Aromaleigh
An Emerald Green FOTD w/ Hard Candy Space Cadet, Aromaleigh Spectacularly Ignorant, and Urban Decay Naked2 Pallet
9:28 AM
Taking a step away from my "neutral" rut I've been in recently, I decided to play matchy-matchy with my shirt and wear a rich emerald green smokey eye. To do this, I am using an old shadow I dug up - Hard Candy Meteorite Shadow in Space Cadet (a rich emerald frost with emerald glitter), as well as Aromaleigh Spectacularly Ignorant and Urban Decay Naked2 Pallet.
For the look, here is how I did it:
Face
Laura Geller Spackle
Laura Geller Balance 'n Brighten in Fair
Laura Geller Balance 'n Bronze - contour
Laura Geller Blush 'n Brighten in Golden Apricot - blush
Eyes:
Urban Decay Naked2 Pallet - Tease - upper crease
Urban Decay Naked2 Pallet - Blackout - crease, outer corner
Hard Candy Space Cadet - all over lid / on top of Fyrinnae Pixie Epoxy
Aromaleigh Spectacularly Ignorant - inner corner, lower lashline - on top of Pixie Epoxy
Urban Decay Naked2 Pallet - Foxy - highlight
Lips
NYX Lipstick Thalia
Hope you like!
Walmart was setting up their holiday gift aisle this past weekend, and I spotted the set of 5-Hard Candy LE Nail Polishes. This is a deep purple shimmer, a bright orange/red shimmer, green glitter, gold glitter and silver glitter. It looks very similar to last year's set too, but I can't find my picture of it to compare. Price is $5 for the set. There were also single polishes for $1 a piece in similar shades to last year.
Hard Candy
Swatches: Hard Candy Glossaholic Sequin Saturated Shine Lip Glosses in Chill Out and Fireball
8:00 AM
I am a Glossaholic...need proof? Look above - that's one drawer full of lip glosses. This isn't included the numerous glosses strewn throughout the 3-5 randomly placed purses in my house, car and office. Yes, I am a Glossaholic and I know it.
Saying that, it was only appropriate that I picked up two of the Hard Candy Glossaholic Sequin Saturated Shine Lip Glosses at Walmart about a week ago. From the Hard Candy website:
"SUPER HUGE MEGA WATT LIPS One dip covers your lips! Ginormous applicator with gloss cup deposits gloss to your whole mouth in one swipe! These super lustrous lip glosses are infused with prisms of color that make lips appear fuller and plumper. Out of this world hyper-reflective prisms of pearl make lips sparkle like crazy! Feeling tired or wired? Two Glossaholic sparkling clear top coats are infused with mood altering elixirs to help you Chill Out or Rise & Shine! – You can wear alone or as a top coat. "
(this is with the flash - see all the foilies in it?)
These are called Sequin Saturated because of the foiled effect of the gloss. I love this type of glitter in my nail polishes (think Sally Hansen "Hidden Treasure"), and thought it might be a neat effect in a lipgloss as well. The pictures of the applicators below give you a good idea as to the amount of the foil in the actual product - sometimes looking at the full tube (above) can be a bit intimidating. Don't let it fool you - these are very, very wearable.
Swatches on the skin and lips below. The swatches on the skin are pretty generous, so you get more of a feel for the color against skintone. On the lips it is one swipe. You'll notice on the lips you don't get a lot of color. Obviously, adding a little more will give you somewhat of a *pop* of color in the Fireball, but it's not over-the-top. I was actually surprised to find that it was as sheer as it was. To be honest, this would look nice on top of a lipstick - not only is the gloss very shiny, but I think the foils would stand out better against more of an opaque background of a lipstick, versus my actual lips.
Now, onto the little surprise. If you remember above, the description online mentioned a "Ginormous applicator". Yes, ginormous is a word, but we'll address that at another time. The applicator...is...HUGE. Look at it below compared to a "normal" sized doe-foot applicator! Isn't that unbelievable? This is why I was apply to apply just one coat above. At first, this was very intimidating to me, but really it just takes a bit of getting used to. On a side note, for those of you Avon lovers out there, the new Avon SuperSHOCK Liquid Lipshines have the same, enormous, applicator. I need to post about the colors I picked up, but that's for a later date.
Well, what do you think? Are you going to pick up these lip glosses? Retail price is $5 a piece, so really not bad considering the size and amount of product. Of course, you do have to deal with the dreaded Walmart, but sometimes you just have to, right?
Hard Candy
Spotted at Walmart: New Hard Candy "Fox in a Box" Bronzing Duos and Blushing Quads
8:00 AMI know many of you have a love/hate relationship with Walmart, and that the "hate" can be overcome by some new Hard Candy products, so I bring you "Fox in a Box" by Hard Candy - a collection of Bronzing Duos and Blushing Quads that retail at $6 a piece.
From the Hard Candy website:
A highly pigmented multi-color powder compact that will surely bring out your inner foxy lady. Each box contains coordinated shades that blend together perfectly and a custom Hard Candy applicator brush. Sweep across chin, cheeks, and forehead and unleash the foxiness in you!
Below are the Bronzing Duos - your options are basically a warm coral and bronze (Skinny Dipping) or a bright pink and bronze (Truth or Dare). Yes, the coral is that bright! I did not buy this, but it would be interesting to see if the bronze portion tones down the intensity of the colored sides once swirled together, giving that "perfect finish".
The Blushing quads looked promising. These are not super shimmery, so for those of you that prefer a more matte look, but still want a *pop* of color, these might be a nice and inexpensive alternative.
Like I said, I didn't purchase these. I am holding out for the new Milani baked blushes I have seen all over the blogosphere.
Have you purchased these? What were your thoughts?
I haven't quite figured this one out, but the local Walmarts in my area seem to get everything at the latest possible moment compared to when I read about them in the beauty blogosphere. Take Exhibit A above...Hard Candy's holiday promotions, which included a set of 4 polishes for $10 as well as these mini polishes for $1 a piece. I picked up the set of 4, so I will take pictures of that and post in the next few days. I did not realize that Hard Candy was going to have the $1 mini polishes, though, and there are some very pretty colors. What I was able to find while digging through the display were a large silver sparkle, a mini orange frost/micro glitter (which is actually the same as the orange that comes in the set of 4 Holiday polishes), a purple with magenta duochrome and silver glitter, and a bright pink frost. There may be other colors, but if so, they were picked over. Really, at $1 a piece, it's a great present topper or stocking stuffer...
Now, if I could only find the Nicole by OPI Justin Bieber collection...
Hard Candy
Hard Candy Meteor Eyes Baked Glitter Eyeshadows - Intergalactic, Lunar Eclipse and Space Cadet
9:26 AM
I recently snatched up three of the Hard Candy Meteor Eyes Baked Eyeshadows while shopping: Lunar Eclipse, Intergalatic, and Space Cadet. These remind me of the MAC Mineralize eyeshadows - specifically those from the Venomous Villains collection. These are baked shadows that have swirls of similar colored glitter through the pan. The colors are all very deep and bold, too, especially when used over a primer (I chose Fyrinnae's Pixie Epoxy).
Lunar Eclipse: A deep cool gold with hints of copper and swirls of golden glitter. This is not a yellow gold, but truly a deep gilded gold shade. This would make a gorgeous liner...something on my "to do" list to try out.
Intergalactic: A deep chocolate copper shade with swirls of bright copper glitter.
Space Cadet: A frosty evergreen with swirls of bright forest green shimmer. This screams Christmas/Holidays - I immediately started to think of looks I could do for Christmas parties with this color. Beautiful!
Swatches were quite difficult to get until I used the Pixie Epoxy. I also had to forgo using the flash because it washed the colors out. I think the colors above a pretty true to life (at least on my screen), but at least you can see the colors and shimmer! I have used both above bare skin and Epoxy above so you can see the effect. If I didn't have a good sticky primer like the Epoxy, I would not like these shadows at all. There was no depth or character to the colors until applied over primer. Once I used the Epoxy, the color, shimmer and sparkle appeared.
These are absolutely gorgeous, but not for the faint of heart. If you are not a glitter girl, these will not appeal to you at all!
Who has tried these babies out? I believe they retail for $6 a piece, and for the size and quality, they are quite a steal!
I finally found Hard Candy's nail polish in Beetle when at Walmart the other day, and this has quickly become my favorite nail polish I own. This is the most complex, beautiful color I've seen. Honestly, although it is named Beetle, it reminds me of the rainbow effect from an oil slick - purple, green, gold and oranges...all shifting in the changing light. The entire nail polish looks like a complex microglitter in the bottle. I found that the formula itself was quite nice - my pictures below (which don't do the polish justice at all), are two coats with a top coat over. Honestly, the second bottle shot below, is probably the most true-to-life for the color than any of them.
(bottle shot - natural sunlight)
(two closeups of the polish - see how it changes based on the light?)
This is the best shot on my nails I could get - I tried everything, natural light...flash...no light...tilting my nails...you name it, but unfortunately this is just one of those polishes you have to see in real life to understand! A beauty that is a must buy if you come across it!
Have you tried this polish? On a side note, I have read that this is a dupe for Orly's Space Cadet, which I tried for weeks to find and couldn't. For some pictures of the comparison, take a look at Catch the Beauty with Arie's Blog here, as they have great snapshots comparing the two.
About a week or so ago, I found some of the newer products that Hard Candy has to offer at Walmart, and one of the items I picked up (which isn't exactly new) is the 1000 Lashes primer. This is a fiber infused mascara primer, that should thicken and lengthen your lashes prior to your mascara application. They also have actual mascaras in various colors (pinks, purples, turquoise...etc) that are in this line. You can see all of them here...
The product comes in a "squeeze tube", which is actually just made to look like one. It's hard, and cannot be squeezed at all. The wand itself is a typical mascara wand, with a little more room in between each round of bristles. You can see all the fibers below - they are very generous! This is jam-packed full of fibers!
Upon application, I found that one layer didn't do anything, so I ended up letting the first layer partially dry, and then went back over with another round of primer. Below you can see on the primer (left eye) and no primer (right eye). There definitely isn't any question as to if this adds length - just see all the extra length in white below - that's the fibers that have been pulled through from the second application of the primer.
(without primer)
(with primer)
(with primer and mascara - I used Mally's)
Below both eyes have primer and mascara. So what are my thoughts?? I am actually quite impressed with this product, especially considering it has come from Walmart. For the price, it's worth a try! I have read mixed reviews on the colored mascaras, but this worked really well under my mascara as a primer. The one thing I would say, is that you have to be careful with application - if you get it on too thick, your mascara will look very clumpy once applied. I learned this the hard way, and had to sort of *perfect* my technique.
Have you tried this primer or the mascara? I'd love to know what you thought!
The only Hard Candy polish (new or old!) I was able to find at Walmart last week was Mischief, which is quite perfect for Halloween! This is a black jelly base full of orange glitter. Although in the bottle, the base polish looked almost green and beyond it's prime, I had to have it....
...and boy am I glad I got it! Now, the picture below is taken with two coats only! I was sure this was going to be one of those layering types of polishes, but I was completely fooled until I took the brush out and it was full of sparkly goodness. Look at how foiled my nails look! I think the black-jelly base has something to do with it...all of the sparkles, be it if they are underneath or on top show through! I love it! Now, if I could only find the polish in Beetle...that's my next purchase!
Below is a closeup of the sparkles in the bottle - isn't it gorgeous?!
I have to admit, this blew my expectations away! I have one of the older polishes that everyone loves, Mr. Wrong, and wear it all the time, but very rarely do I give the HC polishes a second glance when I'm in Walmart - after Mischief, that has changed!
Eyeliners
Hard Candy Haul - Mischief Nailpolish, Take Me Out Glitter Eye Liners "Money" & "Truffle", and 1000 Lashes Primer
1:55 PMI finally found *some* of the new Hard Candy items at Walmart, although 99% of them were sold out, I grabbed a nail polish in Mischief, 1000 Lashes primer, and the two remaining Take Me Out Glitter liners that remained (Money and Truffle). I am going to have to look at another one to find a couple other products to pick up, but for now, I am going to dive into the liners.
I was sold on the liners because of the packaging - the *stems* of the liners are covered in glitter. I don't know about you, but when I am digging through my pencil eyeliners, I find it so difficult to find the particular pencil I am looking for. With the Hard Candy Take Me Out liners, not only are they extremely long, but the stems are the actual color of the pencils, so they stand out perfectly!
Money is a beautiful mossy green with silver green sparkles. Truffle is a gorgeous brown frost with brown and golden sparkles. Both pencils are extremely smooth and creamy. They apply very easily and are extremely simple to blend. I am hoping that this has decent staying power as well. We'll see since I'm going to test drive them this week...
These are actually quite pigmented, but my flash washed everything out. Whoops! I tried taking better pictures, but it didn't help. Also, my swatches for the Nox Twilight Nailpolishes turned out to be trash, so I'm going to redo those and post them soon. Sorry for the delay peeps!
Yesterday the lovely Recessionista from Nouveau Cheap posted about some new Hard Candy items coming to Walmart at the end of October in lieu of the upcoming holiday season. I have to say, I was so excited, I decided to do some digging for pictures myself. Luckily, I stumbled upon them on Makeup Alley (thanks xspookykittyx!), so I thought I'd share them with you guys as well! There are lots of goodies, but I will say I'm very excited for the new nail polish shades, and the Hide & Glow Cheeks...Enjoy!
If any one else has heard of products coming, we'd love to hear!
