Color Club Almost Famous Swatch and Review

~purchased by me~


I bought this in a set from either Marshalls or TJMaxx a few years back, can't remember which store exactly. They had the entire poptastic collection for $9. Crazy! I snatched it up even though I wasn't a really into creams at the time and I am so glad I did! This is probably my most used collection for nail art and the like. Today I have Almost Famous for review. Here's what I used!

Almost Famous is an bright yellow neon cream. As to be expected with Color Club, the formula is fantastic. I used three here but you can probably get away with two.

I wished that we had Rite-Aids where I lived so I can have easy access to this brand but alas, it is not meant to be. For a little while I thought that Sally's Beauty Supply was going to start carrying the brand but that was only a few select shades over the christmas holiday. Oh well, it's for the better; if I had easy access to it that would mean I would have easy access to it and I probably have enough brands tempting me as it is :)

It kind of reminds me of the powdered cheese you get in those macaroni and cheese boxes haha. I still like it though!

Though this is old you can still buy it online at several retailers. They may also have it at your discount stores like Ross, Marshalls and TJMaxx so keep an eye out! This collection is definitely worth picking up!

China Glaze Sun-Kissed Swatch and Review

~purchased by me~


For the labor day weekend my family went to go visit my sister who lives about 5 hours away from us. We basically lived in the pool for three days straight so this swatch also turned somewhat into a unintentional wear test. Here's what I used:

I applied this on the previous Thursday and I'm still wearing it 6 days later. There is a little bit of tip wear and the top coat dulled somewhat but I think for 3 days of chlorine abuse, this polish held up very well! I think it's mainly got to do with the base coat, which, unfortunately, is discontinued. I can see why people were snatching up backups while they had the chance!

Sun-kissed is a neon yellow that leans green and has subtle gold shimmer running through it. I'm wearing three coats here, no white undies. I don't know if I'm just too used to seeing bright colors on my nails now but this didn't seem all that bright to me while I was wearing it. It definitely is a yellow highlighter shade, it just didn't sear my retinas as I thought it would lol. That's probably a good thing seeing as how I managed to snap my favorite pair of sunglasses in half while in the pool :(. My bf tried to fix it for me but I told him I wasn't really feeling the harry potter look haha.

The formula on this is good; not streaky or patchy at all. A really nice yellow neon if you are looking for one!

I know this is an old polish but I believe you can still get it online from sites like headtotoebeauty.com for $3-4.

Neon Orange Comparison (think Traffic Cones!)

~purchased by me~


I like neon's an awful lot, especially in the summer. They make your skin look so tan! I ran across some Milani Neons at my dollar tree and picked up this lovely little orange shade. When I got home, I remembered that I already had some other neon oranges and so of course, comparison time!

Color Club Wham! Pow!, Milani Neon Awesome Orange and Misa Six Pack Summer. I gotta say, the Color Club and Misa have super cute names haha. I have some more really bright oranges but they are much lighter and more yellow than what you see here. These are all traffic cone orange colors.

Wham! Pow! (Thumb), Awesome Orange (I+M), Six Pack Summer (R+P) 

Holy wow, neon oranges are super hard to take pictures of! They all look really similar in these pictures but IRL, you can tell the difference between them fairly easily. The moment I put on the Color Club shade, I could tell it was way brighter than the other two. Definitely no dupe there. The Milani and Misa were a lot closer but they are still actually different with the Milani being a shade darker than the Misa. Not dupes but you don't need both. I would actually recommend the one that is the most different, the Color Club. It's the brightest with the smoothest formula. The whole Color Club collection (Poptastic) was a win. Three coats, no topcoat was used on all of these.

I thought maybe if I took a pic of them separately that you could tell the difference better, but no not really lol. You'll just have to take my word for it. You can tell that Color Club Wham! Pow! is a lot brighter so I guess that's all that really matters.

Zoya Ali Swatch and Review

~purchased by me~


I love wearing neon shades in the summer and I think one color that compliments every skin tone is a good bright pink! I actually used to not like wearing pink anything, nail polish included and I also used to not like wearing cream (creme?) nail polishes. A lot has changed since then! This is what I used:

Ali is described on the Zoya website as "Ultra-bright warm medium neon pink creme.A fluorescent shade for maximum impact." I think this description is right on! Medium neon describes it perfectly! It definitely has some sort of neon pigment in it because it dries semi matte. You can use two coats if you have shorter nails but I needed three to cover VNL.

In sun

It dries a little darker than bottle shade but it's still bright. The formula was very easy to work with, not sheer nor streaky.

Some people say that Zoya polishes chip like mad on them. The only Zoya's I have worn for more then a few days were the PixieDusts, which wear like iron since they are basically glitter bombs so I can't really comment on that. I've also heard that the reason why Zoya's don't wear well for a lot of people is because they aren't using the Zoya base and top coats in conjunction with the polishes. I don't think it's so much the brand as the ingredients that Zoya polishes seem to have a problem with. A lot of bloggers have noted that using a base or top coat with the ingredient cellulose acetate butyrate (a common ingredient in fast dry top coats) may be causing the problem. I used Seche Vite as my topcoat which contains this ingredient so I'm not really expecting fantastic wear lol.

I like this color a lot! If you are on the market for a medium neon pink shade, consider this one! Also, I'll keep you updated on the wear ;).
Zoya polishes retail for $9-$10 and can be purchased on the Zoya website or at Ulta.

Mini haul/surprise beauty steals!

~purchased by me~


So I had a mad craving for some chè đậu trắng (a vietnamese rice pudding with black eyed peas) and since I live quite a ways from chinatown (It's actually vietnamese so...viet town?) I had to make it on my own. No problem; it's easy to make! I just had to go to my local vietnamese grocery store about 15 minutes from my house to get the ingredients. So I get dressed and head up there only to find!! randomly they were closed today until next sunday T_T. Fail. Dejected, I head back home and since I took the effort to look presentable I decided to stop by Target. And lo and behold, look what I spotted!

Minted Metal (L) & Titanium Flush (R)

These were in the clearance bin for $4.88 (usually 6.99) each! It wasn't the biggest discount but it was better than what I could get for it before (at regular price and utilizing sales and coupons) so yay! I've been wanting to try these for a long while, though not these two particular shades. I actually wanted to try Liquid Gold and Cobalt Chrome but they didn't have those left. Still, I'm happy I actually managed to get some of the Color Foil line on clearance! The green is Minted Metal and the pink is Titanium Flush. They also had Rose Copper, Sterling Silver and Purple Alloy left but I wasn't really into the pale pink, already had a dupe for the silver shade (O.P.I Push And Shove) and I'm not a fan of purple. But if you are looking to get you some of these colors then get thee to Target asap! So continuing on my way home, I remembered I needed some more of the vanilla-scented trash bags that my dollar tree store carries (glamorous right) so I stopped by and....

Razzle Be Dazzle (L) & Bling Addict (R)

Woot! I found more goodies! They also had the Milani Neon shade Totally 80's but I'm not too big on chartreuse. If it was a true highlighter yellow I would have been on all over that! Isn't it strange how they put each bottle in that little cardboard packaging? Anyway, they also had several Milani polishes from their gold line and fast dry line and I also saw some Wet N Wild Wild Shine polishes. These L'Oreal Nail Lingerie nail stickers looked so cute that I had to pick them up to try but I don't have any experience with these at all so I don't really know how they apply/wear. But for a buck, how could I resist! Here's a close up of the nail stickers so you can better see the design. They are both pretty much the same thing just one is in white and the other black. 

 

If you are interested in any of these, go check out your Target clearance sections and dollar tree stores! YMMV but it's worth a shot! I'm going to start stalking my Walgreen's to see if anymore of the Color Foil shades pop up on clearance!