NOTW: Million Dollar Green

I thought this is a very spring like nail look. It definitely reminds me of sunrays hitting the green grass of a park. So perfect for this time of year. My nails have been pretty banged up lately. I cannot seem to let them grow out and they break like there is not tomorrow. I do have to say that my being busy led me to not have much proper time for nail care, so I hope that as of right now I can take care of them again so will become longer and healthier again. Anywho: without further ado I present to you this weeks nail look.

Doesn’t this just make you happy straight away! I’m so glad the sun came out and I felt inspired. Products used:

- Etos Nail Strengthener in very strong as base coat

- OPI Green-which Village

- Catrice Million Styles Top Coat in Million Dollar Baby

- INM Out the Door Fast Drying Top Coat

Here are some more pictures and a close up!

 

What are you wearing on your nails today?

Make up collection: Catrice & Essence eyeshadow

Catrice & Essence are two very budget friendly make up brands which are available here. I have a bunch of mono eyeshadows from them, which I transferred into a Z-palette as the single packaging took up too much space. Here are the shadows & the swatches:

The palette

The round shadows are by Essence, the square ones by Catrice. These all retail for around €2.00 each.

Clockwise starting left: it’s up to you, olive garden, go all girlie, taupe of the pops (Essence)

Clockwise starting left: metropolitan, hypnotic blue, adorable, party all night, super babe (Essence)

Left to right: Bring me Terracotta, Yes you tan, First copperware party (Catrice, first two are from LEs)

Left to right: In the army now, C’mon chameleon, Top of the cops (Catrice)

Essence top row: It’s up to you, Olive Garden, Metropolitan, Hypnotic Blue, Adorable

Essence bottom row: Go all girlie, Taupe of the Pops, Party all Night, Super Babe

Catrice: Bring me terracotta, Yes you tan, First copperware party, In the army now, C’mon chameleon, Top of the cops.

At less than 2 euros a pop I think they shadows need an honorable mention. My favorites here have to be Taupe of the Pops, Olive Garden and Party All Night by Essence. In fact, Olive Garden is what I’d hoped Green Smoke by MAC would be more like. The Catrice ones are super pigmented as you can see and my favorites have to be Yes you tan, First copperware party and C’mon chameleon. Especially last two are favorites since they are well pigmented and they are duochrome! Apparently C’mon chameleon is a good dupe for MAC’s club!

What’s your favorite eyeshadow by these brands?

My fave nail polishes for spring

Spring is in the air! That’s why I’ve been busting out my favorite spring nail polishes. I’ve been wearing blues, greens, oranges and the like. I thought I’d share the prettiness with you here.

From left to right: Bourjois Tangerine Fatale, Catrice Welcome to Rosywood, Essence Walk On Air, China Glaze Turned Up Turqoise, OPI Mermaid’s Tears

Swatch no. 1:

China Glaze Turned Up Turquoise (no. 19)

China Glaze’s Turned Up Turquoise is the perfect neon turquoise color. It has the tiniest amount of shimmer in it and the brightness of the color makes it perfect for spring!

Swatch no 2:

Essence Walk on Air (no 2)

Essence Walk on Air is one of my most recent nail polish purchases and has quickly become a favorite. This rich creamy cobalt blue polish is brighter than sky blue, yet deeper than many ‘denim’ blue polishes.

Swatch no 3:

Catrice Welcome to Rosywood

Catrice Welcome to Rosywood is a dark dusty rose color that I think is a great contrast with the sea foam and minty greens that are in fashion right now. It is too dark for it to be a neutral, but it still gives off a classy vibe nonetheless.

Swatch no 4:

OPI Mermaid’s Tears (no. 9)

OPI Mermaid’s Tears is the best creamy sea foam green color. It was part of last year’s Pirates of the Caribbean collection and it took me some time to get it as it sold out quickly. This color is more on trend now than it was last year and it’s what I’m wearing on my nails currently. It instantly brings spring to my nails.

Swatch no 5:

Bourjois Tangerine Fatale (no. 8)

Bourjois Tangerine Fatale is a great color that is right in line with this year’s fashion trends. This bright creamy orange will liven up any outfit.

These are my favorite polishes. What are yours?

NOTW: Frosty Ocean

I of course had to us my new Catrice & Essence polishes on my nails as quickly as I could. So when I was doing my nails before heading to my parents for my mom’s birthday I came up with this quick and easy nail look.

On my nails:

• Essence Walk on Air as a base color
• Catrice Million Styles Top Coat in Return of the Space Cowboys (middle finger & pinky)
• Catrice Million Styles Top Coat in Have an Ice Day (index & ring finger)

I wanted to try these two especially as the swatches over black didn’t make them look all that impressive. I think that Have an Ice Day is done much more justice over this creamy blue color. It even allowed my camera to sort of pick up on the multicolored specks of glitter in the polish.

Return of the Space Cowboys is still not looking all that great, unless I look at it in direct sunlight. I think this will look better over a lighter grey or blue color. I will most likely try that next. Unfortunately my camera had a hard time picking up this color and the only thing that popped up was this blurry picture, but this gives you the idea.

As you can see the glitters have a bit of a greenish sheen to it apart from blue. What my camera fails to capture and which I find rather hard to see in real life too, is the fact that there is also purple in this top coat. You can see it in the bottle, but it doesn’t really transfer onto your nails. I hope that over a different base color the purple will show up.

What are you wearing on your nails this week?

New Nail Polish – Essence & Catrice Million Styles

The other day I popped into my local drugstore. Even though I wasn’t looking for anything, I found some A+mazing nail polishes. Essence just recently revamped their collection, however the polishes that I know came out, I haven’t been able to find just yet. What I did find though, are two very pretty other colors. Budget buddy Catrice released their limited edition Million Styles Effect Top Coat line this week and I was hoping to catch it on time, before they were gone. I had already seen the promo pics and knew I wanted a few of these, as the line features some really impressive looking top coats. Let’s have a look at the colors and the swatches shall we?

Essence: Gold Fever & Walk on Air

Swatches: Gold Fever on the left, Walk on Air on the right (two coats)

Gold fever is a sparkly glitter polish with gold and red specks. It’s the red glitter that makes this polish special. It’s a bit on the sheer side, but I think three coats would make it opaque and if you layer this over red or gold nail polish you would need less coats as well. I have plenty of blue polishes, but no perfect, creamy, bright blue. That changed when I found this baby. My eye was immediately drawn to it and is the perfect shade for spring & summer. These nail polishes are only 1,29 euros a piece. Now let’s move on to the Catrice polishes.

Catrice Million Styles: ¿Holo Qué Tal?, Godfather of Pearl, Shake it Flake it!

These are two holographic nail polishes (purple and blue) and a transparent flaky one.

Catrice Million Styles: Million Dollar Baby, Have an Ice Day, Return of Space Cowboys

This is a platinum flaky and two multi-reflective glitter topcoats.

Swatches: Return of Space Cowboys, Million Dollar Baby, Have an Ice Day, Godfather of Pearl, ¿Holo Qué Tal?, Shake it Flake it!

Doesn’t look that impressive does it? Wait till you see these swatched on a dark base color. Like this:

Swatches: Return of Space Cowboys, Million Dollar Baby, Have an Ice Day, Godfather of Pearl, ¿Holo Qué Tal?, Shake it Flake it! (swatched over Bourjous Noir de Chine)

Can you say wow?! These swatches are one coat over a black base coat. I don’t find all of them that impressive, but the two flaky and holographic polishes are amazing. Return of Space Cowboys and Have an Ice Day are the least impressive to me, as the multi-reflective glitter effect is hard too see. These might work better over lighter base coats though. Perhaps with a dark grey or a greyish blue? Here are some close ups:

Swatches: Shake it Flake it!, ¿Holo Qué Tal?, Godfather of Pearl, Have an Ice Day
(swatched over Bourjous Noir de Chine)

Swatches: Have an Ice Day, Million Dollar Baby, Return of Space Cowboys (over Bourjois Noir de Chine)

I don’t know about you, but I’m impressed and at only 2,50 euros a pop they aren’t expensive either. Right now, Kruidvat has a discount on Catrice nail polish as well: you get 2 for 4 euros. So hurry, because I have a feeling that these might sell out quickly.

What do you think of these nail polishes?

NOTW: New Catrice polishes

The other day German budget make up brand Catrice revamped their collection with some new products. My favorite Catrice product must be their nail polishes. So when I found out about the new colors they were releasing I decided to have a look and see whether anything would be worth picking up. Unfortunately there are quite a few repromote/ rereleased polishes that I already have. That is why only three of the polishes caught my attention and I’ve swatched two of them for you.

The first one I would like to show you is this great shimmery dark teal color: Be Pool. Technically this isn’t even in their new collection as it’s not permanent. This color is a limited edition that comes with Catrice’s current limited Nymphelia collection. This is a great color in my opinion. It is just the right mixture of green and blue and I love how it is this dark shade. I haven’t seen many shades like this.

This color has been added to the permanent collection AND it is brand new too. It is called Welcome to Rosywood and it is a a dark creamy rose color void of shimmer. It has a hint of brown to it and thus makes a great dark neutral color with my skin tone.

Another thing Catrice did is change the brush to apply the nail polish with. It is mostly wider so you can cover more of your nail in one go. Since my nails aren’t big to begin with, it’s not the most ideal brush for me, but I managed to put it on without too many problems after all. I do have to be careful when putting it on though.

I really like both colors but I think the teal color is my favorite. I have one other polish that I will most likely show later this week.

On a personal note: London is fun! I will make sure there’s a post on my first day tomorrow. How have you been?

NOTW: A little bit of this…

… and a little bit of that. Finally my nails have started to grow out again so I think I can do some fun nail creations again some time soon. As for right now, my nails are covered in 5 different colors. I simply couldn’t choose and didn’t think any of these colors special enough to wear by themselves. All I did know I wanted to do was wear some Catrice nail polish. I have tons of their colors as they are cheap and fun, but I feel like I’m not using them enough. So I went with these 5 pastel/ light colors to balance out the gloominess outside.

What I’m wearing:

Catrice: Biscuits & Cupcakes, Let’s Mauve On, I Scream Peach, Sold Out Forever, Clay-ton My Hero.

Like I said: light pastel-like colors apart from the bright peach tone.

I actually think that I may subconsciously be picking out my nail color according to my mood. I was wearing mostly dark colors the past few weeks, when I also felt tired and under the weather. Now, I feel as light as a fairy and overall good. I seem to have more energy and life to me than a few weeks ago, so that has me think: is that why I suddenly decided to go with brighter colors? Who knows! It might just be!

How do you pick out your nail color?

Make up collection: small eyeshadow palettes

Another part of my make up stash: my small eyeshadow palettes. Next to nail polish, eyeshadow is quite possibly my favorite make up related item. So I have tons. I already showed you my MAC eyeshadow palette a while ago, and today it’s time for more eyeshadow! I will be showing you my smaller eyeshadow palettes, meaning: 2 – 5 shadows in one container. I don’t have that many duos, trios, quads and quintets but that doesn’t mean they aren’t pretty! Let’s have a look shall we?

All of my small eyeshadow palettes together

I have a bit of everything here: cheap, drugstore, middle range and high end. I will tell you about my favorites along the way.

Drugstore palettes 1: NYX Shimmer/ Peach/ Copper, Catrice Tickled Pink, Catrice Mustard & Custard, MAX Grey Combo, MAX Black & Beige, Revlon Berry Bloom, Rimmel English Rose.

Apart from the Rimmel palette these are all cheap palettes. My favorite must be the Rimmel one. I bought that because of that gorgeous rose color in the middle. The NYX trio is perfect for traveling s those three colors are great for a complete and neutral eyelook. The MAX eyeshadows are the cheapest in the bunch and they actually have some great pay off, despite costing me only a few euros per palette at a local discount store.

Drugstore 2: Bourjois Or Baroque, Bourjois Vert Trendy, Sephora Pin Up Show, Sephora Cocktail Show, The Body Shop Shimmer Cube in Green Light, The Body Shop Shimmer Cube in Chocolate Box

The Bourjois trios are some very handy trios to use. I don’t use green or gold all that often, but when I do these are pretty much the colors I go for. I love how the gold colors have this antiqued look to them. The gold one is also pretty rare: I only saw this one once at a Sephora and I have never seen the same one since. The Sephora shadows are nice too, but my favorite one of the two is Pin Up Show, especially that burgundy color is gorgeous. The Body Shop Shimmer Cubes are very nice too, but very shimmery (duh!) so I wouldn’t use these colors for a complete eyelook, but the shimmery turquoise and bronzy brown colors are some of my favorites.

High end 1: Benefit Smokin’ Eyes palette, Make Up Designory palette, Inglot Freedom System palette

This picture features some of my favorite shadows as well! The Benefit kit is my go to palette for traveling. It’s so handy and great for a quick smokey eye look. The Make Up Designory quad doesn’t have a name, but I did buy it as such. It was part of a special Valentine’s Day kit which included a make up bag and a lipstick. The Inglot palette is quite brilliant. I definitely want more of this! The colors are great and because you can decide on your own colors you can do whatever you like.

High end 2: Dior 5 Couleurs in Midnight Butterfly, Graphic Lights, and Twilight and a mini in Élégante

There was a time, before I discovered MAC, Inglot and other make up brands that these were my favorite eyeshadows. They don’t look all that used on this picture, but trust me these have been through quite a bit. I love Dior eyeshadow. They feel a bit chalky at times, but that was perfect as I used these without a primeIr most of the time and they would stay put for a long time even without a primer. The pigmentation is great and the colors are fun. I believe all of these have been discontinued by now. Graphic Lights has been for sure as that was a limited edition from a summer collection.

What’s your favorite small eyeshadow palette? Mine: my M.U.D. palette, Inglot palette and Dior!

FOTD: London Rain

I wanted to make a new outfit post, but unfortunately lighting was horrible so I’m only showing you my make up today. I decided to finally use my Catrice London palette from the City collection, which I showed you in this shopping vlog a little over a month ago. I was suddenly inspired to use this palette and used all the eyeshadow colors as well as one of the blushes to create this look.

Which look? This look:

On my face:

- Garnier BB Cream

- MAC studio sculpt concealer in NW 15

- MAC Mineralized Skin Finish Natural in Medium

- Eyes & blush from Catrice London City palette

- Mascara: Maybelline One by One Waterproof in black

My camera washes out the colors so in real life it was definitely much more visible. That is why I took some close up shots so you can see the colors a bit better.

It’s mainly a greyish toned look with hints of blue and lilac. This is what I did:

I used Big Ben all over my lid and put Globe Theatre with a blending brush and put it in my crease and above. I used Hyde Park to create some more shade in my crease and place a little bit of City Hall in my outer V. I then lightly dusted Tower Bridge all over my lid. I used Piccadilly Circus as my highlight color. The blush I’m wearing is the top one: London Eye.

There you have it! Opinions please!

Make Up Collection: Blushes

I already showed you all of my lip products in a few separate posts, here, here and here. This time we’ll move up the face and it’s time for blushes. Here are the ones I have, I will indicate which ones are my favorites as we go along.

***Warning*** This post is picture heavy. I’m only posting pictures of the opened products, so you can see the different colors. To also show you what the cases look like would turn this into a 5 week series of blushes, which I find a bit too much. To give you an idea of most of the packaging: see the picture below.

General overview of all my blushes

Benefit box powders in Coralista, Dandelion & Sugarbomb

Benefit box powders in Georgio & Bella Bamba

I love love LOVE Benefit box powders. These are some of my favorite blushes. They last you a life time and the colors are amazing. From very subtle peach to in your face pink: you can go a long way with these. They are pricy though, hence I bought a few of these on Ebay. No clue whether they are genuine, most likely they are not, but they work: they are pigmented and go on as smoothly as the ones I bought at a Benefit counter, so I’m not complaining.

NYX powder blush in Angel and Taupe (top row)

NYX cream blush in Boho Chic, Tea rose and Rose Petal

Favorites: Taupe (for contouring) & Boho Chic.

Sephora blush in Romantic Rose Rose Rebelle (top)

Sephora blush in Meringue Jalouse & Framboise Attraction (middle)

Sephora blush in Abricot Plaisir & Coral Frisson (bottom)

Favorites: Abricot Plaisir & Framboise Attraction. The top two are very nice as well as they are fully matte and go on very natural.

Sleek blush in Coral & Scandalous (top row)

Sleek blush in Pan-Tao & Pomegranate (bottom row)

Sleek blushes are also amazing. They go on smoothly, aren’t that expensive, but are pigmented like there is no tomorrow. These should all be handled with care when you are as fair-skinned as me, especially the bright red one! Apparently the bright red Scandalous is a dupe for a NARS blush in Exhibit A. Two of these are limited edition (Scandalous & Pan-Tao) so they might be hard to find.

MAC powder blush in Margin (frost) & Shisheido RD 103 (top)

NARS Sex Appeal & Orgasm (bottom)

Again, two of my favorite blushes in this lot: MAC Margin & NARS Orgasm. Two very nice go to blushes. The MAC one warms up my face nicely and give it a good glow. And what can I say about Orgasm? Well, I think that this blush should be in every make up lover’s stash (or NARS Deep Throat, Sleek Rose Gold or any other dupe that is out there). This color is amazing.

NYC Color Wheel Mosaic Face Powder in Pink Cheek Glow & Catrice Tickled Pink (LE – Expect the Unexpected) (top)

Eyeko blush in My Coral Crush & Beauty UK blusher/ bronzer in BE 2074/3 (bottom)

The Body Shop Cheek Blush Shade in Golden Coral & Bourjois Blush in Rose D’Or & Rose Coup de Foudre (left, top to bottom)

The Body Shop Cheek Bloom Shade in Dune Pink & Desert Rose (right, top to bottom)

Benefit Lip & Cheek Stain Bene Tint & 2True Cheek ‘n’ Lip Tint in Blush Pink

ELF (Eyes Lips Face) All Over Color Stick in Pink Lemonade, Persimmon & Golden Peach (f.l.t.r.)

These can be used not only as blush, but also as a highlight. That’s what I use Persimmon for mostly. The other two are very nice to just take with you on the go or when you are staying somewhere for the night. At only 1 euro a piece I think these are worth having.

Maybelline Dream Touch Blush in Berry, Peach & Apricot

The replacements for the popular Dream Mousse blushes. Super pigmented and hard to work with, but they go on very smoothly. You do need a very very light hand with these.

ELF (Eyes Lips Face) Studio Line Blush in Mellow Mauve and Berry Merry

Two of my favorite blushes! I especially love Berry Merry.

ELF (Eyes Lips Face) Mineral Blush in Bliss

Q: Well, I have told you about my favorite blushes. Now I’m curious: what are yours?