Yep, I'm still alive--and I got Color Club stash porn!

Aaargh!! This whole not-having-time-to-blog thing is killing me! Can't wait for the husband to get back home so I can post every day again!

While we all wait for my life to get back to normal (lol--using the words 'my life' and 'normal' in the same sentence--what a joke!), lets indulge in a little stash porn. Here's some Color Club for ya:

waiting for their close-ups...

Starry Temptress Collection. I love every last polish in this set. They are the oddest glitters I've ever seen. I can't get enough of their funky speckled-looking awesomeness.

Foiled Collection

Beyond the Mistletoe Collection

Backstage Pass Collection (I *THINK* that's what this collection is called...)...this collection would be awesome if it wasn't such a bitch to apply!

3 of the smelly Sally Beauty Supply Holiday polishes & Factory Girl--the only Color Clubs that I didn't get as part of a whole set...

So are you a Color Club fan?

Green nail polish is awesome...

Kermit might have issues with the color, but I LOVE me some green--so since it is March and St Patty's day is coming up, I thought I'd do a post about my favorite green polishes. I managed to narrow the list down to 10 --yes I said 10. At first I wanted to include pretty much every green polish I own cuz I'm excessive like that. Anyway, I present to you, crappily photographed in no particular order :::shakes fist at grey, foggy weather::::, my picks:

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flash

1. Sinful Colors San Francisco--gorgeous forest green shimmer

2. Orly Here Comes Trouble--bright. green. glitter. need I say more?

3. OPI Jade is the New Black. It's like the Stairway to Heaven of green polishes. There's no denying it's a classic.

4. Zoya Apple. That gold shimmer gets me every time. 

5. Finger Paints Guggen-I'm Lime-Lime green is my favorite shade of green and this one is so lime, I can practically taste the zing just by looking at it.

6. China Glaze It's Alive--this spot in my heart used to be occupied by Zombie Zest but the multi-sized glitter in that murky base is just too stunning, so poor ol ZZ got pushed right off the top 10 list.

7. Pure Ice Wild Thing. Guggen-I'm Lime's creme cousin. Lip-smackingly tangy.

8. Nubar Reclaim. Green + holo = AWESOME.

9. Sinful Colors Irish Green-a near-neon green squishy-as-hell jelly. Perfect for jelly sammiches!

10. One of my favorite polishes of all time--Color Club Glitter Envy from their awesome Starry Temptress collection--so unique with its bright green base and that odd but awesome speckled glitter!

Yes, Kermit it IS easy to be green infact...if you're finger nails, that is. 

So what do you think of my picks? Did I forget any?

impromptu makeup storage overhaul!!

So I was moseyin by my Dollar Tree on my way to Sally's to replenish my nail polish remover supply when a wall-display of cute little plastic bins caught my eye through the window. They were adorable shades of purple, teal, lime green & pink & looked to be the perfect size for makeup storage, so after I was done purchasing my (literal) gallons of remover (about once a month I purchase 1 gallon of pure acetone & one gallon of the pink acetone remover), I high-tailed it into the ol DT. 

Upon closer inspection of the bins, I discovered that the cuteness was 4-fold--that is, they weren't just single cute bins--they were 4 packs of cute bins--that's 25 wee lil pennies per bin. I bought a fuck-ton of them (yes this is an actual unit of measurement--I swear), and then I headed over to Walmart and found a bunch of those modular Ster-lite single-drawer units and THIS was born:

(just call it the poor woman's "Alex")

By "this" I'm referring to the drawers full of adorable bitty bins full of makeup (not the 6 year old standing next to said drawers)...I got 3 of the largest drawers and 2 of the next size smaller and stacked them all together. Pretty dang nifty...

Here's a closer look at some of the bins individually. I stuck one of my bangles in one for size reference--these were MADE for makeup organizing! 

And of course, I gotta show you what I stuck in all those bins and all those drawers!!

The right smaller drawer got the honor of holding all my palettes--my 120s, 88s, Sephora, ELF, NYX...they're all in there!

Left smaller drawer has become my glitter & eyelash drawer. Loose glitter, glitter gels, glitter liners, glitter adhesives, fake lashes and what not can all be found here...(oh, and that's my 17th month old sitting over there just barely in frame. Of course, 2 seconds after this shot was taken, he made a bee-line for all that shiny stuff...but I gots the mama reflexes and he was halted before disaster insued).

First big drawer has all my lippies (wand glosses, tube glosses, balms, stains, sticks, pencils) and all my eyeliners (pencils, liquids and creams)...Don't all those bins look so cute nestled in there together with their happy little pastel color-scheme?

Second big drawer has all my eyeshadows--loose, pressed, cream. I put all my Wet N Wild trios and 8 pans together in their own special bins cuz I LURVEZ them and give them preferential treatment.  Everything else is organized by type &  number of shadows--all the quads live together, and the singles and then the loose shadows get 2 bins of their own and the creams, too. I also have a bin in the middle of it all full of shadow primers and bases. That's where my NYX JEPS live as well & the $1 ELF cream shadow duos (I consider them bases because they can't really be worn alone without creasing to hell).

The bottom drawer has been designated as the "face junk" drawer. Liquid foundations & primers get their own bin, as do pressed & loose face powders. Cream & "bouncy" blushes co-habitate whilst pressed & "stick" blushes get bins of their own. Bronzers have their own bin, as do my beloved & specially imported from England (by my very obliging, globe-trotting sailor hubby) Maybelline Dream Mousse shimmers (WHY oh why don't they sell these in the US). There's also a bin of concealors & another bin of ELF shimmer stuff in there somewhere...

and, just because I said the word "bin" far too many times, here's a pic of pretty glittery mini Dollar Tree notebooks to look at. I HAD to have them...look at the sparklies!! I SO gotta do a stripey mani in honor of their awesomeness. I'm pretty sure I got glitter polishes in all those colors...

So who knew that's how my day would be spent. I just love when the organizational Gods smile upon me like that...

E.L.F. is giving away free (with purchase) brushes again

Just a real quick post to let everyone know that E.L.F. (aka EyesLipsFace) is giving away 6 free mineral brushes of your choice with a $25.00 order. I LOVE their brushes--I have a ton of the Studio and the 1.00 ones and I'm excited to be able to try some of the mineral brushes for free! Just fill your cart up with $25.00 worth of stuff (I got a bunch of glitter glosses and some new Studio blushes) and enter the code MINBRUSH at checkout. The promo lasts until 3/5--but I'd hurry just in case the brushes sell out.

Sugarpill Chromalust Swatchfest-sweetest eyecandy ever!!

Ok before I get to the pretties (and oh how pretty they are!!), let me say I'm sorry for the slow with posting these past few days. As I mention in my little "about me" blurb, my husband is in the military and, as of a few days ago, he had to go answer the call of duty elsewhere. Thankfully, he will only be gone for about a month this time but, during that time, I won't be able to post as often. As you might imagine, chasing after 3 little ones and running a house single-handedly is driving me absolutely insane a little time-consuming. :)

Ok now that we got that out of the way, onto the SUGARPILL!! Let the drooling commence:

How cute is that packaging? Hard to believe we're talking about an indie makeup company!

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Top row left to right: Stella, Lumi, Hysteric, Royal Sugar, Tiara

Bottom row left to right: Absinthe, Asylum, Goldilux, Tipsy, Decora

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Swatched dry on bare skin:

outdoor no flash

indoor with flash

First column top to bottom: Lumi, Stella, Asylum, Tipsy, Hysteric

Second column top to bottom: Tiara, Goldilux, Decora, Absinthe, Royal Sugar

Even without primer, these shadows are frickin uh-MAZE-ing!! Unfortunately, my camera hates all things awesome, so the pics are terrible....

Swatches over NYX HD eyeshadow base:

indoor with flash

 Outdoor no flash

OH-EM-GEEE!! These are so vivid and silky and shimmering. Stella has this amazing rainbow glitter in it. You can't see it in the swatch cuz, as I mentioned, my camera is anti-awesome, but you can see it somewhat in these close-ups of the shadow in the jar:

(click to enlarge)

SO gorgeous! These are all amazingly pigmented--just a few dabs with my Ecotools eyeshadow brush made each swatch all POPPIN and opaque. Goldilux, Tiara, Royal Sugar and Asylum are my favorites so far. Goldilux is especially mind-blowing. Its swatch almost looks like I have a frickin solid gold coin sitting on my arm! Lumi is gorgeous too--it has this incredible green flash that my camera is absolutely blind to. I tried to get the flash to come out here:

 but still no dice. In person, however, it is SO striking and gorgeous. 

All in all, just from swatching, I am in absolute love with these and can't wait to get the time to play with them more. Of course, I will keep you all updated on the outcome of my experiments. Just be warned: I'm pretty new to the world of  beautiful, technicolor loose shadows (I've mainly just used pressed shadows for most of my makeup-wearing life), so I can't promise anything spectacular!

NYC new for 2012 nail polishes--swatches and dupe comparisons

Alrighty, another pic-heavy polish-scrutinizing post today. Here we have 3 of the new for 2012 nail polishes from the In a New York Minute quick-dry line by New York Color. I was so excited to see

they added some new shades. I have a handful of other of their quick-dry polishes and I'm a fan. I'm happy to say that these did not disappoint either. 

High Line Green--a fun yellow-based shade somewhere between lime & grass green.

Big City Dazzle-- small red, magenta, blue and gold glitter in a clear base.

Water Street Blue--nice, bright blue!

Photo taken outside in natural light. All polishes are 2 coats--no top coat. I LOVE the formula of all 3 of these! The 2 non-glitters have this awesome finish. I hesitate to call them cremes because they almost look like a glossy plastic on your nails. They cover easily and evenly despite their spindly little brush and they actually do live up to the "quick-dry" claim. 

Big City Dazzle is marketed as a "sparkle top coat" and I would have to agree with that. The glitter is so pretty but very sparse. It'd take like half the bottle to get any kind of opacity without undies. The glitter spread out evenly with no issues and the base was a little on the thin side--which was surprising considering we're talking about a glitter polish. 

Big City Dazzle over Water Street Blue

So of course, you know I had to raid my stash to see if I had any dupes for any of these colors. I was sure I had a dupe for the green but I was surprised to discover otherwise. The closest I could come was China Glaze Tree Hugger and Starboard

Left: High Line Green, Middle: Tree Hugger, Right: Starboard.

As you can see, none of these polishes are any kind of a match. Tree Hugger is much more yellow, plus it has a shimmer to it and Starboard has more blue undertones in it. I wonder if Gaga for Green might would come close? I was hoping to have my clutches on the Electropops by now but I can't find it locally (I don't live anywhere near an Ulta and the only other place around this Po-dunk town that sells China Glaze is my Sally's and they are sold out...so it looks like I'll be ordering online for my China Glaze fix as usual)...

Moving on to the blues...I am obsessed with blue polishes, so I wasn't shocked to find several dupe candidates in my stash.

Left to right: Water Street Blue, Sally Hansen Insta-dri Brisk Blue, Sally Hansen Xtreme Wear Blue Me Away, OPI Ogre The Top Blue, OPI Fly.

The NYC and Sally Hansen polishes look like they are one in the same to my eye. Ogre the Top Blue is just a touch darker and Fly is a little too teal to match. I was hoping WSB would come closer to the OPI blues because nothing beats a 1.99 dupe for $8 polish but no dice. Oh well...

Bring on the glittahs!

L to R: NYC Big City Dazzle, Sally Hansen Xtreme Wear Rockstar Pink. Sinful Colors in Frenzy

Now as soon as I saw Big City Dazzle, I thought "that is SO a dupe for Rockstar Pink--and they do have pretty much the exact same shades and sizes of glitter in them--but they vary in the amount. 

(click to enlarge)

Left to Right: 1 coat of BCD, 2 coats of BCD, 1 coat of  RP, 2 coats of RP, 1 coat of Frenzy (why did I even include that one? It really is too different to have any business in this comparison)...

If you enlarge the pictures, you can easily see that it takes 2 coats of Big City Dazzle to equal the same coverage that 1 coat of Rock Star Pink gives. And, while Rockstar Pink can be built up to opacity easily, BCD is just too sparse for that. The glitter itself really is pretty dead-on, though. In the end, despite my inherent dupe-tolerance, even I admit I don't need both of these polishes and if I had to chose, I'd rather just have another bottle of Rockstar Pink (me and RP go waaaay back. It was basically the only polish I wore for like a year straight after my son was born. It's the only polish I have ever actually finished and re-purchased. Of course now that I have 800 OTHER bottles of nail polish, it doesn't get as much attention as it used to.....poor forgotten RP)...

So there's the scoop on some of the new NYCs. I am SO loving these plasticy cremes of theirs. Hope they make more!

NOTD & FOTD turquoise & pink & flakies (oh my)

Haven't done a NOTD/FOTD post in a while so I thought I'd kick one out. Here's what I'm rockin:

Nails = OPI Kiss Me on My Tulips (quite possibly the most perfect bright pink creme ever concocted) with Zoya Chloe on top. Oh how I luvzz tha flakies. 

(click to enlarge)

Yes my cutez be gnarly. Of course, they look even worse close-up. Thank God my hands aren't this inflated in real life!

Of course, I didn't even come close to capturing the awesome light-of-1000-suns, burning ember effect of the flakies on camera (the last darker indoor shot is the only one that comes close). It is freaking amaze-balls in person. Seriously, I've basically done nothing but stare at my nails all day long. 

 Well, that's a lie. I was able to stop staring at my nails long enough to paint my face:

Normally, I steer clear of blue & turquoise eyeshadows, mainly because I don't think those shades do much for my eye color. Also, every time I see blue eyeshadow, it always makes me think of Mimi from The Drew Carrey Show. Anyone remember Mimi?

image credit here :)

Oh who am I kidding, I look just like her...still, it was fun to play with a color I don't usually touch. 

Here's what you need if you, too, want to get the Mimi look:

face:

Almay Clear Complexion foundation, powder & concealor

Garnier Anti-dark circle eye roller

Milani Baked Blush in Dolce Pink

Wet N Wild Bronzzer in Acapulco Glow

eyes:

NYX HD eyeshadow base

BH Cosmetics 120 palette, 1st edition (I'll make & upload a chart for this to show which shades I used)

ELF Creme liner in black

Jordana Fabuliner in black

Maybelline The Falsies Flared mascara

Brows:

ELF Brow Kit in medium

ELF clear mascara/brow gel

lips:

NYC Liquid Lipshine in Fashion Ave Fuchsia

Anyone else have a certain shade of makeup they avoid because of some kind of silly association they have with it?