Seche Natural Matte Finish Nail Treatment

Seche Vite has quickly become one of my favorite products.  Their base coat which I use exclusively now, dries fast, lasts, and more importantly does not allow bleed through with polishes.  Their top coat is amazing - very fast drying, shiny, and long lasting.  I have read of other bloggers having problems with Seche Vite top coat shrinking and "peeling up" on them, but thankfully I've never had that happen.  I did have one bottle of top coat get thick on me, but once I used some Seche Vite Restore (which was given to me from the company), the top coat worked just fine again.


I do follow Seche Vite on Twitter [official Twitter page] and back in early January, they tweeted about their newest product Seche Natural Matte Finish Nail Treatment.  My ears perked up.  According to the box, "Seche Natural strengthens weak nails with wheat protein and calcium.  Ideal for a natural looking matte finish when worn alone or may be applied under polish as a nourishing base coat."


I began a wild goose chasing trying to find of any store in my local area that had even HEARD of this product, but no one had, but I found it on TransDesign [official website] for $4.20 - not bad.  Thankfully, I was blessed with strong nails - no peeling or splitting here, but I figure this can't hurt.  I want to wear it on days that I don't have polish on, or maybe alternate between Natural and Seche Vite's Crystal Base Coat for awhile.

To be honest, I didn't notice that much of a matte finish over my natural nails - this is one coat.  Maybe with longer nails, you'll be able to tell the difference.

Essie Glamour Do

Essie has joined Twitter [official Twitter page] and so I figured no time like the present to swatch the only Essie in my collection Essie Glamour Do.  This was a promotion from Glamour [official website] magazine's 70th anniversary and the first 5,000 people to go to Glamour's website back in March 2009 and enter their information, won a bottle.  I don't know what number I was, but I was in the 5,000!


Free is free, and this was one tiny bottle, at only 0.16 fluid ounces compared to others which are normally around 0.5 fluid ounces.  Even the China Glaze Matte Magic was 0.325 fluid ounces.  Here's my bottle next to a bottle of Seche Vite top coat.

Glamour Do is a very sheer, very light pink.  It took me 5 coats to get this level of opacity, and as you can see, I smeared my pointer finger.  By the time I was done taking pictures, I smeared my ring ringer too, hah.  Overall it's a pretty color, but I'd probably use it either as a layer color over white, or just as a quick sheer for the day.

Essie can be purchased on their website [official website] or etailers like Head2ToeBeauty [official website] or TransDesign [official website]

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.