) their staying power was amazing.

Next up,

some neon nails with crappy stamping!

Yes, those are aviators.

I attempted to stamp them in a slanty pattern but that went bust.

Though the stamping sucks,

I liked being fun in painting each nail a different neon.

ORLY 'Melt Your Popsicle'- pointer

CG's 'Yellow Polka Dot Bikini'- middle

CG's 'Pink Voltage'- ring

CG's 'In the Limelight'- pinky

Winstonia plate W109  w/ black Konad stamping polish

What are your thoughts on this look & the crappy stamping mani?! 

:)

2012 Favorites!! (long post!)

Well, I had planned on posting this the day after new years,
but we are getting NO sun or decent light for me to take pictures in,
and until I can make a decent lightbox- i have to stick with daylight :/

SO, I decided to do my Favorites post based on my favorite products from this past year,
instead of just December.
I've divided them into categories,
and here they are!


Face:

UD Naked Skin Foundation

My favorite foundation EVER.

UD De-Slick Oil Control Makeup Setting Spray

*pic from UD's website

Tarte's Cheek Stain

*pic from Tarte's wesbite

UD's Optical Blurring Brush

PERFECT for applying foundation!

*pic from UD wesbsite

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Primers:

Too Faceds Shadow Insurance

My favorite eye shadow primer!

^taken from Sephora's website

UD's Pore Perfecting Primer

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Eyes

L'Oreal Million Lashes mascara

Tarte Amazonian clay mascara

Urban Decay's 'Maui Wowie'

UD's 'Echo Beach', 'Black Market', & 'Armor'

(see the link for swatches!)

Sugarpill's 'Love+'

*not my picture

One of the BEST reds out there!

Lime Crime's 'Mirror Mirror'

Lime Crime has discontinued these Magic Dust shadows :((

BUT, you can still find them on sites like eBay, which i've included in the above link.

UD's 'Missionary', 'Bust', 'Sin, & 'Midnight Cowgirl'

These were some of my favorite neutrals this past year :)

SYN Cosmetics' 'Synfused' & 'Passion'

Makeup Geek's 'Burlesque'

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Nail polish

Butter London 'Yummy Mummy'

China Glaze 'Pure Joy'

ORLY Rage

*not my picture

CG Pink Voltage

Zoya Miley

OPI 'Every Month is Oktoberfest'

NOPI 'One Big Happy Fame-ily'

China Glaze 'Flip Flop Fantasy'

UD's 'Gunmetal' & 'Wrecked'

Well, that's it! Whew.
What do you think about this list?
What was YOUR favorite product from 2012?
Let me know! :)

7 Deadly Sins Tag

Hey everyone!

My only Friday class got cancelled today so i'm a happy camper.

I haven't felt much like blogging or doing any looks lately for some reason,

but I did decide to go ahead and do this fun little tag i've seen going around.

I feel like a lot of these are actually interchangeable because of the way whoever created this defined them... but whatever :P

I won't tag anyone specific in this,

but if you decide to do it,

leave me a link so I can go look!

:)

Here we go:

1) GREEDY

Which polish is the cheapest from your stash?

Pretty sure that all the PureIce polishes I own were like $1 :)

They're pretty good, considering, too!

2) WRATH

What polish do you have a love/hate relationship with?

I have a love/hate relationship with 'Too Schmexxxy' from DarlingDivaPolish & 'Be Brave ' from ORLY, because- though both look AWESOME in the bottle- I HATED how they looked on my nails. The first was way too clumpy, while the ORLY looked like pubes :/

3. GLUTTONY

What polish have you desired ever since you saw it?

One of the first nail websites I ever perused was Llarowe, which of course has tons of amazing holos. I was immediately drawn to this baby from Glitter Gal!

I was initially DYING to get 'Connect the Dots' from Lynnderella, but it soon became clear that it was nearly impossible to score any of her polishes. SO, I began looking for an alternative. I feel like there are tons of black & white glitter topcoats out there, but 'Salt n Peppa' from Lush Lacquer adds more of a twist with tiny holographic micro glitter mixed in. I LOVE IT.

The very first brand of nail polish I was ever interested in (aside from the basics like CG, OPI, etc) was HITS No. Olimpo collection. This is Hermes, and it's uh-mazing.

4) SLOTH

What polish do you hate wearing because of the hassle to apply or remove it?

Though I love how both OPI's 'How's It Snowin?' & CG's 'I'm Not Lion' look- they are a PAIN to get off- even with the foil method. But that's the price you pay with glitters!

5) PRIDE

Which polish are you most proud to own?

'Across the Universe'- my only DL polish! They're so amazing but just so pricey, so the one I have, I cherish!

'The Walking Dead' is not only one of my favorite shows, but also an amazing polish from one of my all time favorite indie makers, All That Glitters. Proud to own it!

'Black Knight' is one of 3 BL polishes that I currently own,

and look how yummy it is! Proud momma :)

6)LUST

Which polish makes your nails look sexy?

Obviously, I'm a fan of red. I think if any nail color were to make my nails look sexy- it would be red. Seen above are BL's 'Knees Up', OPI's 'It's Always Oktoberfest', & Zoya's 'Kimmy'! :)

7) ENVY

What polish is your biggest lemming? You envy those who have it.

Is it cheating to saw I envy ALL the polishes from their Ornate collection...? :x