Fierce Black and Gold Makeup Look and Tutorial

I hope everyone is having a fun and save new year's eve. As for me, well, I'm just chilling at home and I'm already feeling tired but I wanted to post this makeup look before I pass out. I'm totally digging this look. Especially love the way I did the eyeliner. It's definitely a fun new twist to my usual eyeliner.

1.  Primed my eyes with Urban Decay Primer in Eden
2.  Applied NYX Jumbo eye pencil in Black Bean all over lids and blend
3.  On the crease, blend and soften the edge with a medium brown eyeshadow. I'm using Sultry from theBalm Nude'tude palette.
4.  I applied a shimmery gold color from the Sally Girl palette on my brow bone.
5.  I darkened the lids with a matte black eyeshadow. I'm using Serious from the Nude'tude palette.
6.  I lined my waterline with Sally Hansen Forever Stay eye pencil in deep black. I also used the same liner for tightlining.
7.  I lined my upper and lower lash line with NYX Studio Liquid Liner Extreme Gold, a metallic gold liquid liner. On the lower lash line, make sure you stop about 2/3 of the way in.
8.  I used the same gold eyeshadow that I used on my browbone and applied it over the liquid liner. It brightens it up more.
9.  With a black liquid liner, I winged my eyes but just on the outer corner of my eyes.
10. I carefully drew some dots with the gold liquid liner in the inner lower lash line and above my winged liner and extending it close to the end of my brows.
11. I filled my brows with Illamasqua cream eyeshadow Intrude and Anastasia Tinted Brow Gel Expresso
12. Added false lashes.
13. To contour my face, I use Wet N Wild Princess bronzer
14. For blush, I decided to go with MAC Stereorose
15. For my lips, I applied Urban Decay lipstick Confession and blotted my lips with a tissue, which gives my lips a plumy kind of stain. This is my favorite way to wear this lipstick.

There you have it, the finished look. Pretty simple to do, imo. I loooove the contrast of the gold with the black and the dotted eyeliner is so dope! LOL. Hope you like it!

~Happy New Year~

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I See the Rainbow! Layla Hologram Nail Polish Swatches

Flash Black with "flash", ironically.

♫ ooOoooOoooOoooo...♪ Somewhere over the rainbow, way up high, and the dreams that you dreamed of once in a lullaby...♫

Call me weird but ever come across something that makes you wanna sing? LOL. I'd like to introduce you to some holographic nail swatches and as you probably already know, it's like putting a rainbow inside a nail color. Definitely something that would excite me and make me wanna sing. By the way, while you're looking at the swatches, why not check out the music video as well to get you in the groove. I love this version of the song. It makes me wanna hula dance too. Don't mind the husky-looking guy there, he does have a beautiful voice.

Anyhoo...being that we are in winter, there's been hardly any sunshine here in Wisconsin. It always looks murky and gloomy outside, which makes it hard for the rainbow to come through. So I regret to say that I was not able to take pictures under the sun light, which I think is where all the glory of these polishes really shine.

The best shots that I was able to get was with my camera flash and indoor artificial light. Otherwise, I also took some with natural indoor light (right by the window) and I was also pleased that the holographicness of these polishes are still noticeable.

Flash Black with artificial light

Flash Black with natural indoor light

Flash Black with natural indoor light

Flash Black - dark charcoal holographic grey. 2 coats on the swatches.
Jade Groove - light sage holographic. 2 coats on the swatches.
Mercury Twilight - silver holographic. 3 coats on the swatches. Honestly, Jade Groove and Mercury Twilight are very close in color. The difference is so subtle that if you had one, you really don't need the other.
Ocean Rush - bright blue holographic. 3 coats on the swatches.
Mermaid Spell - light blue holographic. 3 coats on the swatches.

Jade Groove with flash

Jade Groove with artificial light

Jade Groove with indoor natural light

Jade Groove with indoor natural light

Mercury Twilight with flash

Mercury Twilight with artificial light

Mercury Twilight with indoor natural light

Mercury Twilight with indoor natural light

Ocean Rush with flash

Ocean Rush with artificial light

Ocean Rush with natural indoor light

Ocean Rush with natural indoor light

Mermaid Spell with flash

Mermaid Spell with artificial light

Mermaid Spell with natural indoor light

Mermaid Spell with natural indoor light

As far as formula goes, I must say that these holographic polishes are finicky to work with. When I did two coats, I was still able to see some uneven patches, so that is why I did some of them with 3 coats and even with 3 coats, there is some uneveness but it's not that noticeable. They do dry really quickly, which I like.

I wore Ocean Rush the other day and when I tried it over a base coat, OMG, it had like a freak reaction. The polish streaked and separated. It was really weird! It was almost like turning it into a crackle nail polish, lol.

I definitely recommend that you buff and smooth your nail ridges before applying these polishes. It makes the application smoother. Skip the base coat and top coat because these polishes just don't like them and act all retarded with them. 

It's no denial that these polishes are beautiful and the rainbows are mesmerizing. The holos are very strong, especially when you have a good amount of light that reflects on them. 

The cons: finicky application and formula, price, lasting power, and availability. These chip really easily, especially if you are a bit rough with your nails.

I was able to snag these on Hautelook for almost half the price but you can expect to pay about $15 for these polishes, depending where you buy them. I don't know any store that you can get them from but there are a few online retailers that sells them, including Amazon and Ebay.

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Clever & Cheap Nail Polish Organizing Idea

As you probably noticed, I have a few hundred nail polishes, lol...JK, I actually didn't keep a count but let's just say I have a lot. This isn't my idea to begin with but I saw another blogger, Jasmine @ Green Eyed Monster, post about this idea and I really wanted to give it a try.

So if you keep your nail polishes, in a box, like how I keep most of mine, you know that it can be a bit of an inconvenience to look for the shade that you had in mind. This is a simple and clever organizing solution. Though, I must admit the process may be long if you have a lot of nail polishes to organize.

What you'll need:

• Labels. I am using here file folder labels, the peel and stick kind.
• Hole puncher. Initially, I purchased the small heart-shaped hole puncher from Michaels thinking it should be good enough. Well, after I got done with a few of them, I felt like I needed a bigger heart so I went back to Michaels again to get a hole puncher with a bigger heart. I printed off from their website a 50% off coupon so I was able to get them both for like $3-4 each.

So basically, what you do is paint your nail polish on the labels, like so. Wait for your nail polishes to dry. Then, use your hole puncher and punch it. Peel and stick to the cap of your nail polish. 

I wasn't completely pleased with the small hearts cause they were itsy bitsy small but they're cute. I like the big heart cause you can see more of the color but some of my nail polishes comes with smaller caps so the big heart is a bit too big for it.

My dilemma with the big heart is that they don't wanna lay flat. They tend to curve a bit and if the surface of the nail polish cap is embossed or curved, forget it, it doesn't stick very well. I'm debating if I should use some glue to keep the heart sticker in place.

So as you can see, now I can glance over my stash and get a pretty good idea about the color of the nail polish I'm looking at without having to pull it out. If you want to save yourself a few bucks for this project, you don't have to use a heart-shaped hole puncher but you can just cut the label in a square shape.

How do you organize your nail polishes?

New Year's Eve Makeup Look & Tutorial - Metallic Rainbow

Hello Beautifuls,

I'm so excited to share with you this look because it is very different from the looks I've done before and I am also including step-by-step pictures so you can try to recreate this look if you wish.
Originally, I wasn't planning on using these colors and what I had envisioned in my head was flipping amazing but a few nights ago, when I tried to bring my vision to life and it didn't quite turn out like how I wanted it. It could be because I didn't have the right material...surprisingly.

Anyhoo, I decided to use different colors and I'm now pretty happy about how it turned out. Believe it or not, it is actually really easy to do! One of the easiest look I've done.

1. Primed my eyes with UDPP on my eyes and extending the application to my hair line.
2.  I first applied the gold color from Sally Girl trio palette. I actually mixed the two gold together.
3. Then from the Sally Girl Shimmer Strip palette, I used the the reddish copper color.
4.  I used "sexy" eyeshadow from theBalm Nude'tude palette to slightly give more dimension to the outer corner of my eyes.
5. The next eyeshadow color I used is Silver Spoon, from the Too Faced Eye Love palette. Make sure you blend the three colors so that there isn't any harsh edges. I used slightly fluffier brushes to apply these three colors.
6. I lined my eyes with Physicians Formula Eyebooster Ultra black and created a slightly more elongated and thick winged liner.
7. I used Blackout from Urban Decay Naked 2 Palette over the winged liner that I traced and made my liner thicker and softer around the edges. I also smudged Blackout on the lower lash line and blended a tiny bit of it into the outer V.
8. With Sally Hansen Forever Stay eye pencil in deep black, I applied it on the waterline and tightline.
9. I used a shimmery white eyeshadow just a bit on the inner corner of the lower lash line to brighten up that area since I feel that the silver color was looking a bit flat.
10. I filled my brows with Milani Easybrow dark brown and Anastasia Tinted Brow Gel Expresso. I made my brows darker than usual for this look.
11. I finished up the look with false lashes from NYX.
 

For the lips, I'm actually not wearing lipstick. I first exfoliated my lips and then moisturized with lip balm. I used a light application of NYX Jumbo eye pencil French Fries to outline my lips and blend inward. Then I used the gold shimmer from the Sally Girl palette and applied it all over my lips.

For the cheeks I used Tarte Amazonian Clay blush in the shade Blissful and I contoured my face with Sally Hansen Luminous Matte Powder Deep.

I am absolutely loving the rainbow effect and I think this technique is so easy anyone can do it. This is a look that I think stand out cause it's edgy, metallic, different...Almost have a futuristic appeal to it.

I hope you found the picture tutorial helpful cause it sure took me a while to put together.

Thanks for stopping by and let me know what you plan on wearing on your face for New Year's Eve.

Icing So Fierce Swatches

Hello Ladies and Gents,

I haven't really been around much mainly cause work has been pretty draining lately. I want to apologize in advance if it takes me longer to reply. All I have sitting in my "to be posted" are just a few nail polish swatches. I'm working on 2 projects for my blog and I'm really hoping to post them tomorrow so that I'm not constantly spamming you with nail swatches, lol.

Ahh Woudn't you agree that this polish is so gorgeous!? I picked this up on the clearance section of Icing's store and I was a little worried at first because the color looks so thick in the bottle. I still decided to take a chance and bought it. This is a fuchsia jelly base packed with gold/orange, blue, green, and purple glitters.
The formula was very thick and uneven. It didn't feel like nail polish. It felt like jello, lol. It's quite opaque in two coats so you do get a chance to even out the application on the second coat. It won't be perfect but close enough. I'm really loving it in spite of the not so great formula and application. I think it was worth the effort.

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