Wakey, wakey! The 31-Day Nail Art Challenge Day 3: Yellow!

Yellow!  Such a divisive hue among us nail bloggers... For some, a summery, sunshiney hue that brings images of bright cocktails and ripe fruit; for others, however, it invokes images of stained nailbeds or gives us the dreaded lobster hands!  I personally like yellow nail polish (usually), though until recently, I had only one sad, lonely yellow in my collection.  I now own... wait for it... three!  Yes, three.  I only used two for this mani though!

This was a fun one!  I had a couple of ideas, but none of them were very original, and one I had already done on my blog before!  Ultimately, this is what I came up with:

Eggs and bacon!  I hope that you can tell what it is, lol.  I am a big lover of eggs, and though I rarely buy bacon due to the price and fattiness, it is indeed delicious!  For this manicure, I used a base of Revlon Colorstay Buttercup (I have green gel underneath, which is peeking out around the edges, because I failed to cover it up properly.  Womp womp.).  I painted the egg whites with China Glaze White On White, and used a large dotting tool to paint the egg yolks with Julie G Canary Islands.  I used L'Oreal Mauvelous to paint on the bacon strips, and then painted little lines on the bacon using Pure Ice En Vogue and OPI My Vampire is Buff with an ultra fine tipped nail art brush.  Finally, I used black acrylic paint to outline everything with an ultra fine tipped nail art brush, and topped the whole thing with Salon Perfect Top Coat!

If you are interested in participating, check out the image below (courtesy of Sarah at Chalkboard Nails here - thanks Sarah!)

Thanks for stopping by, and don't forget to check out the amazing work of other nail artists for today's prompt below (and add your own link)!

An InLinkz Link-up

The 31-Day Nail Art Challenge Day 2: Orange!

So here we are at day 2 of the 31-Day Nail Art Challenge, sponsored by Sarah at Chalkboard Nails!  I'm excited, as this is my first time doing this challenge.  My nail art skills have plenty of room for improvement, so I'm really psyched to learn some new techniques and improve on the methods I've tried in the past :)  Day 2's prompt is orange, so here's my attempt!

In diffused natural light

Here are the prompts for the challenge:

Visit Chalkboard Nails, the sponsor of this challenge, here!

For this mani, I did a gradient with some silver dot accents.  The polishes I used were Funky Fingers Hang Ten, Brah, Revlon Top Speed Haunted Heart, and Revlon Brilliant Strength Polish in Magnetize.  Hang Ten, Brah is a solar-reactive polish that appears neon yellow-orange indoors and coral-orange in sunlight; it also has a very subtle neon-green shimmer.

Closeup of Hang Ten, Brah indoors.  So shimmery!

Unfortunately, while the polish in the bottle is quite reactive in sunlight, that reactivity didn't translate to the nail.  I suspect this had to do with the topcoat that I used.  While it would have been neat to see this effect, I didn't really mind because I liked the gradient as it was!  Haunted Heart is a red-leaning bold orange with apple-green shimmer.  I did a sponge gradient of Haunted Heart over Hang Ten, Brah, and then made a dotted off-center cross shape using Magnetize, a classic silver chrome.  I topped the whole thing with Salon Perfect Matte Topcoat.

In sunlight

Thanks for reading, and stay tuned for day three of the challenge, yellow!!!

An InLinkz Link-up

Longwear Liquid Lipsticks Review and Comparison

One of my favorite products on the market is liquid lipstick, and I have quite a few now. They go on like a gloss but are highly pigmented, and dry to a matte finish. Their selling point is that they last for a SUPER long time, in the neighborhood of 8-16 hours. While I don't often do a bold eyeshadow look, I love a bright lip and wear it often. One of my pet peeves is the gradual (or not gradual) disappearance of lipcolor along the insides of my lips, leaving a shockingly bright ring of color on the margins. Not cute. Naturally, I wanted something that stayed a little longer than it took to put on.

Enter Obsessive Compulsive Cosmetics Lip Tar in NSFW.

This was my first liquid lipstick; I wore it once. I tried to wear it other times, but this stuff is a hot mess. I HATE it. Application is tricky, as it is very liquidy (like paint) and stains on contact. Even though removal of the gunk itself is easy, it leaves color behind. It comes in a little squeeze tube with a tiny lip brush, which is nice in terms of hygiene, and the tube should conceivably last forever (we're ignoring expiration dates here) because the amount you need to cover your lips is infinitesimally small... like the head of a pin, and I'm not exaggerating. Once you get it applied and presumably apply concealer to the entire area adjacent to your mouth, it takes an eternity to dry... like, a half hour. During this time, it transfers to everything between you and the nearest metropolitan area. Don't even think about eating, drinking, putting on or taking off clothes, kissing someone, etc. during this time. Your teeth WILL have lip tar on them; accept it and move on. It also bleeds like an SOB, and ends up covering a larger area than originally intended. It smears easily the entire time it is on (even once it has "set"), and continues to stain. Every time I wore it, I ended up with smears on my cheeks and chin, and fading at the center of my lips.  I really, really, really don't get the cult following behind this product. It costs $18 for 0.33 oz, putting it at $54.54/oz.

Pictured:  An OCC Lip Tar evangelist in NSFW
http://i246.photobucket.com/albums/gg112/rabbitwolf/cartoons%20non-anime/tumblr_lyf7q4ygfb1r05ly0.gif

 OCC Lip Tar in NSFW is the first swatch below:

Pictured from left to right:  OCC Lip Tar in NSFW, Wet 'n' Wild Megalast Liquid Lipstick in , Wet 'n' Wild Megalast Liquid Lipstick in , Revlon Colorstay Ultimate Liquid Lipstick in Royal Raisin, Revlon Colorstay Ultimate Liquid Lipstick in Vigorous Violet, Stila Stay All Day Liquid Lipstick in Tesoro.

As you can see, it's still very wet, even though these had been on my skin for nearly 15 minutes.  If you look closer, it has already bled a lot:

By the time it was "dry," it was covering nearly twice the width it was when I applied it.  The only good thing about this product is that it smells like vanilla.

Next up is Wet 'n' Wild Megalast Liquid Lipstick in Cherry on Top and Back to the Fuchsia (ha!).  I wasn't expecting a lot from this at a cost of $2.99 for 0.23 oz ($13.00/oz), but I should have known not to judge a product on price alone.  These come in a classic lip gloss container with a wand applicator.  This is not ideal in terms of hygeine, but at that pricepoint I'm willing to let it slide.  The wand applicator is larger, flatter, and more flexible than the wands in the other products of this type, resulting in the second-most difficult application (OCC Lip Tar takes first).  It dries quickly to a waxy matte finish, and doesn't feel rubbery or sticky when dry like the other products I tried.  It is a bit drying, but I have come to expect this from a product that boasts 12+ hours of wear.  It is nearly impossible to remove without an oil-based makeup remover, but a dab of baby oil on a cotton swab took care of it very easily.  This stuff wore like iron and was the most comfortable of all of the products on my lips.  Cherry on Top is a bold blue-based red with a hint of subtle, grown-up shimmer.  It leans just a hair pinker than OCC NSFW.  Back to the Fuchsia is a bright matte pink. Here it is on my lips:

 And again:

These were a bit hard to photograph; the color in real life most closely resembles the swatch on my arm (above). I love these, and I think they'll be getting a lot of use.

I was in Laramie, Wyoming a few months ago for a job interview and found myself bored during the down time between my interview and my flight out.  There's very little to do in Laramie at a moment's notice (save for drinking at the Buckhorn... but I was alone and didn't feel particularly like I needed to drown my sorrows at the time).  Long story short, I wound up at Kmart, where I got two tubes of Revlon Colorstay Ultimate Liquid Lipstick for half price (bright lips aren't a big trend in Laramie I guess...).  These have a consistency similar to lipgloss on application, but more pigmented.  They dry down to a matte, slightly shimmery finish that fees a bit rubbery and sticky on the lips.  Application is a bit difficult, as these are more sheer than the others (as you can see above in the arm swatches).  On the plus side, it is easy to build up intensity on these; they layer nicely without affecting wear.  I didn't particularly like Royal Raisin on me; it was more of a brown red than I thought when I bought it.  It's a very '90s look, which isn't really my aesthetic.  Vigorous Violet is much more my style; it's a pinky purple with a little shimmer (but not *too* much shimmer.  I'm an adult).  Here it is on my lips at two intensity levels:

Revlon Colorstay Ultimate Liquid Lipstick in Vigorous Violet- one coat
It actually translates a bit more purple in real life, but this is definitely something you could wear to work, even in a conservative office environment.

Revlon Colorstay Ultimate Liquid Lipstick in Vigorous Violet- two coats
As before, the color is truest in the arm swatch at the top of the post, but it's definitely more purple than pink.  You will get "whoa" reactions if you work in most traditional environments.  This look is definitely NOT office appropriate in most office environments.

The wear on these was very good; I actually had to work to get all of it off, but it did stain a little.  One thing that I did like about these is that Chapstick didn't seem to affect the wear time.  This is a bonus because I find that this type of lip product does tend to dry out my lips a bit.  These retail for $10.99 for 0.1 oz, which rings in at $109 per ounce -- nearly twice the cost of the OCC Lip Tar.
Last but not least, I picked up Stila Stay All Day Liquid Lipstick online because I was looking for a bright red to replace the disaster that was the OCC Lip Tar.  Tesoro is not a bright red, but I actually love the color; it's a bright orange with a hint of coral that's actually super, super wearable.  The formula is creamy and smells like vanilla.  It is the easiest to apply of the ones I tried, and seems to balance the drying time between "too fast to correct mistakes" and "oh my god when can I move my lips again."  On the lips, it feels a bit drying and rubbery.  It comes in a tube with a wand applicator as do all of the others I swatched, with the exception of the OCC Lip Tar.  It's very opaque, but the wear time is not as good as either the Revlon or the Wet 'n' Wild.  I reapplied it after lunch because it was fading slightly in the center, and putting on a second layer made it clumpy and weird.  It was kind of annoying, because I had to remove it completely before I could reapply.  It took a little elbow grease (and public bathroom foam handsoap) to remove all vestiges of orange from my mouth and surrounding area after laying waste to my lips with a paper towel.  At $22 for 0.1 oz ($220 per ounce) this was twice the price of the next most expensive product I tried.  I won't be buying another one, but I will definitely use up my tube of Tesoro because the color is sublime.  It leans a bit more orange in real life (like the arm swatch above), but you can see how opaque it is:

When I was all done doing my swatches and taking pictures for this post, I left the swatches on my arm for a couple of hours before trying to remove them.  I took a dry cotton swab and wiped it across the swatches to remove them.  Originally I wasn't intending to put this in the post, but the result was so dramatic that I had to include it:

Pictured from left to right:   Small smear, OCC Lip Tar in NSFW, Wet 'n' Wild Megalast Liquid Lipstick in , Wet 'n' Wild Megalast Liquid Lipstick in , Revlon Colorstay Ultimate Liquid Lipstick in Royal Raisin, Revlon Colorstay Ultimate Liquid Lipstick in Vigorous Violet, Stila Stay All Day Liquid Lipstick in Tesoro.

Uhhh... Holy shit.  Like I said before, the Wet 'n' Wild is easy to remove with an oil-based makeup remover, but in terms of mechanical scrubbing, it's practically impervious.  Even pressing down my finger and rubbing it back and forth over this stuff, it doesn't budge.  The same could NOT be said for any of the other products.  These run more than eight times cheaper than the next cheapest product I tried, and nearly seventeen times cheaper than the most expensive.  It's a little bit ridiculous.  Even if it were at the highest pricepoint, it's still the one I'd buy because it is that much better.  I think the takeaway here is that price isn't necessarily correlated with quality.  I'll definitely pick a couple more of these up next time I'm at the drugstore.