L'Oreal Colour Riche Extraordinaire Lip Colours

Hi everyone!

I have a (forced) guest post to share today hehe. I was eyeing the L'Oreal Colour Riche Extraordinaire Lip Colours (suchhhhh a long name..I'll just call them liquid lipsticks sorry.) the other day but I couldn't bring myself to purchase so many (I'm a cheapo ok?), so when I heard my friend was buying them I made her give me the images below! haha..

I myself have Purple Prelude which I adore.. I call it a liquid lipstick because although it has a shiny gloss finish and a gloss consistency, it's highly pigmented and rich like a lipstick. 

Coverage is great but the wear time is quite short, lasting only around 2 hours before having the feeling of needing to reapply.

The liquid lipsticks have a light fruity scent which I like..might be a problem for people who don't like scents. They're not sticky, just slightly tacky. It doesn't dry out and leaves the lips still feeling plush. It has a nice consistency.. doesn't bleed into your lip lines but you have to be careful with not glopping it on or else it'll pool slightly around the edges. So remember a little goes a long way (for a short while)!

You think these are windows but they're NOT! They're LIESS :o

Hmm what else.. Oh! The colour on the outside of the packaging.. is ACTUALLY reflective of the colour inside the tube. Although it looks like it has a window to see inside, it is actually not (unlike the YSL Glossy Stains...which I LOVEEEE looking at in stores but I digress..)..

On the top is a coloured label w/ the name and number of the product (good for storage). The tube itself is a reflective gold, it's quite sleek but it's a magnet for smudges and finger prints (boo). The bottom and the side also has a representation of the colour inside, so you can pretty much store it any which way and still know what colour it is!

Are you tired of my ramblings yet? click below for the swatches! haha..

KKCenterHk N.NAIL Ethnic Geometry Stripe Butterfly Soft Stamp

A couple years back when nail stamping first hit the nail scene I was amazed and completely in awe of such an invention. I must admit though, many years later I still have not mastered the art of stamping. It can get pretty frustrating, I can't tell you how many times I've applied my base colour perfectly only to have it ruined by my many attempts to stamp the perfect image.

So I was quite curious when I first heard about soft stamping. What is soft stamping? Essentially it's the opposite of regular stamping. The image is instead formed into the soft stamper. The polish is applied directly onto the stamper and the excess polish around the image is stamped away on a flat surface leaving polish inside the groves of the image ready to be stamped onto your nail.

The soft stamp I received, N.NAIL Ethnic Geometry Stripe Butterfly Soft Stamping is 5.5cm diameter and priced at $7.79USD. The soft stamp can be removed from its shell. There are four images on this particular plate.

Image Source: KKCenterHk

Image Source:KKCenterHk

KKCenterHk has this great tutorial video:




Click to see how I fared with soft stamping...

Fancy Box: January Kelly Box

Happy (belated) Lunar New Year my readers!!! <3

Today I have a great monthly subscription box to share with your courtesy of Fancy!
Now, I am pretty used to the beauty type of subscription boxes where each month a company sends a bunch of beauty deluxe samples to my door. This is pretty much the same but it's not limited to beauty items!
I was really interested in trying out a Fancy Box subscription because I already have so much cosmetics and polishes piling up in my room but I miss the feeling of coming home to presents in my mailbox. This was a great change and I have to say I was pretty happy with what I received, colour me happy :).

Just a little info:

screenshot from fancy.com

Fancy box is a monthly subscription box priced at $39USD + s/h (they ship WORLDWIDE).
Shipping to Canada is $17, while to the USA was shown as $7.95. If you would like to know the shipping rates for your country, simply sign in and make a mock order, the prices will be shown at the checkout. This service is shipped via FedEx.
They have quite a few types of Fancy boxes to choose from. They have their original box full of goodies or food and then there are a few celebrity curated boxes (options shown below)...

screenshot from fancy.com

 ps. from my "amazing" sleuthing I also found out they will soon be having a Fancy box curated by Isaac Mizrahi (fashion designer)!!
At this time, they also have their Limited Edition Valentine's box (top left corner; $80 USD) which you can buy for someone, the items are already known, if you want to know more about this particular box, click here. There is one geared towards women and one towards men.

Fancy Box is supposed to include over $80USD worth of items, depending which type of box you choose, they are either food, living and home, technology, or just fun stuff etc. handpicked by a celebrity or the Fancy team.
Originally I wanted to try out Coco's or Tyler's but I got the Kelly, it ended up being a box I liked so yay! My reasoning was because Coco would be more beauty/fashion oriented so it won't be TOO much out of my comfort zone and Tyler because I was excited for all the fun kitchen tools to play with!
p.s. Bonus points to Fancy for collaborating with VERBAL. I LOVE HIM!!!!!!!! <3


The best part of this was I received this box TWO days after the order was put in. Now I am not sure if this is the norm for Fancy but I was pretty amazed by that. ps. double points for the box being purple! haha

Okay, enough rambling... let's look at the goods.

Sally Hansen Salon Gel Polish Blue My Mind

Today I have Sally Hansen Salon Gel Polish in Blue My Mind to share with you all. Normally gel polishes are not incorporated into my manicure routine because I change polishes so often and the gel application and removal processes take longer than with regular polish. Although, I do think gel polishes work really well for individuals who (are not crazy addicts like me that change their polishes 3-4 times a week) like to keep one colour on their nails for a long period of time without having the polish chip.

Onto the polish...the package contains one 7ml bottle of polish and an instruction sheet. The package boasts salon quality, up to 2 weeks wear time with no chips and a mirror shine. It also indicates that a LED lamp must be used with the gel polish. I only own a UV lamp and I didn't want to go out of my way purchase a LED lamp just to try this polish so I tried the UV lamp and ended up successfully curing the polish but instead of the 30sec it recommends for a LED lamp I had to cure it under the UV light for 2 minutes.

I followed the instruction sheet paying extra attention to buffing and cleaning the surfaces of my nails before I started the polish application. The most important aspect that helps create a successful gel manicure is working with a clean base and making sure none of the polish touches your skin or cuticles and to cap the free edge, otherwise over time the polish will start to lift. I forgot to do that with my right thumb and the polish peeled on the third day. Here is what the manicure first looked like when I was done:

Check out how long this mani lasted!

Sally Hansen - Jazzy Jade & Sea-ing Stars

Hey ! Has everyone entered our Sally Hansen giveaway yet? If not enter by clicking HERE !! :D Good luck ..


Today's post is about 2 Sally Hansen Hard as Nails Xtreme Wear Jazzy Jade & Sea-ing Stars.

I love love the colours.

So despite my ragged cuticles (with work I don't know when I can repair them!) there's a ton of pictures below!!

Prepare yourself after the jump!

Sally Hansen Spring 2014 Giveaway

Hello dear readers! Hurray we've made it to Friday! What better way to sweeten the weekend than with a giveaway. Over the past week or so I've reviewed quite a few new Sally Hansen polishes that have recently been released or will be released in the spring time. How would you like the chance to win some of these new releases?

Up for grabs is $90 worth of Sally Hansen nail products.

The Prize Includes:

• 10 Sally Hansen Triple Shine Nail Colour Polishes
• 2 Sally Hansen Salon Effects Real Nail Polish Stripes Reverse French

This giveaway is kindly sponsored by Sally Hansen (through Veritas Inc.), the shades and patterns selected will be at random by them. Below I've included the colours and patterns they will be choosing from! This giveaway is open to Canadian residents only.

Photo Credit: Sally Hansen

Photo Credit: Sally Hansen

Interested? All you need to do is enter the Rafflecopter...




But before you enter, here are the rules:
Giveaway runs from 1/10/14 - 2/15/14 at 12:00 AM EST Giveaway is open to Canadian participants only over the age of 18 (or with parental permission). Winner will be contacted within 24 hours and must reply with mailing address within 48 hours after initial email is sent. This prize was sponsored by Sally Hansen Canada (through Veritas Inc.) and will be sent out to the winner by them. AM Polishes is not responsible for any lost, damaged or confiscated packages. Prize will be sent using the most economical option with Canada Post.

a Rafflecopter giveaway


Good luck!
Annie 

Sally Hansen Complete Manicure Open Mica Night and Glare Necessities

Happy hump day dear friends! Hope you're all looking forward to Friday as much as I am. Is it just me or does it feel like this week has been dragging on forever. So what better way to spruce up a Wednesday than a little bit of glitter!

In continuation of my Sally Hansen spring release press samples I have today, Sally Hansen Complete Manicure in Open Mica Night and Glare Necessities. I paired both glitters over the Insta-Dri polishes reviewed yesterday.

Open Mica Night
Open Mica Night is a holographic square glitter in a clear base. I used two layers over Sally Hansen Insta Dri Chartreuse Chase in my swatches below. I had to work a little bit and pat the polish to distribute the glitter evenly over my nails.

 

Glare Necessities

Glare Necessities is a blue and silver glitter in small and large sized hex glitter. In some lighting the blue glitter appears much darker, almost black. I layered two layers over Sally Hansen Insta Dri In Prompt Blue. I really liked the glitter payout of the polish, I didn't get bald spots and didn't have to pat the glitter into place.

Additional Info:

Each polish is 0.5 fl oz / 14.7 ml in size and priced around $7.95 MSRP and will be available in most drugs stores across Canada.

For more information, visit Sally Hansen here. Check out their Facebook here.

Two more days until the weekend, woohoo!
Until next time,
Annie

***Products were sent for review in exchange for our honest opinions***

Sally Hansen Insta Dri Chartreuse Chase and In Prompt Blue Dupe For Essie Butler Please

Hello! I hope everyone is having a great Tuesday. The weather here is freezing and super windy again, our power went out again last night and I was really worried it was going to be repeat of a couple weeks ago but thankfully it came back on after 5 minutes.

Today I have 2 new shades from the Sally Hansen Insta-Dri collection coming out next month. I own a couple insta-dri polishes in my collection and I'm a big fan. I like that it provides opacity in one coat (most of the time), dries very quickly and stamps fairly well. I'm indifferent about the wide brush though, personally I'd prefer a smaller brush and go back and apply carefully with a few more strokes rather than try and apply colour to the entire nail with one stroke. The only other real issue I've had with the Insta-Dri polishes were that they became goop quicker compared to other polishes. I think this is due to it's thicker consistency.

Click to see swatches of Chartreuse Chase and In Prompt Blue in comparison to Essie Butler Please.