Burt’s Bees Lemon Butter Cuticle Cream

This I a pretty famous product, but for some reason I bough it not long ago. And I love it! It comes on this nice tin container, that is easy to open even with wet/slippery hands, yet it is safe to throw in your purse, it closes securely.

The cream is very thick, so you need just a little bit. It is 100% natural and smells soooo good- real sour lemon flavor. The butter is easy to apply throughout the day, as it isn’t too greasy, and I find it very moisturizing. I do a lot of housework, and my cuticles can look dreadful. I can see real improvements with this cream. It works so much better and is so much easier to use than oil.

I’m wearing one coat of Sensationail’s Pink Chiffon SOG here.

Gelish Rendezvous Swatch

I’ve been postponing sharing the swatches of Gelish’s Rendezvous for a long time, mostly because it is so difficult to photograph! It is one of my favorite colors- sort of a cool toned dark raspberry color. None of the photos does this color justice!

I won’t go into details about the quality of this gel and about how it applies, because I ordered mine through Amazon, and am pretty sure the seller messed with the formula adding some sort of thinner, making the gel smell and act funny. I’ve been using original Gelish for base and top coat for months now, and am very happy with it, so just watch out for those questionable sellers.

So here we go- the pictures! The gel looks darker in real life, and is really pretty.

Gelish Rendezvous indirect daylight

Gelish Rendezvous

 

Gelish Rendezvous

Gelish Rendezvous

Gelish Rendezvous

Sensationail Pink Chiffon

Sensationail Pink Chiffon, 2 layers, Daylight

I got this SOG as part of their Starter Kit. I do like the color- it is great for natural-looking french, and base/top is very glossy, but it is not my favorite gel polish. I feel like it is very prone to lifting off and peeling, and it is quite annoying given I am very careful about applying polish to perfectly dry, degreased nail, and not getting any polish on cuticles. Another thing I don’t like is application. Sensationail has base and top as a 2 in 1 product, and it is very thin, so you have to be very careful when applying not to get any on cuticles.

The color is nice if you like semi-sheer light polishes, but it is not easy to apply, it is a bit streaky, so it does take time to even out the coverage. On the pictures I have 2 layers, and I like that look. 3 Layers is similar, nail’s free end is still visible. If you want a full coverage, you’d need at least 4 layers.

Sensationail Pink Chiffon. 2 layers, daylight

 

Sensationail Pink Chiffon, 2 layers

EzFlow TruGel in Patina. Many Pictures!

I have been incredibly busy with a bunch of things at work and outside work, so never even got to share some new swatches! You are about to see one of my most recent buys- EzFlow’s TruGel in Patina. I really like EzFlow’s soak-off gel polishes for a number of reasons- they are super affordable (you can get a bottle for 7-8$ on Amazon), they are great quality, easy to apply, last really well through any troubles you might face.

EzFlow in Patina is a very beautiful color, pictures don’t do it justice. It is a very deep, almost black, mauve/brownish color, the color of dried blood, with golden and subtly multi toned shimmer. The brush is great and easy to use, 2 coats give a full, even coverage, as can be seen in pictures.

For this manicure I’ve used Gelish primer, Gelish base, EzFlow TruGel in Patina, Gelish top coat, and Sensationail LED lamp. Curing time 30 sec for base and top coat, and 1 minute for color polish. I suspect, all those brands might cure faster, but it is easier to do it this way with Sensationail LED lamp’s timer.

Photo taken with flash to show the shimmer better:

EzFlow TruGel Patina under flash

In daylight.

EzFlow TruGel Patina in daylight

daylight

And one photo in artificial light. Trying to show the gorgeous shimmer that you can see under bright light or sunlight, but it is not nearly as impressive as in real life.

Patina in artificial light

Stay tuned to see more great swatches. I plan the next one to be IBD’s Peridot- a rare one!

IBD Just Gel Burning Flame Swatch and Review

Summer heat is upon us, and I was craving for a bright, orangey color for my nails. After doing a lot of searching online I, I ordered IBD’s Just Gel Burning Flame. It’s a great juicy gel with no shimmer or glitter in it. I’ve had it on my hands for a week so far, and don’t have any chipping or peeling.

bright sunlight

The color reminds me of bright red geraniums or poppies. Very vibrant, glossy, and fresh. The shade seems to change a bit under different light.

MORE PICTURES!

Gel Nailpolish

Here I am again after a long period of silence, and I want to share one of my recent discoveries. My friend has told me about at-home gel manicures, and how they’ve made her life easier. I have heard about this type of long lasting manicures before, but have always felt skeptical, and always felt like there were too many reasons not to try them starting with fast growing nails and ending with higher price. My lovely friend has been so happy with the results she got, that I just had to try this miracle manicure, and I’m extremely happy I did. I plan to do several blog entries with my experiences, step by step instructions, and useful tips.

After doing some research online I’ve decided to get myself an LED lamp. Those tend to be more expensive initially, but are supposed to last longer, since they don’t require bulb replacements, and they cure gel polish faster. There are many great reviews of Nailene’s Sensationail starter kit online, and that is the one I started with. It is sold in many drugstores and supermarkets, I got mine in Pink Chiffon at CVS for $50. The kit is very basic, but comes with everything you would need to do a manicure. All the bottles are very tiny, they claim there is enough product for 10 manicures, which is possible, since you don’t use much per manicure.

That’s what you get in a kit: cleaning liquid, primer, bast/top coat, color gel, nail file, lint free wipes, orangewood stick (not on the picture), and 7W LED lamp.

You can certainly choose from the huge variety of lamps sold in salon supply stores and online, and many brands (like Harmony’s Gelish) claim that not all LED lamps are created the same, but I find that this particular lamp does the job just fine, and cures different brands of LED-curable gels (EzFlow, ibd, Gelish) perfectly well.

The manicure really does last 2+ weeks without chipping or peeling if you do everything right. Actually even if you don’t do everything 100% right (I messed up a bit doing my first gel mani), it still lasts, or you can easily fix the problem. And yes, your manicure stays glossy, unscratched, with perfect free edge. The mistake I made the very first time was getting some polish on my skin and cuticles, so after about a week the gel started lifting off a bit by cuticles. I gently removed the part that has lifted, filed that area (just polish) lightly, wiped the entire nail with the lint free cloth soaked in nail-prep liquid, let it evaporate, applied a layer of gel color, cured, added a layer of top coat and cured again. Boom! Evened out the grown out nails, fixed the lifting problem, and got another week out of the manicure. Could probably wear it longer, but really wanted to try new polishes I got from Amazon.

This is Sensationail in Pink Chiffon. The color is opaque, and you’d need at least 2 layers to get even color. I’m not crazy about the shade, it looks a bit platic-y, and it takes a lot of effort to get even coats, so I think in the future I will stay away from Nailene’s polishes, and will be buying ibd and EzFlow, which are much easier to apply, plus you get a bottle that is double the size, and pay half of what you’d pay for a Sensationail color. But that’s just my experience, some seem to like Sensationail gel polishes, and it is very likely that other colors are easier to apply.

Either way, soak-off gel manicures are definitely worth trying! Especially if you have a busy lifestyle, hate chipped nailpolish, and do a lot of housework. I do a lot of housework, and generally am very tough on my nails, so regular polish never looked perfect for more than 2-3 days, and this baby is as good as new forever!

I will do separate step by step posts on dealing with growing out nails, removal of gel polish, and on how I do my manicure, so stay tuned!

Spoiled Bite Me Review

I have posted a couple of swatches of Spoiled before here ( https://elizzabethby.wordpress.com/2012/09/26/spoiled-nail-polish-review/ ), and here is another shade called Bite Me. It’s a nice dark burgundy color, almost black.

I still have a bit of mixed feelings about these polishes. Wile I really love the superb staying power- they somehow survive all my cleaning, washing, and using my nails as various tools. Seriously remarkable, I kid you not. And while their extremely slow drying can be overcome with speed dry topcoat (both Seche Vite and Sally Hansen do great), there is a very big annoying problem. That problem is the brush. It is very big, fully, and not always neatly shaped, which makes it very difficult to cover the nails evenly, and even more so to get closer to cuticles for perfect manicure. Hence, very big gaps between my cuticles and colored part, and nail polish here and there on the skin, and I can’t stand when that happens. Sure, I could just use another, smaller, brush, but it seems like too much trouble.

Really good polish for $1.99, really bad brush. Dear Wet’n’Wild, fix the brush, will ya?

Favorite Mascara. L’Oreal Voluminous in Carbon Black.

There are so many mascaras out there these days, so many ads in magazines and on TV selling “spectacular lashes”. And with all the variety come many disappointments and less cash. I don’t have much loyalty as a consumer of beauty products, I’ve tried lots of mascaras – really cheap, and really expensive, and haven’t found anything better than L’Oreal Voluminous. At the 6-7$ price tag, you can get the lashes of your dreams: full, long, and soft. This one is worth every penny!

It comes in several varieties, offering slightly different shades, brushes and formulas. My favorite one is L’Oreal Voluminous Carbon Black, and I like the one with the curved bush too. By now I have actually combined them- I use well washed and dried curved brush with Carbon Black mascara.

This mascara doesn’t smudge or flake throughout long workdays and party nights, and it is fairly easy to remove. Open tube will last you a couple of months without changes in quality, which is pretty good.

For best results I zig-zag the brush at the base of lashes, run the brush through lashes, and then add more coats for more drama without waiting for mascara to dry. Never felt the need for additional brushing, separation or curling. And the intense color is a huge bonus for me.

Here is what my lashes look like with this mascara. The photos aren’t great, but show the lashes well enough.

 

  and my lashes without any mascara- quite plain 

Mascara with curved brush replacement 🙂

Spoiled Nail Polish Review

I’ve bought several bottles of “Spoiled” nail polish recently. I really like the colors that they have- really pretty and unique. And as a very pleasant bonus- the price is great- $1.99 for a nice big bottle in CVS. Thanks Wet’n’Wild!

I have it in 4 different colors, so far I tried 3 of them, and am very happy with the quality. The ones that have some frost win them last really well. The only downside is that the polish dries really slow, which is not an issue if you use speed dry top coat (I tried it with Sally Hansen’s Speed Shine topcoat and Seche Vite top coat- both worked like a charm). Basically this slow drying helps the nail polish last longer, because unlike many fast-drying polishes, it is more “rubbery” (can’t think of a better word :)), so it doesn’t chip.

Here is Black Mamba I’m wearing today:

 

 

The Parking Meteor Expired- nice deep green (almost black) color with a tiny bit of purple:

 

Paying With Platinum- it’s kind of a chameleon, so the color looks different from different angles:

Lashes

It’s been a pretty intense week for me so far, not a lot of time for blogging. So I’ll just do a brief post/review today.
I got this lash serum about a month an a half ago through amazon, and I’m ready for the verdict now.
This is the product in question:

And I actually like it. First of all it is super affordable- I got 3 tubes on amazon, and it was well under 10$ (delivery and tax included). Secondly, it does work. I don’t really believe in drastic changes in hair growth because of a product unless this product requires prescription or has noticeable side effects. But with all that, I believe that a product can help protect hair and prevent hair to fall out too soon.
Anyway, after a month and a half of use (morning and evening), I am still in my first tube, my lashes seem a little longer and fuller to me, note, there is no change in color- this is not latisse. First week or two I had more lashes falling out, but that is not happening anymore.
This gel goes on clear, smells very nice (super light scent), is great as a mascara primer- just make sure it dries on lashes a bit before applying mascara.
Here is how my lashes look now with mascara. Yeah, I know, the photo is not very good, but still…