BeneFit Watt's Up Highlight

Recently, I have been enjoying shopping my stash to avoid spending money on unnecessary purchases. This summer I have been really focused on using products that shape, sculpt, and highlight certain points of my face. A product I discovered that has been a well loved highlighter within the blogging community is BeneFit's Watt's Up. I received this sample last year as part of my Birthday Present from Sephora and am wondering why I waited so long to use it!

BeneFit's Watt's Up is a cream to powder champagne highlighter that adds a gorgeous light golden iridescence to the skin. It truly leaves the most gorgeous glowing effect to any high point of your face. 

I like to apply this with my fingers and blend out so I have control over how much procduct is distributed. The full size product does come with a sponge on the other end for blending purposes. I not only like to apply this on the high points of my cheeks and down the center of my nose but I also really love the look of Watt's up on the inner corners of my eyes and brow bones to draw attention to my eyes and brighten them!

Mac Blush: Trace Gold

Guess what day it issss!!!!!! No matter how many times I see that commercial I can't help but laugh.

Anyway....I feel like I have not talked about a blush on my blog in ages. I have definitely been on some sort of lip craze kick and have been neglecting my beloved cheek products. Today I am going to talk about Mac's Blush in Trace Gold which is a sheertone shimmer - not my favorite finish in a blush but something about the golden bronze shade to this made me need to have it. 

This comes off as a very golden neutral shade with a hint of bronziness on my NC20-25 skin tone. I would say that any one who is NC30 or up, it would provide to be a nice golden highlight. It does have quiet a bit of shimmer that gives my skin the most amazing glow. Even with the shimmers, the texture of Trace Gold is very smooth! It does not have that gritty feeling some shimmer blushes do. 

I also really love applying this over some over my more matte blushes if I want a little bit of a glowing look. Because it is a sheerone it works well over many shades, despite its golden tones.

Like all MAC blushes - Trace Gold does not really last more than 6 hours before fading.

Maybelline 24 Hour Color Tattoo: Bold Gold & Tough as Taupe

The Maybelline 24hr Color Tattoo is a product that I have wanted to talk about for a while now! I only have a couple of shades - one shimmer and one cream, but I can tell you that these are some of the best drugstore cream eyeshadow//eyeshadow bases on the market!

I own  #45 Bold Gold and #35 Tough as Taupe

Bold Gold is a gorgeous brassy gold shade with shimmer. This shade tends to dry a lot quicker then Tough as Taupe due to the glitter. I love wearing this alone of under Urban Decay;s Half Baked eyeshadow. It really intensifies the gold shade. 

Tough as Taupe is a true grey, purple taupe cream shade with very deep purple undertones. Now, I have seen some photos of this product looking looking like a beige grey. As you can see in the swatch below the one I own has next to no brown undertones. Tough as Taupe is a little bit creamier than Bold Gold. I find it easier to blend when applying this with my finger. This cream shadow is a bit on the tacky side which is perfect for helping eyeshadows stick to your lids. This shade pairs great with Mac's Patina and Shale eyeshadows!

The wear of both shades is excellent for a drugstore price. These seem to face after 7-8 hours of wear. I have not experienced any creasing with their shade (like I find with Mac's Painterly Paint Pot).

After some time these products do tend to dry out slightly. I would see that as the only striking difference between the Color Tattoos and Mac's Pain Pots. When this happens, I just wipe the top layer away and the underneath layer seems to be pretty creamy once again. 

Lynnderella Change

Lynderella's Change is an old news gold glitter from her line .. but nonetheless, it's still a gorgeous glitter. I ordered this probably early last year and am only JUST getting around to wearing it. 

I used it over SpaRitual's Crystal Eyes and Milani's holo polish in 3D. 

It has a nice vatiery of glitters like large square glitters, bar glitters, micro glitters, big and small hex glitters..pretty much every size, shape glitter imaginable! Other than gold, there are also shades of silver, pewter, and bronze glitters in the polish. 

(excuse the tip wear, this was 2nd day)

Do you own Lynnderella's Change?

OPI Thanks a Windmillion + Glitzerland w*BornPrettyStore Gold Studs

Happy Friday! Did all of you Americans enjoy your Thanksgiving? I definitely did :)

Thanksgiving is my favorite holiday and I had lots of family and friends over to celebrate with.

I didn't do a very festive mani for Thanksgiving but it was a pretty one. I used OPIs Thanks  a Windmillion from the Dutch collection and free handedly added a Stripe of Glitzerland down the center. I also added some of the BornPrettyStore gold rhinestone studs in the center of the stripes. I was a little leery because I though they might get lost in Glitzerland but that didn't really happen.

That was it for my short post today. I am going to brave the mall with my best friend, sister and mother!

Have a great weekend :)

NYX Manhattan + Red Angel Stamping Plates Review

Happy Friday! Hope you all had a great week and are looking foward to the weekend. I know I am :)

A couple weeks ago I received the 21 piece Red Angel plates from Amazon. These are another affordable bundle set of great image stamping plates floating around the nail blogging community. The Red Angel Stamping plates can be purchased on Amazon for 12.99. 

My biggest concern when it come to stamping plates is the size of the images, for full nail designs especially. I own the first Bundle Monster kit and the images were way to small for my nails. My nails are a bit on the wide side. The Red Angel dimensions are very comparable to the Konad and 2nd and 3rd BM sets. 

I am really pleased with the Red Angel Plates. They don't contain the same ol' same ol' images that you see on most of the sets. They have some unique designs. Here is one that I have already tried out:

I stamped Orly Luze over my favorite fall polish: NYC Manhattan 

I look forward to using these and sharing the RA plate designs with you!

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China Glaze Rare and Radiant

Today I have one of China Glaze's new duochrome polishes. This one is called Rare and Radient, some would say a Chanel Peridot dupe! The Bohemian collection is full of strong duochromes and this one is no exception.

R&R has a mix of green and gold shades. In the light the gold is super apparent but when the light hits it right a gorgeous green shade peeks through.

I'm not the biggest fan of duochromes but I am happy with this one!

What are your favorite duochromes?

OPI Glitzerland

I don't know what it is but my manis have just not been coming out the way I would like them to! I think it is the lack of time, unfortunately! I don't really have time to think about what I want to wear and even worse is that I have been feeling a little uninspired! I received Glitzerland from a friend for Christmas. Every time we would go nail polish shopping we both would look at it and drool.

While it is a gorgeous gold shade, it wasn't the most flattering on my skin tone. The formula was thin, so three coats were needed but it wasn't a PitA to apply!

Since it didn't wow me like I hoped it would I added the star design from BM21!

Merry Christmas Funky French

Hello everyone happy holidays to you all and Merry Christmas :)

Just popping on to do a last minute Christmas post.

Over the summer I did this funky french that I loved so I decided to recreate it for a Christmas mani!

simple and festive!

Hope you all have a great day :)

LA Splash Glitter

While I was on a hunt for the Wet n Wild Icon glitters (which I still have yet to find!) I came across a new LA Splash display. I picked up a couple of them hoping they would be a nice substitute until I find those damn Color Icons!

The glitter is called Vegas and for this mani I just used it over a white.

For the accent nail I stamped B14 with Orly's Luxe.

I have so many Christmas Mani ideas so I hope you don't mind if you are bombarded with them. I rarely do holiday manis so I feel like I need to catch up!

Peacock Nail Art using NYX Ink Heart

Peacock feathers, peacock designs, and peacock colors are something I have been seeing a lot of lately and honestly, I don't hate it :)

While browsing Pinterest I came across an amazing peacock nail design (can be found here)

so I was inspired to do my own.

For the base I used NYX's Ink Heart - a deep blue jelly.

Using a nail art brush I swiped random lines down my nail.

For the stripes I used OPI's Jade is the New Black, Greenwich Village, ChG Four Leaf Clover

and a gold holo by Milani.

For the dots (which got smudged :z) I used the gold holo once again and OPI's Suzi Says Feng Shui.

I think it turned out pretty fun looking :)

Shame on me! I'm back :)

I'm so very sorry for being gone for almost a month!

I have kind of gotten preoccupied with other hobbies of mine.

I even went days with no polish on my nails resulting in

breaks :(

I have been trying to get them back to normal ever since!

Here are is an I have had saved on my computer since the beginning of summer!

NOPI Sea How Far You Go: I had wanted this ever since it came out but whenever

I saw it in the store I passed it up. I don't know why I do this, but I am glad I waited to get it.

After seeing it get marked down multiple times in Target I finally found it

on clearance for 3 bucks.

I love this polish because it's like 5 shades rolled into 1 depending on the light.

In the bottle it looks like a taupe shade with some gold goodness mixed in there.

In the sunlight it looks like there is some olive tones peeking through.

I am normally not a fan on NOPI but this one is a keeper :)

What do you think?

NYX Gilded Glitter

Sorry I have been MIA for...almost 2 weeks !! :o

2 weeks ago it was my 23rd birthday & then my family visited from Massachusetts.

My brother rents a house down by the beach for a week so I spent most of the week there.

Then last Friday I saw My Chemical Romance and Blink 182 and have done nothing but

listen to their music and just became engulfed with reblogging their photos on tumblr haha.

Anywhoo, I have a glitter to make it up to you all :D

NYX's Gilded Glitter is unlike any glitter I own. It's not so much a glitter as it is a gold flakie!

Here it is over a pink Sally Hansen Insta Dri

This polish seriously looks great over ANYthing.

Only one coat is needed to get just enough glitter evenly dispersed :)

This was my first experience with NYX girls polish and I have no complaints :)

What are you favorite NYX Girls polishes?

OPI It's My Year

A couple of weeks ago a Beauty Supply shop closed down! They had a clearance sale but there wasn't much left that I felt I needed. On my way out the owner made sure I knew about the

other location a town away from me. I was relieved!

The next week I took a look at the other store, Lux, and was so excited to see the Miss Universe collection from OPI. There were 2 I knew I had to have so I grabbed It's My Year and Crown Me

Already.

It's My Year has a purple jelly base with gold foil and glitters.

It may be one of the prettiest polishes I own.

I used 3 coats for this. The application was really nice. Initially I used 2 coats, which was fine,

but it looked a little patchy when I took photos so I added a third.

This polish even looks nice in the shade when the gold really shimmers through!

Milani 3D Holographic

NJ has had some pretty gorgeous weather lately. A little cool but it did not stop me from going to the beach last Thursday with my mom and sister. I hadn't worn a holo so it was the perfect opportunity!

I chose Milini's Holographic polish in 3D. I did this one because the only BC's I have at the moment

are SV and Essie's good to go - both Dull most holos, but I knew SV doesn't dull Milani's too much!

Milani 3D is a gorgeous gold scattered holo. This is 3 coats.

I got 2-3 days out of this even after 2 days of beach oils and sand ruining my hands!

When my no buy is over this June I am going to CVS and picking up the rest of the colors!

I FINALLY tried it..

OPI's Absolutely Alice! It's not like I have had it since the release, but I was waiting for the "right time" to wear it haha.

I wore this last weekend to my cousin's graduation party. Even that wasn't the right time because it ended up being a miserable day lol. I received this from a lovely MUAer in a swap. I am trying to diminish my makeup stash and was lucky enough to find someone who was willing to swap this for makeup. WIN :)

From May 14, 2011

It was a bit hard capturing the exact color of this polish so I edited it a bit to make them more accurate. I used 2 coats to get the ultimate bedazzle on my nails since it is just a clear base with lots of blue glitter and hints of gold. I feel like the hints of gold make this polish what it is.

It is beautiful!

From 2011-05-14

From 2011-05-14

Also, I know I have been saying I am going to do a giveaway and I AM! I just need to

pick a day and go buy polishes for you when my bak account can handle it haha :)

but I can use some suggestions from you. what would YOU like to see in a giveaway?

Let me know

Zoya Zara + My Chemical Romance Concert

hello, hello! I hope you all had an amazing weekend and Mother's Day for you US

ladies. The weather was BEAUTIFUL here.

I had been a little occupied Thursday - through Sunday. My Chemical Romance tickets went on sale last November. By the time I found out, the Saturday show was already sold out. Thankfully they added an additional date since New Jersey is their home state :) On Thursday I was playing around and stumbled on some tickets for sale for Saturdays show. By Friday I was able to get in contact with a man, picked up the tickets on Saturday and 5 hours later

I was waiting on line for My Chem's sold out show. It was amazing. However, their Sunday show was 10 x better. The energy of the crowd, the front man - everything was PERFECT.

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

Okay sorry I just had to get that out of the way. Onto my nails.

I received Zoya Zara through last years Earth Day Exchange. The first time I wore it I wasn't thrilled with it. I thought it looked great on other people but I didn't LOVE it on me. I am a believer in second chances though so I gave it another shot. Um, gorgeous! The light purple shade, the green and gold shimmer is just perfection!

I have always been a fan of Zoya's formula - the application is so easy for me. The only thing that bothers me is the shrinkage with EVERY fast dry top coat. I had shrinkage within a couple of hours with Essie's Good to Go.

I took photos in a couple of different rooms and I love how it looks different in the different light. -------------

& just because ... Gerard Way. My obsession haha