Zoya Binx Swatch and Review

~purchased by me~


I like the Zoya brand a lot. They have nice colors, do a lot of promotions, their bottles are nicely shaped, they don't have long names and their formulas are 5 free and usually excellent. They recently had a nice promotion that I didn't partake in but the promo they had before that was really good and I couldn't pass it up. Buy any three Zoya polishes and just pay the shipping price of $12. What a steal! I had a hard time deciding but after looking at some swatches I decided on Cosmo, Binx and Stassi. Today I'm showing you my swatches of Binx. This is what I used!

Now. As you may or may not know, I'm not big on purple and this is described as "a spicy orchid purple dappled with gold metallic and holo sparkles. The exclusive liquid-metal holographic jelly formula is full-coverage in 2 coats. With undertones evenly balanced between red & blue, this shade is flattering to most skin tones." via the Zoya website. So you may be wondering why I chose this particular shade. Well, I saw a swatch of it on Pretty Girl Science and it looked so beautis. This might be true on her but on me, well...

I really don't like this color on me.

Nope.

Not better. 

No matter how I twiddle my fingers, I simply did not like this on me at all. As soon as I put it on I thought to myself . . . this is a color my mother would wear. And not in a good way either. Formula was fine, you can get away with 2 coats even on long nails; it will just be a softer pink color. At three coats the nails match the bottle shade. And at three coats, I wanted to take it off. I don't like this at all. With my skin tone, this color may even be SFW. I think it looks really good on skin tones paler than mine or if you like the color purple but on me it was so dull and blah looking T_T. The polish itself is pretty but it's just not my style and I think it hates me as much as I hate it haha. Maybe I'll try to mattify it and see if it's any better. Now I regret not getting the Magical PixieDust shade Bar in it's place. Next time!
Zoya polishes can be bought at Ulta or the Zoya website. They retail for $9-$10 but often run promos.


**UPDATE**
So I tried to mattify it. It looks better but still not that great on me. I used Warpaint Beauty Matte topcoat (You can get it at hot topic). I'll have to try to layer it over a different color next time.

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!

Milani Golden Romance Swatch

~purchased by me~

When the Maybelline Brocades collection came out a LONG time ago I wasn't initially impressed, but as time went on and more and more swatches came out I developed a deep lemming for the shade Gilded Rose. Unfortunately for me, the brocades collection never came to my stores. Any of them. And then, as if the nail polish gods had heard my prayers, Maybelline decided to make Gilded Rose core. I immediately ran to the drugstore, in search of the elusive shiny but alas, no luck. The store I went to hadn't updated their Color Show shelf yet and there was simply no shiny to be had. So I wandered around the CVS, a bit dejected when my eyes landed on what looked like the aforementioned shade in a very different bottle.

What was this sorcery? I hadn't even heard anything about this polish at all among the nail bloggers I follow, though its assumed Maybelline twin had made quite a big splash. Surely it wasn't a dupe? I had to find out.

So pretty that I couldn't wait for daylight before snapping a pic!

ooh, shiny. Even better the next morning

It sure looked like it. I did a quick google image search at home and it looked like an exact dupe for the Maybelline Gilded Rose! And it only cost me $1.99!

This was opaque in 2 coats and dried quickly. I'm not one for sheer polish but even at one coat, where you could still see VNL, I loved it. It's extremely reflective; so much so that you can even see yourself in it. Pictures do it no justice; this is one that you have got to see in real life. For a polish that is so glitter/particle heavy, it dried smooth. I only used one coat of topcoat (Seche Vite) and it was perfect! Formula win!

In case you didn't know, Milani is clearancing out this line currently at most if not all drugstores. In fact, you can get this polish on the Milani website for only $1.99! Score! It's gorgeously shiny in the sun as well.

So shiny apparently, that it attracts big black nasty bugs :(

I didn't notice it until I was editing the picture!

The one chief complaint I heard about the Maybelline Brocades was that they were notorious for chipping something fierce. I worried about that being a problem in this polish since they both look like they are made of the same material but my worries were unfounded ^_^ This polish wore like iron for me, lasting 5 days without chips. Ignore the strange line of my middle finger. I think it's just a reflection because I definitely don't see it on my nails now.

5 days and going strong!

Most impressive, no? Even more remarkable was the fact that I didn't wear my usual Orly Bonder as base coat for this polish. I had a scary bendy moment with my pinky nail so I wore Sally Hansen Hard As Nails Hardener (which I highly recommend) as my base. Grand verdict: if you don't have this yet or have problems with chipping for Gilded Rose, consider getting this! It's achingly beautiful, cheap as all heck and wears very well. You might still be able to catch it on clearance at the drugstore or you can buy it direct from the site. Go get this bug attracting polish today!

Zoya Flash Sale ends today!

I spotted this on Zoya's twitter :

ZOYA Nail Polish @ZoyaNailPolish · 22h

Don't Miss This!!! Free Shipping + 8oz Remove+ Any order over $10 at http://www.zoya.com  Code: FP123 Exp: 8/5/2014

So if you are looking for a small Zoya haul, now is the time! It appears the promo is working only for orders over $10. I heard from a few people that when they ordered very early on at the start of this promotion, the code worked for orders $10 AND over but now it seems to only work at over $10 :( If it still worked at $10, I would have gotten something but I'm not in the spending mood to get 2 polishes for full price just for the sake of getting a free Zoya remove. I love their Remove +, but i'll probably pass this time around. Zoya promotions are frequent so even if you miss this one, there is always another one around the corner!

Silver Foil Comparison! Sinful Colors Heavy Metal vs Orly Shine

~purchased by me~


Ah, silver. My first love. When it comes to metallic colors anyway ;). I actually have a few silvers but these are the only ones that I thought were similar enough to compare. O.P.I This Gown Needs A Crown is a matte silver glitter, their Push and Shove shade is a chrome and Pure Ice Mercedes is too smooth to be a foil. I guess it's a chrome too? A brushstrokey, not as shiny chrome? Also Sinful Colors Charmed has tiny multi colored glitter in it. Pretty, but no dupe. Sally Hansen's Celeb City, Wet N Wild Silvivor, Zoya Trixie and Revlon Sequin probably are also dupes, (just to name a few!) but I don't own those. Nearly all brands have come out with a silver foil and they all pretty much look the same.

In sun

Indoors

I got the Orly from one of those 3 pc nail art sets that Sally's Beauty carries, that's why the bottle looks so skinny and tall lol. These Orly mini's are really nice though because they use the same brush as the original Orly's and the brush handle is nice and long. Two coats each, no topcoat.

Sinful Colors Heavy Metal (I+M) and Orly Shine (R+P)

Foils are nice and easy to wear, even if they leave flecks all over your fingers after cleanup.

Formula is the same, opacity is the same, brush is good on both. No complaints here. Solid dupes; you only need one. The Sinful Colors one is probably cheaper.

Heavy Metal is from their past Hot Flash Metallics collection so you might have trouble finding it now. I believe the Orly is core. There are a ton of dupes out there if you are looking for a good silver foil though. I know that Zoya Trixie is really popular but I never bought it since I know I already own two dupes of it. Also, I rather get new unique Zoya shades then waste my money on a dupe! Sinful Colors can be bought virtually everywhere for $1.99 retail and Orly can be bought from beauty supply stores like Sally's or Ulta for $8.00.

Shiny Gold Comparison!

~purchased by me~


Hello everyone! Hope you had a great weekend! Today, I thought I would share my stash of shiny gold polishes. I actually used to hate wearing the color gold and was a silver girl all the way. But now I've learned to accept the shiny goodness and warmth that a good gold can bring.

Sparitual Solstice, O.P.I Goldeneye, Wet N Wild The Gold & The Beautiful, Sinful Colors All About You 

I knew straight away that the Wet N Wild and Sinful Color polishes weren't going to be the same as the other two but they have the same kind of golden glitter so I thought I might as well showcase them. The Sinful Colors polish also has reddish glitter in it.

Solstice (I), Goldeneye (M), The Gold & The Beautiful (R), All About You (P)

I first got Goldeneye when I saw my cousin wear it. I was like OMG what is that?? It looks like real gold on your nails! And she told me about this polish and highly recommended it to me. I got Solstice soon after that. The other two I just picked up randomly. I'm wearing 3 coats of each for all of these but you can wear Solstice and Goldeneye at just two coats. The Gold & The Beautiful and All About You are too sheer to wear on their own unless you don't mind wearing 5 coats of polish! They are much better for layering.

Indoors, natural lighting.

Solstice is the most dense out of the three, followed by Goldeneye, The Gold & The Beautiful and All About You. IRL, Solstice and Goldeneye are really similar, with Solstice just being a tad more opaque. You can tell that the other two have the same kind of glitter in them, just in less dense quantities. Also, I think that the Sinful Colors one might have slightly larger glitter. And just if you're wondering, Zoya's Maria Luisa and NYC Top Of The Gold are made of different materials. They have more of a gold cellophane flake and yes, they are dupes of each other. For that reason, I don't have the Zoya one. Also, I think it looks terrible on it's own. I don't know how Zoya managed to get such beautiful swatches of Maria Luisa because on my nails, Top Of the Gold alone just makes my nails look dirty and yellow.

I was losing sunlight fast so this was the best I could do. Sorry.

These are really sparkly and shiny in real life. I missed my chance to catch it in strong direct sunlight so I'll have to swatch it again sometime. All four are totally worth owning, though if you could only get one, I would suggest the Sparitual one. The O.P.I one is great too, just not as opaque. I bought the Sparitual polish from 6pm.com for only $4.99 though it retails for $12.00 at places like Ulta. The O.P.I I bought online for $6 from Amazon. It's from the past James Bond collection so it's harder to find in store. The Wet N Wild and Sinful Colors are core so you can get them anywhere! They are really cheap too, at $1.99 each. Being drugstore, you can easily get them for $1 or less if you catch them on sale!

Sally Hansen Diamond Strength Brilliant Bordeaux vs Finger Paints Picasso's Puce Comparison

~purchased by me~


Continuing with the Sally Hansen Diamond Strength line, I thought I might have a dupe for another shade. Brilliant Bordeaux is a dark shimmery maroon shade. Or wine shade, if you go by the name ;)

Indoors. Really dark.

They are kind of hard to see since they are so dark. How about a pic in the sun?

Lol, not better.

These kind of shades are a really nice way of wearing a dark vampy color without it looking black. I especially like wearing maroons in the fall. Two coats for swatches, though, you can most definitely get away with wearing only one. Also, super shiny. I didn't post some other nice pics I took because you could see my reflection in them, looking super ratchet as I'm wont to do ;)

Picasso's Puce (I+M) and Brilliant Bordeaux (R+P)

Picasso's Puce has a touch more brown in it while Brilliant Bordeaux has a little more red. Both have fine red shimmer and high shine. Formula was good on both, as was the brush. I really don't like the Finger Paints bottle though. I think the shape is off-putting and I really don't like their font. It looks like its made for children...though, Finger Paints does make some really pretty, unique shades and the price is right so I'll forgive them. At least their bottles are better looking than Nicole by O.P.I.'s.

Fun Fact! Did you know "Puce" means of a dark red or purple-brown color?

They look really similar in pics but you can tell the difference in real life if you're a nit picker for color. You don't need both though. I prefer the Sally Hansen one myself since I don't like to wear brown on my nails but they are both very nice.

In sunlight they look virtually the same because of the shimmer

I'm pretty sure you can only buy Finger Paints brand at Sally's Beauty Supply. At least, that's the only place I've seen it sold. They retail for $5.49 but they often have promotions like BOGO free or BOGO 1/2 off. I think I bought my bottle on clearance for $1 or so ^_^. The Sally Hansen Diamond Strength line can be bought at drugstores for about $4.49. Of course, being a drugstore brand, that means there's plenty of sales to catch for it as well.