Sinful Colors Winter Shimmer Collection 2012

Hey all. I'm certainly not the first to post about these but I noticed that there weren't many swatches available of the new Sinful Colors Holiday Shimmers Collection. This collection is being released in drugstores right now for the Holiday 2012 season. Above is a picture of the display. I spotted these at my local Rite-Aid when I was wandering cosmetic "browsing" (shopping) between Open Skate and a late night movie. It was funny because when I got to the register to pay for them there was no cashier. There was a bell, but it was broken and it took me and another customer several minutes to find anyone to ring up our purchases. I was diligent though in the name of polish!

L-R: Superstar, Winter Wonder, Nova, Faceted

There are eight polishes in the collection but I only got four. I ended up picking out Superstar (1138), Winter Wonder (1142), Nova (1137) and Faceted (1139). There were one or two dupes in the collection, Queen of Beauty and one other that I can't remember the name of but is duped all over the place. 

L-R: China Glaze Smoke & Ashes, Sinful Colors Nova

When I first picked up Nova I thought it might be a dupe for China Glaze Smoke and Ashes from the Hunger Games collection. I bought it anyways because I love S&A and it was on sale (sucker, I know). 

L-R: China Glaze Smoke&Ashes (2 coats), Nova (2 coats), Nova (1 coat)

When I got home and swatched them however it was apparent that Nova is a dark blue jelly base whereas Smoke and Ashes is a black base. After two coats the difference is negligible but at one coat it is very obvious. With a good hand it would be possible to wear Nova at one coat, but I was hastily swatching for the sake of swatching. Two coats makes a beautiful night sky dark blue with glittery "stars" if you will. The glitter flashes green and gold. It's a very pretty polish and my favorite of the bunch maybe. Slightly more glittery than S&A in my opinion.

L-R: Faceted over Orly Liquid Vinyl, Faceted over Snow White, Faceted over Mesmerize

Above we have Faceted. I'm not usually a big fan of bar glitter but for some reason this one seemed really pretty in the bottle. Tiny blue hex glitter with duochrome gold and green bar glitter in a clear base. First I swatched it over a basic black, then a plain white. Over the white polish the bar glitter seems to disappear. Last I swatched this over Sinful Colors Mesmerize (1128) which I think is from the "Enchanted" collection. This was my favorite combination out of all of them and probably my next mani! The light blue glitter over the  dark eggplant polish is really pretty. It's a slightly softer look than layering over black. 

Top: Winter Wonder, Bottom: Super Star

Last we have Winter Wonder and Super Star. Winter wonder is a gorgeous dark silvery shimmer with tiny flecks of gold and blue. This polish had an excellent formula and two coats was enough.Super Star is blue and purple hex glitter with tiny irregularly shaped blue flakies in a blue jelly base (mouthful right?). There's another polish in this collection that looks similar but with pink glitter, but it's been part of the standard display for some time so many of you will already have that one. Super Star builds up to full opacity with 3 coats and dries relatively rough but that problem could be solved with Gelous or another thick top coat. I like to use Sally Hansen Insta-Dri top coat over glitters like these. I left the swatches free of top coat however. 

So that's it. I heard Sinful Colors was shutting down their factory and laying off their workers so you never know this collection might be their last. As far as quality goes I have to say I would miss them if they were gone though especially at the price!

FOTD

So for today's Face Of The Day, I decided to be green. Just kidding....

But how funny would it be if we could just change our entire skin color the way we change our hair color, nails or eye shadow etc. I look at the body as a blank canvas of sorts (which explains my love of tattoos)..it just seems like we're missing out as advanced human beings by not being able to turn our entire body pink.

If we could, skin color would be seen as just another form of self expression instead of a form of subconscious "labeling". Things that make you say hmmm,....

China Glaze: Adventure Red-y

China Glaze: Adventure Red-y

     Well, let's start off with the name. When I first saw this polish on the promotional I was like "no, for real china glaze?" That name is super lame. And when the polish was launched this fall as part of the Fall 2012 I completely overlooked it as "been-done" and selected instead three other polishes. I got Elephant Walk, Exotic Encounters and Jungle Queen. The first two I will swatch for you later, but the last Jungle Queen turned out to be a complete bust in my opinion. I just hated it on my fingers and couldn't wait to take it off. I'll probably never wear it again. But enough about that...Adventure Red-y. I was actually thinking about this polish in hindsight wishing I had a nice creme red and wishing I'd have picked this one up as part of the Fall collection but now that it's Halloween I knew it would be nearly impossible to find without going online. Lucky me I just happened to see it on clearance in Sally's when I was getting something else. Score!

CG: Adventure Red-y outdoors in full sun

Here it is on my nails. This two coats with one coat of Borghese Presto top coat. Formula was super smooth and could've almost been a one coater but I'm picky about bald spots. As it turns out I was glad I picked this up, it might be my new favorite red!

Same as above

I give this polish an : A
I would give it an A+ but I haven't tried to remove it yet and it looks like it might be a real stainer....

Urban Decay Lip Junkie: Crush

OK so here's the thing. I'm still working out this "blogging" thing, and I find that perhaps due to my ADD shorter posts will keep me posting more frequently. I'm one of those people who starts a project...starts another one...forgets first project (remembers, gets annoyed with self, runs back to first project because they don't want to give up)...you get the picture. And I don't want to relinquish this blog because makeup is my BABY (aside from my real babies of course). So here goes:

Urban Decay Lip Junkie

"Crush" in tube

Here it is in the color "Crush". This is the full size tube and the first "high end" lipgloss I've ever dropped 20 bucks on. I don't regret it at all! This is my favorite gloss!

Lip Junkie in "Crush" on my lips

As you can see it's not so pigmented that it screams pink but it definitely is a nice color. Lip Junkie is a plumping gloss, and I never would've seen myself purchasing a plumping gloss as my lips are already plenty "plump" but I received a sample in the color "Naked" with my Naked 2 palette and after using it a couple times I was totally hooked. I don't feel like it plumps as much as it smooths out the fine lines on the surface of my lips which I like. Also the tingly minty sensation is pleasant and smells nice. I don't find this gloss to be "too sticky" but it is the type to get your hair stuck in on a windy day. There's always a tossup between stickiness and staying power and if you ask me this is just the right balance. You won't have to reapply every hour.

I give this gloss an: A

Definite repurchase. I'm already half empty and all of my other glosses are getting neglected but I want another!

OPI: If you Moust you Moust

 

So I hadn't written in awhile. Busy bartending etc, but as it turns out I couldn't stand the politics of the bar I was at and I sorta quit. Whatevs, now we can discuss polish. Here we have today OPI If you Moust you Moust from the Minnie Mouse collection. This is the only polish I picked up from this collection, mostly because the whole collection was pink and Pink polishes totally dominate my collection.

 

 As you can see here IYMYM is a pretty creamy blue toned pink. I've seen it compared to OPI Pink Friday and it's much darker while being more cool pastel than OPI Strawberry Margarita. Formula was good not perfect but definitely professional quality. Two coats was enough to cover the nail line. You may or may not have noticed the dent/ding on my pointer finger. This occured like almost an hour after I painted my nails with two coats OPI and one coat of "fast dry" top coat by "Best Nail Treatments". Fast dry my ass right? I have more complaints about this top coat later.

On my ring finger I used Essie Navigate Her, but then I smudged the tip so I made like a funky French tip with the IYMYM and a white nail art pen. Funny side note: I read in some article I stumbled upon that putting a different color on the ring finger signals to lesbians that you're A. also lesbian, and B. into "femme" lesbians. This made me laugh, because I've been doing this for years and I think I'm straight...but if I were gonna be a lesbian I'd admittedly want to date "femme types". Yeah, this post got way off track.

OPI If You Moust You Moust, Essie Navigate Her, Best Nail Treatments Top Coat

So here is that topcoat I was complaining about. I picked this up on clearance at Ocean State Job lot. Now before you think "she got what she paid for" as a disclaimer I always purchase my FAVORITE top coat here which is the discontinued Borghese Presto top coat. Sometimes I can get two for three dollars and it makes my penny-pinching day. This top coat I used today...not even worth a dollar. I'll probably throw it away. In addition to not being fast drying it totally causes shrinkage which I've never even experienced before and horrendous bubbling. Maybe this was a bad batch and that's why it was on clearance but I would avoid it in the future. Apparently this is the same company that makes "Posh" nail treatments so I won't buy that one either most likely.

In conclusion: OPI IYMYM = Good

Best Nail Treatment Topcoat = Bad