A small announcement & getting ready for Lucca Comics

I had a couple of mani ideas for this week. However, they won a ticket to the "To Do Land", because I have injured my right hand's thumb. It sounds less heroic when you learn I got this wide, annoying painful cut while washing the dishes. I took a cracked glass from the water, it broke, and now I'm here with a C-shaped cut covered in hospital bandages and the inability to use my right hand for two weeks. Well, i can use my other fingers but not too much, and try grabbing things without your thumb. It's still quite painful, but hey, I can still apply nail polish. More complex nail art experiments are impossible for me now.
This is why you'll mostly see swatches of polishes in the next weeks.

The good news is, I'm definitely going to Lucca Comics! And for the first time, I'll bring a cosplay. I'll be Alyx Vance from the videogame Half-Life 2. She wears no make up in the game, even if in some stills it seems she's wearing black eye pencil, I doubt she'd be wearing anything, since the game is set in a dystopian post-apocalyptic world. I will go for a no-makeup look.

The Maybelline Fit Me foundation is the best foundation in the world, everyone else go home. I use the lightes shade, 105, and it's just perfect. I apply it only with my fingers, and it sets in perfectly, lasts all day and is just the right shade for me. You know those people that make you wonder under how many cm of foundation is their face buried? Well, you only need a thing layer of this to have a nice, even skin color. I rarely even use concealer anymore.If I need it, I brought the Essence eye primer, you know, just in case (it's quite a good concealer).
The Complexion Perfection by E.L.F. is, as you can guess from the hole, a product I've used a lot. Even if it didn't have such an awesome name (it's like a videogame weapon name), it would be a great setting powder.
The Essence Lashes go Wild mascara is pretty good, it really gives me long and impressive lashes, which is why I'm still not certain wheter I'll use it or not.
The character I cosplay has darker hair than me, so I'll have to get darker eyebrows as well. This Max Factor eyebrow pencil will do the trick, even if it's not too dark.
But what about the Neve Cosmetics lip nectar and the single eyeshadow in Watermelon? Their moment of glory has come. I'll mix them in a small Essence jar and use the final product...as hair mascara.
Alyx Vance has red strands of hair, and this will do the trick. I've already tried and it works perfectly!


And that is all for now! I'm leaving for Lucca Comics & Games on thursday, and won't be able to post anything until monday (probably). Have a nice Halloween and/or a nice weekend!

Rainbow Challenge Day 4, Green Nails

The rainbow challenge continues with this Astra Holo (n 705) I kept exactly for this occasion... a lovely forest green. A pity there has been almost no sun lately, under the light it shines very nicely.
I decided to stamp something over it with Kiko 626, and I went for some leaves... even if I did leaves last time too, the results are quite different. I haven't done stamping in a while but I really love the results, the design came out neatly.

Urban Decay Hustle nail polish

Sorry for the lack of posts! I've had some really full and tiresome days. At the end of the day I might not be too tired to apply polish, but I wouldn't give it enough time to dry.
Anyway, here's Urban Decay Hustle polish from the Naked set.
The color is a metallic brown/purple that doesn't require a topcoat to shine. Application was easy and drying time was good, shown here are three thin coats. The color really makes me think more of an eyeshadow than of a polish, and I don't even own a UD palette. It is similar to Concrete Minerals' Smut, but darker.
I thought some blue would have gone nicely with it, since light blue/brown is a color combination I love. The light blue is kiko 624. It's also amazing to hide tipwear.

A multichrome experiment

I've had this mani in my to do list for a while, so I'm happy to have it finally done.
The base is Pupa 209, and the top coats are Deborah 102 for the blue/greenish parts...and a very old L'Oréal Jet-Set polish for the orange/green ones.. It belonged to my sister, and despite being very old I never threw it away, due to its mighty duochrome powers. I kept it thinking to use it for paintings and art, but how could I resist using it on my nails? It looks like some certain high-end duochrome top coats.
It's really old (I wouldn't be surprised to find out it's 10 years old) but still works magnificently.
It has more duochrome fleckes than the Deborah one, and they're bigger overall: one coat of it was enough, while I had to apply 2 covers of the Deborah one to have a better coverage.
The silvery line is Kiko 617.

Rainbow Challenge Day 3, Yellow Nails

Or "I had no idea leaves could be so hard to draw" nails. I wanted to do something different besides the usual bees and lemons that happen at day 3, but those falling leaves didn't come out as I expected. It's still a funny mani, imho.
The base is my favourite yellow, Essence's Little Miss Sunrise, now discontinued, and the red is Orly Red Flare. Why is Essence even discontinuing that color, it is so pretty.
Sorry for the short post, I just came back from a Krav Maga lesson and my wrists and arms hurt (along with many other body parts).

OPI Don't Talk Bach To Me

As for today, I have for you something old, but lovely. I bought this for sale ( 6 euros) at Sephora: some polishes of the old Germany collection are for sale, as well as old polishes from other old collections. Don't forget to check your local store for this. And if something was signalled as available online in that shop but you can't find, ask. Ok, this seems obvious, but this way you'd get to check every bottle they may have on sale.
I found this hidden gem, a lovely chartreuse/pistachio green with micro shimmer that becomes almost invisible on the nail. I am soo in love with this color! It's actually great for autumn.
Shown here are three coats of polish.

My first order from Concrete Minerals

Sorry for the lack of posts, I've been very busy and tired lately. I'm also late on my rainbow challenge. But first...

I'm always searching for nice matte colors, especially blue and green. So when I found out the pro matte eyeshadow line on the Concrete Minerals website I knew I needed them. I searched some review and swatches, and everything seemed very promising. So I asked my sister if she wanted to join me in this order, and a friend too. We got ourselves some nice colors!

My picks were Toxic and Bulletproof of the Pro Matte line and Smut of the standard minerals line. I decided to try their standard minerals too, since I got a coupon code to get two of them for 10 dollars when becoming their friend on fb. One for me and one for my sister!

Their customer service was really good, I sent them an email on friday evening and received an answer on saturday morning, that was really quick and nice from them. As you can see from the upper photo, everything was nicely packed in order to avoid problems. There was also a card explaining how to use mineral eyeshadows, two samples and a discount on the next order. The cutest thing? The thank you note written in pink marker!

I still haven't had the time to test them all, but I can tell you this: Bulletproof is the brightest bluest eyeshadow/eyeliner you can find. I used it as an eyeliner today, simply mixing it with a drop of water and applying it with an eyeliner brush. On their website it says they blend like a dream, and you know what? it's freaking true. They're soft and easy to work with. Bulletproof did stain the upper part of the lid a bit until it was fully dried. Then it was like a tattoo. A matte, blue eyeliner tattoo. Perfect.

 Toxic is an acid green, more neon that acid perhaps, but the color I needed nonetheless.It's going to make a gorgeous cyberpunk eyeliner. Smut is the weirdst color I've ever seen: a multichrome that goes from grey to purple to brown with glitter. I can't wait to try them too!

The jars come with a plastic seal on the holes. Look at that blue, isn't that the most gorgeous blue you've ever seen? Better than the Sephora pencil, better than the Kiko eyeliner.
I am sooo pleased by this purchase.