MAC Archie's Girls Collection

Swatches

Although MAC's Archie's Girls collection has already launched online on maccosmetics.com, they do not release in stores until next week. Since I would not be able to make it when the store opens, I decided to stop by my local MAC location to swatch a few items so that my boyfriend will be able to see which ones he would pick up for me next week.

I love how cute the products look, but the picture, my boyfriend thought that guy looked ridiculous, haha! I didn't swatch all the items since I was more focused on the ones that I thought I was interested in.

For the blushes & pearlmatte, I was able to take indoor and outdoor pictures.
I inititally wanted Cream Soda, but after swatching, I want Prom Princess a lot more than Cream Soda. However, I think I will be getting both.

For the lipsticks, I swatched all of Veronica's Lipsticks and one Betty Lipstick. When looking at promotional pictures, I was really interested in Boyfriend Stealer, but when I tried it on my lips in the store, it kind of reminded me of a lighter version of Wet n' Wild's Vamp It Up, so I might pass on that. I thought it would be more of a purple-purple, but it's more of a very dark purple.
I really liked Daddy's Little Girl, and I might pick that up next week if it's still available.

What do you think about MAC's Archie's Girls collection? Are you thinking of picking any of them up? Did you already order them online?

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Nordstrom Rack Finds

Anastasia & Butter London

Hi everyone! It's been a while since I last posted a review & I will be reviewing something soon. My laptop has been weird on me throughout half of break and having it left at the Apple Store does not help at all! Now that I have my laptop, I'm back in school! D:

Anyway, when I went to Nordstrom Rack today, I saw two new items I have not seen the last few times I went. They had two Anastasia sets from their Holiday collection, and the Butter London Olympic Heavy Metal collection.

The Anastasia sets are:
Kisses On My List Vol. 2
& Want You To Want Me palette set.
They are both marked as $14.97, which is pretty much a bit more than half-off the original retail price!

The other Butter London set, like the ones from the Holiday collection has three nail polishes in it. I do not know what the colors are, but it is also marked as $14.97, which is a good deal considering one Butter London itself is $15.

Have you shopped at Nordstrom Rack since my last Butter London post? What do you think about these sets? :)

(this is the full post, the click more button still remains even when there is nothing else)

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Urban Decay Oz The Great and Powerful palettes

Beauty News:

For the past few weeks, many people have been talking about Urban Decay's new Oz Palettes inspired by the movie coming out in March. The two palettes are focused on the two witches, Glinda and Theodora.

Image from Urbandecay.com

The two palettes are in their own build your own palettes. The Glinda palette consists of more pastel/light colors, and the Theodora consists of more neutral/dark colors. They each retail for $49 and are now available on urbandecay.com (link).

What do you think about these palettes? Are you Theodora or are you Glinda?

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L’Oreal Colour Caresse Wet Shine Stain: Berry Persistent

Swatches & Review

When I was shopping at Ulta over a week ago, I saw a full display of L'Oreal's new Caresse Wet Shine Stains. Since I heard some good things about these, I decided to purchase one to try for myself. I have been loving purple for lips lately, I picked up Berry Persistent.

The applicator is a tear-drop shaped doe-foot applicator. It is kind of thin as well.

The first layer of Berry Persistent applied sheer, but it is build-able. I used thin layers to build up the color. By the third layer, it is a gorgeous berry color.
Since I used three layers to try it, it felt kind of heavy and uncomfortable on the lips. After an hour of wearing, the color started being uneven.

These Caresse Wet Shine Stain's are supposed to leave a stain afterward, which made me think of stains from Revlon's Balm Stain, but for me, these did not stain too much on me. The feeling of these are kind of interesting. When applying, they feel very wet/watery, but they do not bleed. After a while, it starts to dry a bit, but it has not fully dried on me (I have tried it on for 6 hours), so whenever I have my lips together, the color starts to look uneven.

Overall, I thought these were okay. They had a very strong artificial fruit scent that lasted through wearing, which really bugged me since I am sensitive to scents. The tube is golden plastic, and attracts a lot of fingerprints, which is also something that I do not like. The color itself is very pretty though. It reminds me of MAC's Rebel (which I do not own), and Wet n Wild's Sugar Plum Fairy, but in a super shiny finish. When I purchased this, I thought it would be more purple since the tube shows it as more of a purple, but it is a berry shade on the lips. I probably would not buy this again since I do not like the scent and I would not recommend this for people who do not like very strong scents.

On lips compared to color in tube.

What do you think about the L'oreal Caresse Wet Shine Stains? Are there any colors you are interested in?

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Butter London at Nordstrom Rack

Deal alert!

I went into Nordstrom Rack today and spotted some Butter London holiday sets with a discount!
The items I saw were:

The Holiday Remover collection: $8.97

Rosie Lee, Fairy Cake & The Black Knight

Shambolic, Jack the Lad & Scuppered.
Both of the Holiday Sparkle Sparkle collection: $14.97

The Sparkle Sparkle Lippy Collection: $14.97

I think the Holiday Nail Lacquer is definitely worth it because each nail polish on its own is already $14, so a set of three for $14.97 is almost like buy one get two free! These are available at Nordstrom Rack.

What do you think about these? Are you thinking about getting them?

(this is the full post, the click more button still remains even when there is nothing else).

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Wet n Wild Raisin' The Roof Megalast Liquid Lip Color

Swatches & Review

When I first heard of the new Wet n Wild Liquid Lip Colors, I really wanted to try them because they remind me of Lime Crime's Velvetine's, so when I saw them at my local Walgreens today, I was super excited!

This has a doe foot applicator.

The color I purchased is Raisin' The Roof. It is a berry color with golden sparkles to it. It applies on wet and glossy, but after a while, it dries down into a flat-ish matte finish. Since there were sparkles in this liquid lip color, it did not seem as matte, but it was.

The color itself is gorgeous. You can see the golden sparkle on this picture better.

However, the texture on these feel kind of weird. They kind of remind me of Violent Lip Tattoos. After applying, my lips felt normal like if I were to have normal lipstick or lipgloss on my lips. After it dried, it felt kind of stiff and hard on my lips to where it was kind of hard to move it unless I am not worrying about it peeling. My lips are very wrinkly so after it dried, I was able to see all the imperfection of my lips. Even when it was fully dry for me to touch, whenever my lips rub together, it would stick to each other and make it all patchy, which did not feel comfortable at all. After about an hour of wearing it, no eating or drinking anything, it started to flake off on me, which was very unattractive. I think Wet n Wild coming out with an affordable liquid lipstick is a good idea, but I was hoping it would be kind of like OCC Lip Tars as well. To me, this is definitely something that I would not recommend because it feels very uncomfortable on the lips & the flaking is not attractive at all. After it was flaking, I tried to remove it, but it was definitely really water-proof so it was hard to rub off until I used an oil-based makeup remover for lips. I think the next time I try it, I am going to try to top it off with a lip gloss to see how they feel with those.

Overall, I would not recommend these. I really wanted to love these, but trying this was a huge disappointment. I purchased this for $2.49 at my local Walgreen's (it is originally $3.49, but the tube had a $1 off sticker on it), which does not make me feel too bad able purchasing these.

What do you think about these? Is there anything from Wet n Wild's 2013 release that you are looking forward to?

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NARS Express Yourself Eyes Palette

Swatches & Review

NARS Express Yourself Eyes palette is part of NARS Makeup Your Mind: Express Yourself kit, which I have recently won from Sephora's Holiday twitter giveaway.

This palette is packaged with a rubberized feeling on the outside.

The Express Yourself Eyes palette contains six eyeshadows.

Left to Right:
Abyssinia: Creamy pearl. This was a bit dry and chalky.
Silk Road II: Warm peach with gold glitter. This was gritty and has major fall-out because of the chunky glitter.
Strada: Lavendar with gold glitter. This was pigmented & even though it has gold glitter in it, it does not really show up. There was a little fall-out, but not as much as Silk Road.

Galapagos: Brown with gold glitter. This was pigmented, but there is a lot of fall-out from the glitter.
Fuji: Forest green. This was very smooth and pigmented.
Brumes II: Smokey slate blue with subtle shimmer. This was very smooth and pigmented.

All of these were swatched over NARS Smudge proof base. A majority of this palette is very glittery/shimmery.
Out of the six colors, I think the only two I liked is Fuji and Brumes. I'm not too big on glittery shades, especially with the fall-out, so if it was up to me, I probably would not have personally purchased this for myself. This is my first time trying NARS eyeshadows, and personally, I prefer Urban Decay, Too Faced & Inglot over this. The colors from this set is not that unique for me to justify spending $85 on this set. The top row's pigmentation was okay, while the bottom row had better pigmentation. I think with NARS, I will just stick with their blushes since I love the blushes I have from them.

What do you think about this eyeshadow palette? Have you tried NARS eyeshadows? What do you think about NARS items?

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Free Zoya Nail Polish 2013

Beauty News:

For the past few years, Zoya does a promotion in January where you would be able to get their nail polishes for free if you pay for shipping. Last year, it was 2 bottles free and the year before, it was 3 bottles free. This year, it is 3 bottles free.

Image from ZoyaNailPolish.blogspot.com This year, the shipping for it is $10, but you get 3 bottles, which makes it a good deal considering one bottle itself retails for $8. It excludes the newer collections, such as Lovely Spring & Pixie Dust, but there are other amazing colors as well. I have previously swatched their Fall collection AND their Ornate collection, so if you are interested, you can definitely check out some of my swatches!

A few of my favorites from Zoya: Storm
Blaze
Aurora
Song
Reva
Kristen
Arizona
Tracie
Wednesday
Fei Fei
Daul
Paloma
Frida
Zuza
Breezi

There's more, but that's just to name a few of my top picks!

For more information, check out Zoya's Blog (here).

The promotion begins next Monday, January 7, 2013 and ends Sunday January 13, 2013.

What do you think about this promotion? Are there any shades you might pick up?

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NARS Larger Than Life Volumizing Mascara

Swatches & Review

I recently won Sephora's twitter holiday giveaway and as the prize, I received NARS Makeup Your Mind: Express Yourself kit. The kit includes full-sized NARS Larger Than Life Volumizing mascara.

Like all other NARS products, the tube has a rubberized feeling to it.

The brush for this mascara has a honeycomb style.

For the swatches on my eyelashes, I have shown one with no mascara, then one coat, then two coats.
Be prepared to see a lot of eyes O_O

The picture on the left is with my lashes uncurled and no mascara. The one in the middle shows my lashes curled with one coat of NARS Larger than Life mascara. The one on the right shows it with two coats.
As you can see, the NARS Larger than Life mascara enhances my lashes a lot! With two coats, you can definitely see the lashes a lot better.

From my previous reviews of mascara, I mentioned that it was quite hard to keep my eyelashes curled because they normally go back to being stick-straight after a while. NARS Larger than Life mascara is not very wet, so it dries very quickly, which actually keeps my eyelashes curled! I have been looking for a mascara to keep my eyelashes curled and I think this is it since I have been loving it so far. This mascara also does not clump when applying, so my eyelashes won't stick together into one single piece. The downsides to this is that it is hard to wash off, even with makeup remover. I always use Bobbi Brown's makeup remover and it wipes everything off easily, besides this mascara so if you do not need to use more than one coat, I suggest only using one coat for an easier time removing it. The other downside is the price. It retails for $25, which is pretty steep considering mascara's dry out real quickly. Out of all the mascara's I have right now, I would definitely choose this over the others until I can find a cheaper alternative.

What do you think about NARS Larger Than Life mascara? Have you tried it? What mascara would you recommend for me to keep my eyelashes curled?

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Zoya Lovely Collection

Swatches & Review

WOOOOO! It's 2013! I hope everyone is having an amazing New Years & had a fun New Years Eve! I kept falling asleep last night, but my boyfriend kept waking me up.. haha.
Anyway, today, I have Zoya's Spring collection for you guys!

Zoya's Spring Lovely collection consists of six pastel spring-like colors. Three of them have a shimmery-metallic finish, while the other three have a creme finish.

The Shimmer-metallic:

Piaf: Shimmery-metallic mustard yellow. It looks kind of gold, but at the same time, it does not seem much "gold". I always wanted a nice yellow nail polish, but yellow nail colors normally clash with my skin-tone. However, Piaf actually looks good on my nails, I definitely like this a lot more than I thought I would. This applied smoothly and I used two coats.

Gie Gie: Shimmery-metallic light powder pink. I normally stay away from pink nail colors (I don't like pink, but I have a lot of pink items), but this was not too bad. I like how the silver shimmer looks on it. It looks very feminine & cutesy for Spring. This applied sheer and I used three coats for the swatches.

Julie: Shimmery-metallic lilac/periwinkle. This like Gie Gie applied sheer. I used three coats for swatches.

The Cremes:

Blu: Pastel blue creme. This kind of reminded me of Kristen, but after applying it, this was definitely not like Kristin. I feel that this is a bit too pale for me, and it is my least favorite in this collection. The first coat for this applied streaky, but it evened out by the second coat. I used two coats for this.

Neely: Pastel spring green creme. I love this!!. I originally thought it was another mint green, but it is not. It leans to a warmer green pastel and is perfect for Spring. It is not too pale, it's perfect! Out of all the colors in this collection, this had the best application. It applied smoothly and I used two coats for the swatches.

Jacqueline: Creamy soft yellow with slight shimmer. The shimmer in this is not noticeable on the nail, but when you look at the bottle in person, you can see streaks of slight shimmer in it. This is more of a nude shade and it looks a lot better on the nails than in the bottle. Honestly, I would not purchase a color like this just by looking at it from the bottle, but on the nail, it looks very nice & does not wash out my skin-tone. I used two coats for the swatch.

Overall, I like the collection. The colors are definitely good picks for the Spring season & I love pastel colors! Spring is my favorite season because my birthday is in Spring! haha. My favorites from this collection has to be Neely, Piaf, and Jacqueline. Piaf is a really unique color that I would not have imagined myself liking, but do like. The downsides to these are that they take a while to dry, and that the shimmery-metallic finish colors, it was a bit hard to remove because the silver shimmer spreads everywhere! Other than that, these colors make me want Spring to come sooner so I can use them!

What do you think about these? Are you going to get some of the nail polishes from this collection?

These are available for purchase on Zoya.com now, and they retail for $8 per 0.5oz bottle.

*The products in this post were provided to me for my honest opinion/review. I was not paid nor compensated for the review.

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