Revlon: Gold Coin

I was lucky enough to get Revlon's Gold Coin as part of a mini nail polish trio just before last Christmas but only got around to wearing it now... 

Gold Coin is a cool, almost white gold polish with a riot of shimmer - about as close as you can get to glitter without wearing a glitter, and almost a foil but with more texture to it.  I figured this was a neutral enough gold to go with anything and be office appropriate so it graced my hands all week and passed the chip test too!  I applied two quite thick coats and got perfect coverage.  This is the gold for all skin tones.  Now for some sunlit pictures:

Full sun

Shade

Enjoy your Saturday!

Vita :)

EOTD: Winter sunset...

 Hello and a happy Thursday to you all :)

This post is to share an EOTD I created using all four new MAC eyeshadows I hauled recently ( here ).  Originally I wasn't sure how the combination of warm coppers and bronzes would work alongside cool lilac but then I thought of the colours of the sunset and it inspired me to do this...

I ended up using the following six shades to achieve the multi-tonal look - mostly MAC plus a shimmery gold Japanese shadow thrown in for an extra glint on the lids...

Top Row L-R:

MAC - Idol Eyes, Woodwinked, Coppering, Carbonized

Bottom Row L-R:

Excel - GL01, MAC Shroom

What I applied (and where):

• Bloom Eye Base all over lid and crease
• MAC Idol Eyes - on inner third of lid
• MAC Woodwinked - on outer two-thirds of lid
• MAC Carbonized - on outer crease and V
• MAC Coppering - on inner third of crease
• Excel GL01 - on middle of lid
• MAC Shroom to blend out crease
• MAC Powerpoint Pencil (Bordeauxline) on upper and lower lash lines
• Rimmel Volume Flash x 10 Mascara (Black) on upper lashes only

Do you like mixing cool and warm colours in your makeup?

Thanks again for looking!

Vita :)

OPI: A Roll in the Hague

Today's post features A Roll in The Hague, yet another gorgeously bright polish from OPI with the obligatory doozy of a name.  I honestly would feel awkward answering the question, "What colour are you wearing?" with this one anticipating a response like "Did you say a roll in the hay??"

I'm so happy that orange is still in fashion around here even this winter so I didn't feel out of place painting a hot orange creme on my nails.  A Roll in the Hague is from OPI's current Holland collection and it's that vibrant shade of red/orange ("jaffa"orange) that I've also been wearing on my lips lately and loving.  The polish formula was rather thick and creamy so this was almost a one coater, although I applied the usual two.  It dries down a shade darker than in the bottle which did disappoint me a little but the colour still packs a punch on pale winter skin.

Here are some more cloudy winter's day pictures for you...

Indoors

Outdoors

That's all for tonight.

Vita :)

My hand & nail care routine...

I should have done this post a long time ago.  I've been asked a few times to share my hand and nail care routine so here it finally is!  One important disclaimer:  I just need to remind you I'm not a beauty professional or manicurist, I'm just a beauty fanatic and these are the hand products I currently have on rotation. (I am known to change my products on a whim, particularly when it comes to hand cream because I'm a total product whore!)  Anyway, here we go...

Hand & cuticle moisturisers

I've always got at least a few hand creams on rotation, and my highly original mantra is "moisturise, moisturise, moisturise!" because my skin on my hands is really dry, sensitive and prone to cracking if I neglect it. I always try to apply after I wash my hands (which is frequently), and last thing before I go to bed. At the moment I have two tubes on my bedside table and one in my handbag/purse:

Aveeno Intense Relief hand cream - The first of the bedside table brigade this hand cream is the sensible "cotton underwear" option in moisturisers, and a soothing, reliable option I turn to when my skin's particularly dry or I have an eczema flare up. I've been wearing this one a LOT lately because the wickedly cold weather and the drying effect of indoor heating have been playing havoc with my skin

MOR Orange Blossom hand cream - I bought this earlier this year for the unusual orange blossom scent and the very pretty tube. Luxe packaging is suitable for the boudoir so that's why it's the second hand cream taking up residence on my bedside table. It is rich and lovely and as long as my hands aren't cracked I'll slather it on just to smell the scent!

SHE Sheer Brightness hand cream - To be honest this tube's my current handbag staple just because it was at the top of the hand cream stash! I bought it for the youth preserving properties and the list of magic ingredients include Vitamin C, Antioxidants, Pomegranate and Vitamin F. It absorbs quite well and leaves my skin soft, but the essential oil scent is a little heavy for my personal taste.


OK, when it comes to my cuticles I'm not as vigilant about specifically moisturising them as I should be and I'm also guilty of not using a cuticle remover. I'll use cuticle treatments when I remember and when I apply the treatment and the cuticle has softened I'll very gently push them back. My favourite cuticle moisturiser is Burt's Bees Lemon Butter Cuticle Cream but currently I'm using:

Sally Hansen Quick Care Massaging Cuticle Care Treatment - This is quite a nifty little product but it gets buried in my makeup purse and I forget about it! The sweet almond oil and mango seed butter are housed in a pen applicator. One twist and it oozes through the rubber bristle tip to quickly massage into the cuticles and there is a curved edge on one side of the tip perfect for easing the cuticles back

Lucas' Papaw Ointment - This soothing all-rounder sits on my bedside table and I'll use it as an overnight treatment for dry, ragged cuticles and anything else that's dry and ragged! Click here for a full review.

 

Shaping tools

I very rarely use nail clippers to shape my nails and it's only when I want to drastically shorten them, so instead I use my nail file at least weekly to keep them even and under control.

Glass nail file -   I use a glass file to shape my nails rather than an emery board as it doesn't wear down and need to be replaced and it is gentle on my nails.  I have noticed my nails split and chip much less than they used to since I switched from emery to glass so now I have one of these at home and and a pretty crystal bejewelled version in my makeup purse.

Buffer - I'll use a buffer once a month to smooth out any ridges on my nails.  I'm careful not to overdo it and never buff more frequently than monthly as the buffing thins and weakens the nails if done too enthusiastically.

Remover, base & top coats

Because I do my nails quite frequently (i.e. more than once a week) I stick to moisturising polish removers and nourishing, strengthening base coats to minimise the chemical damage.  And because I'm always in a hurry I use quick drying, long lasting top coats! Currently these are:

OPI original polish remover - Recently repackaged in a sleeker, slightly larger bottle for the same price (Yay!) this remover does a decent job of removing my polish and moisturises my nails with aloe vera.  From time to time I do try other products but keep coming back to this and I really don't want to think about how many litres I've gone through...

OPI Nail Envy nail strengthener -  I have used this treatment for years and it seems to have saved me from the damage caused by years of nail biting.  I'll wear two coats over naked nails as a strengthening treatment, although I haven't had naked nails since I started blogging!  Mostly I'll wear a single coat of Nail Envy as my base coat and it works really well as a smooth, protective base for coloured polish. 

China Glaze Fast Forward Top Coat - Not my usual quick drying top coat of choice (Hello OPI RapiDry!) but I saw this at a beauty discounters so decided to try it.  It's a bit stinkier and smells more toxic than OPI and has a skinny brush but - bottom line - it does dry quickly and my manicure can last up to 6 days with a single application.

Sally Hansen Megashine Extended Wear Top Coat - This is my other top coat of choice and it really gives that ah-may-zing lacquered shine to any mani.  It dries almost as quickly as RapiDry so it's touch dry within a few minutes and is a really durable top coat where week long mani's are required.  I alternate happily between this and RapiDry.

Quick dry drops

A friend (and follower) introduced me to quick dry polish drops and I've been hooked ever since.  Because I need my polish to dry so quickly with all those colour changes and I want my cuticles to look you know, nice, in those unforgiving closeup pics, quick dry drops take care of both of those needs.  My manicure is good to go in minutes and my cuticles are moisturised by the oils.  Usually I'll use OPI's Drip Dry Drops but at the moment I'm trying Sally Hansen's Speed Dry Drops.  These are considerably more affordable than the OPI drops but are a little oilier so they're not my personal fave.

So - now you know it takes an army to take care of my hands!

  What are your must have hand or nail care products?

Until next time.

Vita :)

Avon: Sequinned Turquoise

Hello again,

I'm under the weather today - I managed to catch the dreaded cold that's been lurking around the house the past week.  I won't bore you with the symptoms and the general misery, rather than that I'm going to share the fun mani that graced my fingertips for a special occasion...

I wanted to wear something a little special for the Melbourne blogger meet and greet lunch yesterday so I glammed up with one of my new Avon polishes.  I applied a single coat of Avon's Sequinned Turquoise to add a bit of extra sparkle to L'Oreal's Magic Croisette and it zhushed up my mani just nicely thank you very much!  Sequinned Turquoise is a stunning mix of silver flecks in a dark turquoise base.  It can be worn alone but I think it stars as a layering polish.  Here are lots of pictures...

Outdoors cloudy conditions.  Even clouds can't obscure the beauty...

Sunlight

Lamplight

That's all for now.

Vita :)

L'Oreal: Magic Croisette

Oh yeah, the weekend's nearly over again but I've had a great one!  I finally took the plunge and met up with two other Melbourne beauty bloggers today for what turned out to be a fun lunch - Thanks Ling from The Best Beauty Blog and Ling from Pork Chop's Nest for a fantastic afternoon :)

Onto the polish - Magic Croisette is another of the awesome shades from L'Oreal's current L'Or Electric collection.  Two out of two for success with these new L'Oreal polishes so far in terms of colour and application.  Firstly the colour is an unusual sea blue shot with gold shimmer so it leans towards teal - gorgeous!!  Second, I put this through a proper application test - I applied two coats in the evening and it dried smoothly and quickly enough for none of the dreaded sheet prints next morning - bonus!  No bubbling either as I've experienced with some of the older Titanium range. 

I'm posting sunlit and lamplit pix to bring out the shimmer:

Full sun

Lamplight

Off I go cos my son's hassling me for the computer....

Until next time.

Vita :)

Orange/red lipstick picks: Tom Ford & Revlon

I've got something for both the luxe lovers and the bargainistas today!  A return performance by Tom Ford's Wild Ginger alongside a similarly lovely (and much less expensive - yay!) lipstick from the drugstore darling Revlon - Kiss Me Coral.  I've been alternating wearing both lately to add some colour to my face and ward off the winter blues, so I wanted to share the love on my blog...

L - R:

Revlon - Kiss Me Coral

Tom Ford - Wild Ginger

I was originally going to call this a dupes post but while these two lovely orange/red or poppy red lipsticks are in the same colour family and look very close in the tube I think they're just distinct enough from each other to say they are NOT dupes. 

Lets have another look at the bullets next to each other.  Pretty close, huh?  Yessss, I'm still (stupidly) trying to preserve the TF stamp on the Tom Ford.  That's the problem with expensive lipsticks and expensive cosmetics in general - you treat them a little too preciously - at least I do!  Next time I promise I'll bite the bullet (pardon the poor pun) and swipe that Tom Ford on with gusto!

The swatch is where the difference in colour becomes apparent.  Kiss Me Coral has a more distinct orange tone to it and it's just a touch lighter than Wild Ginger.  FYI although it doesn't show in my pictures there is a significant difference in the coverage - I had to build up the colour of the Revlon swatch with three swipes to get intense coverage, whereas TF is deeply pigmented in one swipe:

L - R:

Kiss Me Coral

Wild Ginger

Yes, I love the colour of both these lipsticks and could wear them interchangeably - and yet still confidently declare them different!

What do you think? Dupes or different?

Have a great weekend everybody!

Vita :)

Max Factor Max Effect mini nail polish: Bronze

This post is brought to you from the comfort of my snuggly-buggly bed!  It's cold, wet and miserable tonight so I've taken myself upstairs to write this in the warmest location of my house...

I remember when these tiny 4.5ml/5g polish bottles from Max Factor were first released in Australia they were selling at the ridiculous price of around $10AUD.  Obviously someone's seen sense since then and they now sell at a more reasonable $5.95 making them much more appealing.  Right - that little observation's out of the way!

The polish I chose to try first is called Bronze - I think!?  I can't find a label anywhere on the bottle so I had to do a little 'net research to match the name to the polish and I'm about as sure as I can be without being the full 100%.  This is a really nice and quite wearable golden glass flecked coppery bronze.  It was a little sheer on application and I've got some VNL happening after two coats but I'm still reasonably happy with the finish.  It really comes into its own under bright light so I've included some lamplit pix in the absence of any sun around here at the moment...

Outdoors natural daylight

Lamplight

 

Have you tried Max Factor's Max Effect mini's?

That's it for tonight.

Vita :)

A flakie fail :(

First of let me say it's not the polish failing in this post - it's my colour choice!

I've had European brand Gosh's gorgeous and aptly named Rainbow flakie polish in my collection for a few years now. It's been sitting there patiently awaiting its turn in the limelight and I've not done it any justice at all here.  I'd thought this green and orange flakie would leap out from my golden green base (L'Oreal Majestic Green ) but the expected contrast didn't happen.  The colours complimented each other a little too well so they've pretty well blended into each other. This is flakie polish camouflaged.  Lesson learnt - flakies need to go over a dark base to get that spectacular rainbow effect...

Now for the evidence:

A reswatch is definitely in order here!

Vita :)

Recent hauls: MAC & OPI

I've only been away from posting a few days but I'm so relieved to be back after an annoying malware scare.  Unfortunately to clean up my site I've had to wipe my entire blog roll for the time being but rest assured I'm still keeping up with everyone's posts via my reading list. 

So, this post is actually featuring two separate hauls from Catch of the Day (COTD).   The MAC and OPI sales popped up a matter of days after I finished my Project 10 Pan and my husband (the 'enabler') let me know all about them!  I'm not going to ramble on too much about my selections tonight - I'll just let the pictures and the swatches do most of the talking this time...

OPI selections L-R:

Guy Meets Gal-Veston, Charged Up Cherry, Koala Bear-y

OK, I have to say something.  Very summery choices for winter, eh?  I'd been lemming the uber bright pink creme Charged Up Cherry for an age and, I dunno, I was obviously in the mood for all things bright, loud and out there when I made this particular impulse purchase. 

Swatched in same order as above:

MAC selections L-R:

Idol Eyes, Woodwinked, Coppering, Carbonized 

Aside from the cool toned lilac Idol Eyes, I stepped over to the warmer side with my MAC shadow choices this time,  really stepping outside my comfort zone by choosing the red/copper Coppering.  My MAC shadow collection's got to be complete by now surely???

 

Swatched on bare skin (same order as above)...

...and swatched over primer

What do you think of these shades?

Until next time

Vita :)

L'Oreal: Majestic Green

Hello,


I'm really annoyed and frustrated because I keep getting an "Attack Site" warning every time I try to do anything with my blog on Firefox.  I've noticed my stats have (coincidentally??) fallen through the floor over the last 24 hours too so I wonder what the hell's going on?  My way around this obstacle is using Internet Explorer without any issue, so that suggests to me my blog itself isn't infected but I'm still clueless.  The hubs (who's a bit of an IT guru by profession) suggests it's something Blogger needs to address?  Do any of you have any ideas or have you been affected???  Thank goodness I'm not trying to earn an income off my site...

Okay enough of the complaining and onto the polish.  This one's from L'Oreal's newly released L'Or Electric collection.  Majestic Green is a golden green shimmer and pretty darn unique IMO.  It's such a vivid colour and almost a duochrome.  The application was particularly easy as the new L'Oreal bottles have rather wide brushes so I was able to get full colour coverage on my nails in two to three strokes.  

This was two coats of colour.  All pictures were taken outdoors in cloudy conditions.



Until next time.

Vita :)

Vintage polish: Sweet Georgia Brown Colors - Coco Loco

Wow have I got an old polish for you today!

I've had this bottle of Coco Loco from discontinued makeup brand Sweet Georgia Brown literally since the heady decade of the 1990's.  Back in those days I was crazy about metallic polishes and Coco Loco is so metallic it's almost a chrome.  This highly reflective pewter/taupe metal shade is one I still have a fondness for wearing and it's still in great condition for an extinct polish - no thickening or lumpiness whatsoever.  The other cute thing about this polish is it's scented.  Yep, they were doing scented polish way back in the '90's!!!  It has a weirdly pleasant scent of chocolate which obviously goes hand in hand with the Coco Loco description.

This is two coats with top coat.   All photos were taken outdoors in cloudy conditions...

Does anyone remember Sweet Georgia Brown Colors?

 Until next time.

Vita :)