Micabella Pigments

I've always wanted to play with pigments, but never felt comfortable ordering them online just because pigments can be a fickle thing.  Some are okay for eyeshadow but NOT okay for nail polish, etc etc.  Back in early January, I was at the local mall and stopped at a kiosk that was selling what looked like pigments.  Turns out it was Micabella [official website].  The salesperson, a very fast talking 24 year old named Osi, showed me that these pigments could be used as eyeshadow, eye creme (add water), eye liner (add water), mascara (using clear mascara as a base), nail polish (using clear polish as a base), lip gloss (using petroium jelly as a base), and handed me a paper that also mentioned using it with hair gel for your hair, or just lightly dusting it over your skin for a glow.  Micabella is made of 100% pure mica and minerals, and Osi showed to me that you could even eat the pigment without any consequences (I declined to put it on my tongue).


Their promotion was 1 jar for $20, buy 2 get 1 free, or buy 4 get 4 free.  I'm not the best with confrontation with sales people so I went for the 4 for 4, making each pigment pot about $10 a piece.  Bad part is that each pot is small - 2.5 gms/0.1 ounces for the shimmers, 5 gms for the glitters.  The pots were TINY, so I bought some clear jars from TransDesign [official website] (which did have nice fast shipping, although it was $9 for shipping) and depotted them today.  I haven't had a chance to play with them yet, but I wanted to take a few pictures.

Bottom row - L to R
* White (glitter)
* Effervescence (shimmer) which is a cornsilk blue (also, on the website, this is listed as Effervascence)
* Purple (glitter)
* Silver (glitter)


Second row - L to R
* Evoke (shimmer) which is a rust like dusty rose
* Vibrance (shimmer) which is a turquoise
* Venice (shimmer) which is a dull dusty purple

Top row
* Carnival (shimmer) which is an orange gold

I will probably use the Evoke as lip gloss as well because I love that color for lips.

o_O 150 Followers

So I just saw that I hit 150 followers... wow.


I'm going to have another giveaway BUT I'll wait until my 100 followers is over - then I'll hold the 150 giveaway.  Sounds good?  Alrighty.


HOWEVER, after that I'm waiting until my 300th follower.

Polish Bloggers Network: Lacquer Link Love 1/15/10

* Manicure Mommas is having a GIVEAWAY
* 52 Flavors brings you "The Best Snow Leopard Tutorial" starring "For Audrey."
* The Swatchaholic shows off some gorgeous Zoya Glitters
* Polish Galore swatches Scrangie and Going Grape for comparison.
* Prepare to drool with envy as Polishing the Nails shows off Chanel's Particuliere
* Pretty in Polish dazzles us with OPI's Alice in Wonderland.
* Prim and Polished shows you her mannequin hands color as you prepare to...
* Take a trip "Down Under" with Naive Nails and get a glimpse of Australis Emerald Star.
* Also Known As... brings you some nail polish goodies from Diamond Cosmetics and the network brings you a host of Fabulous giveaways and goodies!

Check out the Network Giveaways...

* PolishFreak is giving away a set of American Apparel's backordered nail polishes.
* Polish Galore is giving away China Glaze's Up & Away Grape Pop, Seche Vite Top Coat, and a bottle of Matte Magic. <- that's me!

* The Swatchaholic is giving away a host of different polishes along with some nail jewel accessories
* Body Soul Beauty is hosting her weekly Friday Freebie giveaway.

I've Moved!

It took a day, some tears, several techs, reading, and some choice words but I'm officially at http://www.polishgalore.com now.  If you're following my through Google Connect, you're automatically redirected.  If you load http://polishgalore.blogspot.com you may have to press a button, but you're redirected too.  My email address has been updated on the right - feel free to email me with any questions!  I am still going strong with my 100 Followers Giveaway, and I've already purchased some items for a 150 Followers Giveaway too!  Thank you all for your support, and once my light box comes in, we're going to have some major swatching going on!


I'm also looking to get on some PR lists for some of the major nail polish companies - not for the products but for the information.  Remember, if you don't hear it from a reliable source, it may not be the truth.  I promise to only post information that I have heard from a company, through their PR or advertising department.  Been there, done that with my job!


YAY!

100 Followers Giveaway!

YAY!  I have 100 followers now!  True to my word, here's a giveaway.
This giveaway is now closed

[1] You must be a follower of my blog.

[2] You must leave a comment on this blog entry and make sure to include your email address!

Simple, huh?  I'll draw one winner Tuesday at midnight:01 GMT.  (That's 6 p.m. on Monday for people in the central time zone like me!)  International users are welcome - I can ship anywhere that the United States Post Office ships to.

1 bottle of China Glaze Grape Pop (from the Up & Away collection - only used once to swatch)

1 brand new bottle of China Glaze Matte Magic (top coat released in 2009)

1 brand new bottle of Seche Vite Top Coat

Bona fortuna!

50 Followers Giveaway! [Winner]

Thank you to the 58 wonderful readers that all signed up for my 50 Followers Giveaway!  To make it simple and easy, you were each assigned a number by the way you comments (first person was #1, etc).


Then I went to my rusty trusty Random Numberizer located at http://ma.tt/tools/random-number/ and asked for a number between 1 and 58 and I got this:

YAY #39 aka christihippekip http://www.blogger.com/profile/07975522865150852706


I've sent you an email from krystal[at]polishgalore.com  so I can get your mailing information.


If for some reason, I haven't received a reply by next Thursday at midnight:01 GMT, I will redraw for another winner.


Thanks again and I'll be holding another giveaway at 100 followers!

China Glaze Grape Pop

[Today at 6:01 p.m. CST/midnight:01 GMT ends my "50 Followers Giveaway", but holy noodles, I'm almost at 100 followers in just 3 days!  I will hold another giveaway at 100 - thank you so much for your support!]

China Glaze's new spring collection for 2010, called Up and Away is seriously blowing my mind.  I'm normally pretty "blah" when it comes to cremes, but all 12 of these just make my day.  I even told someone "talk about throwing up rainbows!" because it's just that bright, in your face, and well, heart warming for me.

Despite this disgusting rain (I HATE RAIN), I couldn't wait to swatch China Glaze Grape Pop, a bold purple that leans more blue than red, but NO WHERE as blue as my pictures are showing.  Remember Grimace from McDonalds?

That's what I'm talking about!  Please excuse my nubbins - I find it super hard to polish nubbins - I end up pooling polish everywhere.  I actually have a cheap paintbrush that I dip in studio 35 beauty non-acetone polish remover to clean up my edges, but I'm still learning.

First, a couple of pictures outside, no flash (boo rain).

Then one outside, but with a flash.

And finally one picture taken inside under my "natural" light bulb that I normally use for pictures.

For these pictures I used Seche Vite base coat, ONE COAT OF GRAPE POP, and Seche Vite top coat.  Yes, I said one coat.  This is so super pigmented and dense, without being goopy or messy (minus my own unsteady hand).  Yeah, I'm in love.

China Glaze [official website] can be found online through several etailers, including my favorite Head2Toe Beauty [official website] or Sally's Beauty Supply [official website].  I have also seen them on TransDesign [official website], which I just placed my first order with yesterday - I'll let you know how I like them after my order comes in.

Disclosure: The product[s] in this post was [were] provided to me by the company for consideration.  For more information, please read this post.

50 Followers Giveaway!

YAY!  I have 50 followers now!  True to my word, here's a giveaway.
This giveaway is now closed - thank you to all who entered!

[1] You must be a follower of my blog.

[2] You must leave a comment on this blog entry and make sure to include your email address!

Simple, huh?  I'll draw one winner Thursday at midnight:01 GMT.  (That's 6 p.m. on Wednesday for people in the central time zone like me!)  International users are welcome - I can ship anywhere that the United States Post Office ships to.

1 brand new bottle of China Glaze Matte Magic (top coat released in 2009)

1 brand new bottle of China Glaze Coconut Kiss (from What's Your Color? collection)

1 brand new bottle of China Glaze Atlantis (from the Glitters and Cremes collection)
1 brand new bottle of China Glaze Nova (from the Glitters and Cremes collection)


Bona fortuna!

China Glaze Up & Away

Hummina, hummina, hummina.  You should have seen me when FedEx pulled up this morning.  I was all over the place (and on the phone with Apple, since my iPhone broke... again.  Side note, this is the 10th iPhone I will have had since November 2007).  Now, I don't have the official promotional papers on this collection, The official release is at the bottom of this post and I don't want to rip off anyone, so I'm going to link you to my favorite nail blogger, Scrangie, and her post (and swatches) on these awesome springtime colors. [Up & Away Collection by Scrangie].


Since my light box is still somewhere in a warehouse to be shipped, and I don't have my polish table anywhere ready to start swatching, I just plopped on the concrete outside with some sunshine to take real pictures of these 12 beautiful shades.

I'm going to figure out how to make greens and purples love the camera (or Photoshop) because the green in this collection  is a beautiful green but on camera it looks blue.  Same with purple - it looks blue!  What's with this.  I will get to the bottom of it, promise.

 Up & Away started shipping last week to e-tailers and should be available quite soon.  Sally's Beauty Supply, however, won't see this collection until around March... my local store hadn't even HEARD of it yet.  :(


Official Release from China Glaze

Popping with optimistic brights and sweet pastels, China Glaze takes you Up & Away with a collection that provides seamless and even coverage in each rich, crème formulation.  Free of DBP, Toluene and Formaldehyde, the Up & Away collection is fabulously-fun and oozes with creamy color happiness.

The collection includes:

• Grape Pop – bright plum
• Sugar High – petal pink
• Something Sweet – cotton candy
• Light As Air – periwinkle
• Heli - Yum – raspberry
• Flyin’ High – teal
• Four Leaf Clover – kelly green
• Re-Fresh Mint – spearmint
• Peachy Keen – nectar
• High Hopes – guava
• Happy Go Lucky – sunshine yellow
• Lemon Fizz – banana

China Glaze [official website] can be found online through several etailers, including my favorite Head2Toe Beauty [official website] or Sally's Beauty Supply [official website].

Disclosure: The product[s] in this post was [were] provided to me by the company for consideration.  For more information, please read this post.

China Glaze Lubu Heels

China Glaze Lubu Heels which is apart of the Lubu Manicure along with Ruby Heels, is an interesting color.  Luxury French shoe and bag designer Christian Louboutin was the inspiration for the line, but since I have nubbins, I couldn't put Ruby Heels under my nails like you're supposed to.  Lubu Heels is a black jelly with red glitter and it took me 3 coats to get complete coverage and a smooth application.  I can't wait to get the light box in, because I could have some better pictures to share.

Here are a couple of my older pictures when I first tried out this color.

China Glaze [official website] can be found online through several etailers, including my favorite Head2Toe Beauty [official website] or Sally's Beauty Supply [official website].


Also! Thank you to all those who are following me.  When I get to 50 followers, I'm going to hold a giveaway!