Entries for Tuesday September 18
BareMinerals’ Modern Pearls kit
- Manufacturer: bareMinerals/Bare Escentuals
- Availability: beginning autumn 2010 through QVC
- Contains: two eyecolors, one eyeliner, one mascara, one blush, one face powder, one lip gloss and three brushes (and a vanity box)
- Cost/Amount: USD$54
- Would you purchase again: yes
I wasn’t conscious of this collection when it first came out - I wasn’t really paying attention to the line of Honora-infused-color-kits because the first one really didn’t knock my socks off. (And with these A/D kits, you have to buy into the series or you can’t often buy just the third kit, or just the last kit.) The green color interested me, though, and so in August 2012 I bought the color off of Ebay. I am glad I didn’t get the entire kit, because I already owned most of the pieces that I wanted (the eyeliner, the eyeshadow, the mascara, and the brushes)
Alphabet Nail Challenge: P is for Pink Cosmo (by Maybelline)
I’m participating in an Alphabet Nail Challenge that I found over at Confessions of a Secret Shopper. She’s running her contest from September 1 to 26 - start between those dates, and you can add your link to the list of people taking the challenge. All you have to do is post 26 manicures, one a day, each day using a polish that begins with a different letter of the alphabet. I’m using this as an opportunity to go through my backlog of polishes (and photos still on my hard drive!!) to show off some of my newer goodies.
Pink Cosmo, from Maybelline’s Fall Fashion collection, is a nice enough color…but there’s not much duochrome, and it took five coats to get the color payoff that I did. All in all, the Maybelline Color Show polishes from this NYFW collection aren’t thrilling me (see Boho Gold, an earlier manicure done for this very same challenge.) The price point is decent, but I’m not sure that I like this quite that much. The China Glaze colors are better, even if they don’t have quite the duochrome that I would have preferred. (Watch for Swanky Silk in four days!)
Zoya’s Diva collection
- Vendor: Zoya/Art of Beauty
- Availability: beginning April 2012
- Contains: 6 shimmering nail colors
- Cost/Amount: USD$48.00
- Would you purchase again: yes
I don't know that I agree with Zoya's assertion that Elisa, Ray, Song, and Suri are "metallic micro glitters". I see a little bit of that in Song, but Suri, Ray, and Elisa look like near-metallic finishes to me. (Gorgeous colors...I just don't know that I agree with Zoya's descriptions.) FeiFei and Daul are amazing! Many people wondered how Daul would compare to Faye...Faye is a brighter candy-ish purple with gold, while Daul's purple is more of a medium violet. They're similar, but not exact. And they're different enough that you might be drawn to both, or only one but not the other.
I like the finishes on these metallic polishes because they're not true-metallics, which can sometimes look a little garish or (shudder) can show dings or brushstrokes like nobody's business. These are more like harder-edged high-shine cremes, with a bit of reflectivity but not as much of a "metallic" finish as Jingle Bells, Little Drummer Boy, or anything from the Khrome collection.
This collection contained:
- Daul — violet and gold sparkle
- Elisa — metallic medium crimson shimmer
- FeiFei — medium navy and gold sparkle
- Ray — metallic medium-dark evergreen shimmer
- Song — metallic medium navy shimmer
- Suri — metallic medium violet shimmer