Beauty.com $25 Beauty Favorites Set from Walgreens

I was at Walgreens over the weekend looking for Halloween stuff and stumbled across this little pink box of awesome at the beauty counter:

 

 Beauty.com Beauty Favorites

An exclusive collection of prestige beauty essentials

$130 value + free $10 promotional card

$25

The set includes:

• Borghese Linea Precisa Eyeliner in Black (0.015 fl oz) - full size!
• Mally Volumizing Mascara in Black (0.39 fl oz) - full size!
• LORAC Lips with Benefits in Mark (0.19 fl oz) - full size!
• Laura Geller Blush-n-Brighten in Pink Grapefruit (0.176 oz)
• Bliss Lemon + Sage Body Butter (1.7 fl oz)
• Carol's Daughter Monoi Repairing Hair Mask (2.0 oz)
• Perricone MD High Potency Amine Face Lift with DMAE and Vitamin C Ester (0.5 fl oz)
• Murad Age Reform 3 Hydrate + Protect Hydro-Dynamic Ultimate Moisture (0.25 fl oz)
• $10 Beauty.com Gift Card

 

 LORAC Lips with Benefits in Mark

(I really like these- I've previously reviewed them here)

Laura Geller Blush-n-Brighten in Pink Grapefruit

(After watching Laura Geller talk about these on QVC for years, I've really been wanting to try one!)

I haven't used most the items in the set yet, but so far I'm loving the Bliss body butter (using it as hand cream at the moment, it smells lovely and feels even nicer!) and the Borghese eyeliner (it's a marker-style liner but it's nice and wet so it makes a smooth line). 

I thought this set was an absolute steal for only $25.  There's three full-size products in here, and the travel-sized items are also rather large.  Plus there's also a $10 beauty.com gift card, so that's just icing on the cake.  I'm really not crazy about beauty.com's shoddy customer service or the way they pack their shipments, but, hey, $10 is $10!

If you like try-me kits and getting a really good deal on them, you'll probably want to keep your eye out for this one next time you're at Walgreens!

Nubar Angelic Glitter

Yesterday I had the Nubar Angelic Glitter layered over black, which is my preferred way of wearing it, but I wanted to show you how it looks alone, too.


Nubar Angelic Glitter. This is three coats plus topcoat. It's gorgeous, but see what I was saying about all that yellow in the base? The base is not a jelly; it's just sheer yellow. And I really don't think it's supposed to be yellow, either. Like I mentioned, the website shows it with a clear base, but mine arrived brand new from Nubar already yellow. Maybe this one is just prone to yellowing, as some glitters with clear bases tend to be. The glitter in it really is fantastic and it's excellent for layering, but I would totally wear it alone if it had a clear base.


Since it already has a strong yellow/green shift, I thought I'd try it over green to see how it looked. This is one coat of Nubar Angelic Glitter over two coats of Borghese Euro Green. Pretty nice! I also really love this over a brown creme or shimmer. This would probably look good over just about anything, though.


So... I have a little request. Do any of you have a bottle of Angelic Glitter (or Shimmering Tulle) that actually has a clear base? And if so, would you mind linking me to your swatches (or emailing me if you don't have a blog)? I'm really, really curious to see if a) it exists with a clear base, and b) what it looks like without the added yellow tones. An image search turned up pretty much nothing, but I really am dying to know!

Borghese Stellare Notte

Stellare Notte was only my second or third Borghese polish purchase but it immediately became my number one favorite Borghese shade and no other color has come close to challenging that position. The reason for that is obvious: Stellare Notte is stunning. Stellar, even. But hard to photograph...

Borghese Stellare Notte. This polish is so dark that it's hard to get the colors to show up bright enough to be obvious in pictures, but if you view them full size you might get a better idea of how the shimmer shifts colors. The multichrome effect is obvious in person, especially in the right lighting. Anyway. The main color in Stellare Notte is is a dark, shimmery charcoal. Depending on the lighting, I see charcoal with teal duochrome or charcoal with purple duochrome when viewing the polish head-on. Changing the angle allows me to see both the peacock teal and pink-purple colors at the same time, along with green and gold highlights at an extreme angle. It is more duochrome in the bottle than it is on the nail, though the look of it on the nail is awesome enough to not let that disappoint me.

The formula is sort of runny and the brush in my bottle doesn't seem to be that signature Borghese duo-brush style. It looks like a regular OPI Pro-Wide with a faint split in the middle instead of the super-wide two brush Borghese setup. The drying time is long and the polish chips within a day every time I wear it, but I don't care because it's so gorgeous.

This one reminds me a little of GOSH Purple Heart, but they're not identical.

Borghese Rapido Fast Dry Nail Lacquer Collection for Summer 2011

Borghese has a new line of fast dry polishes, Borghese Rapido, available now. It's twelve shades in a new quick-dry formula, distinguished from the regular line by the gold-trimmed white caps. The shades are:


Anemone. A medium fuchsia with blue-purple flash. Slight shimmer.




Chroma. Super shiny silver foil, very dense pigmented formula.


Limoncello. This is a new shade, re-using the name from last summer's collection. One of three colors with recycled names, confusing, I know! This year's Limoncello is much better than last year's shade. This is a glowing, gilded lemon lime shade. Very, very yellowy green, metallic finish with hints of orange shimmer, marginally streaky. This is my favorite shade in the collection and it gets extra points for not being sheer like the last Limoncello.



Lira. Gold foil. Yellow toned. Not as dense and pigmented as Chroma.

Maraschino. Not to be confused with the previous year's Maraschino, which was a lovely bright cherry-coral. Maraschino 2011 is more of a plain hot pink creme. Not particularly bright or bold, pretty much an 'average' pink.





Marino. A dusty medium blue creme. I know it looks bright and clean here, but it does have a softer, dustier finish in real life. Really very pretty.



Menta. Menta 2010 was a ridiculously sheer turquoise- a five+ coater. Menta 2011 is much improved. This Menta is a creamy mint chocolate chip ice cream green with some very subtle blue shimmer. It's still sheer, but this is three coats and, though it could use a fourth, is mostly opaque.


Mochaccino. This is one of those purple-brown-taupe type of shades. The base color is more on the brown side but it has some nice complimentary purple shimmer in it.


Rosso. Bright red creme.



Siena. This looks like a very pretty color- a rich, sparkly light brown with little hints of gold sparkle. And it is a pretty color... It's the formula that's ugly. This is inexplicably sheer and watery- none of the other shades are like this. What you're seeing on my nails is six unruly, watery coats. Six coats and it's still a bit see-through when the light hits it. I like the color of it but I can't recommend it due to the nightmarish formula.



Vigneto. Nice deep purple shimmer with a bit of a red and gold sparkly shimmer running through it. Not really unique, but a good shade of purple regardless.


Violetta. Pale lavender frost.


The formula on these was varied. Some were perfect (Maraschino, Rosso, Chroma, Marino), others were watery (Menta, Siena, Mochaccino, Vigneto). The rest were just average. I can't say I was a fan of the formula or the application of most of these- some were so sheer and watery that it made application very difficult and messy. I'm also not a fan of the brush in these. It's too stiff and thick and doesn't conform to the shape of the nail. That, combined with the sheerness of some of the shades, makes it apply thickly at the edge of the nail and sheer in the center. I've never had a problem with Borghese's double-brush thing before, but this version is too stiff. The formula claims to dry in 60 seconds, but that's really not the case. The dry time was actually very slow on some shades but average on others (the ones with the best formula were also the ones that dried quickest.)

Overall... Well, I'm not moved by the color selection or the formula. My favorites (in order of preference) are Limoncello, Marino, Menta, Chroma and Mochaccino. None of the colors are ugly, but they're not unique and are easily dupe-able. The formula on some was not what I hoped and anticipated it would be based on my previous experiences with Borghese polish and I didn't find the fast dry claims to be true. I much prefer the regular Borghese line's formula and brushes over the Rapido line. One thing I do really like is the pretty bottle. I like the vintage looking shape of it, looks very cute.

These are available at Ulta and are $8.00 each.

(These were sent to me for review.)

Borghese Almondine... What do you think?

I'm not that much of a nude/neutral polish wearer (except for the funky ones like Rescue Beauty Lounge Grunge), but for some reason this shade really caught my eye. It's Borghese Almondine.

It's a creamy, putty-like, nude-ish beigey funky kinda color (Mmm, creamy... soft creamy beige!) with little metallic microglitter particles. It's a really unusual color, sort of like a fleshy nude version of Zoya Harley. And I love looking at it in the bottle.... but I'm not so sure about it when it's actually on me.

Is it funky and pretty, or is it washed out and creepy? I can't decide. Yay or nay?

I love these Revlon glitters

Revlon Slipper over Chanel Rouge Noir


Revlon Star over Borghese Mezzanotte Blue

Revlon Galaxy over China Glaze Cowgirl Up

Revlon Galaxy over Borghese Mezzanotte Blue

I know I've posted two of those before, but they're so pretty they're worth posting again. Can't get over how much I love these Revlon glitters. I almost passed them up completely because they looked so plain and common, but now I'm super happy I decided to get them. They're unique in my eyes- while the concept isn't unique, the end result is like nothing else I have. The combination of the different colors and shapes of glitter enhanced by a really pronounced sparkle makes me super happy. The only thing I don't like about these is that it's hard to get enough of the holographic silver hexagon glitter in the nail... I love that stuff. Though, the randomly placed and spaced dispersion of the hex glitter does look rather charming.

I like that the glitter is really sparse so it doesn't cover up the base polish. These were intended to be layering polishes and they're sold with coordinating creme polishes but they all looked clone-able so I didn't get any of those.

I haven't photographed Belle yet. In fact, I don't think I've even worn Belle. Have I? I don't recall!

Keep it up, Revlon... one step closer to a full-on StreetWear revival....

Borghese Tutti Gelati Collection Summer 2010

It's still summer for a couple more days, right? Crap crap crap I still have summer collections to post before it ends!

Here's one of Borghese's summer offerings, gelato themed! I love pistachio gelato... mmm.

Berry Confezione. A really punchy bright fuchsia/light purple creme. Not a neon, but still very clear and bright.

Limoncello. Oh man, I love limoncello... the liqueur, not so much the polish. Okay, Limoncello the polish is not so bad, it's just a little sheer and doesn't mesh quite so well with my skintone. It's a pale yellow frost. I think this was four or five coats, I don't remember for sure, but it was definitely on the sheer side.

Maraschino. My favorite of the collection. A really bright coral-red creme. Looks better in real life than it does in my picture. The color is so bright and colorful that it did that weird thing to my camera that neons do. Not a neon, but still really bright.

Menta. This is one of the ones I bought before I knew it was part of a collection. Looks better in the bottle than it does on the nail, sadly. Absolutely nothing wrong with the color, it's a gorgeous sparkling turquoise shimmer. My issue with it is the sheerness- it's extremely sheer. This is five coats and you can still see my nails through it.

Pistaccio. Another one I bought randomly off the shelf at Ulta. A green shimmer! Had to have it. Sadly, like Menta, it's ridiculously sheer. This is five coats. The color is great, it's a rich green shimmer, but I don't have the patience to do five coats unless the color is really, really unique.


Tutti Gelati. A pink with silvery shimmer. Almost glass-fleck like shimmer. Could be a warmer cousin to China Glaze's 100 Proof Pink.

The formula on these was varied. The creme-based shades were thick and opaque while the three frosty shimmer shades were thin and sheer. The Borghese brush makes application of the sheer shades a lot more difficult, but it makes the creme application a breeze. If you've never used Borghese before, you might be surprised by the brush. It's huge and wide and flat and when you look at it closely you realize it's actually two brushes side by side. It's a little bit stiff so you need to use a light touch with it (why did that sound so dirty?)

I'm pretty new to Borghese polish. I'm really liking a couple of the shades and now I want to try more. Before these my collection was Espresso Brown, some minis with glitter, Stellare Notte (which is AMAZING), a pink shimmer from the clearance bin at TJ Maxx and Almondine. Very curious to see what they release next... Hopefully another sweet duochrome like Stellare Notte!

(Some of these were sent to me for review. )

Reader Requests, Part 1!

Here are a couple of reader requests! Please ignore my broken nail in some of the pictures- I've been trying not to swatch until the broken nails grow out a little bit, but I got impatient!

In no particular order....

For lovely Karman, some comparisons. I've tried labeling them, but I'm not sure if it makes the picture too confusing. Should I keep doing comparisons with text, or ditch it?


Thumb to pinkie: Lippmann Bitches Brew, China Glaze Heart of Africa, China Glaze Metropolitan, China Glaze On Your Knees!, CND Dark Secret.


Thumb to pinkie: China Glaze Red Stallion, OPI Apple Of My Eye, OPI Never Lon-Done Shopping, OPI Red-y For Anything, Essie Valentine Red.

These two were a challenge! I thought there would be a lot of close matches, but after pulling pretty much every similar color out of my stash and lining them all up together, I only came out with a few close ones. Oddly enough, the nearest matches are all discontinued colors.... Maybe it's a sign? Then again, these are only dupes I have in my stash, I'm sure someone who has more of these types of colors would have more matches?

Another comparison, this one for the wonderful Grace:


Thumb to pinkie: OPI Espresso Your Style, Borghese Espresso Brown F, China Glaze Unplugged, Orly Golden Maharaja, Lippmann Brown-Eyed Girl.

I could do these brown comparisons all day. I love browns, and I couldn't choose just five.... I should do another picture! Anyway, these are all similar to each other, but different enough to justify owning them all. The shimmer in these are all different textures- some are more sparkly, more frosty, sparse, glowy... I love them all.

A purple comparison for the fabulous Tink:


Thumb to pinkie: Misa Fatal Affair, Color Club Electronica, Misa Forbidden Lust, China Glaze Drama Queen, China Glaze Coconut Kiss.

The request was originally just a comparison of Fatal Affair and Electronica, but these other purples were sitting in front of me and looked similar, so I included them as well. They all look much closer in color in the bottle- they're much different on the nail! All gorgeous, but an indication that sometimes bottle color can be deceiving.

A beautiful swatch for dear Tiffany:


Essie Starry Starry Night.

I think Starry Starry Night is a perfect name for this color. It's spectacular!

I'm working on editing the rest of the request photos, so I should have them up soon.

Thanks for the great requests, guys! I had fun doing these!

Fun With Konad!!

I love the Konad stamper. It's so fun, and really transforms an ordinary manicure into something special. There are so many designs, from stars and flowers, to animal prints and fishnet. I usually use the small designs, like the little stars and the spider and the little cupcake, but the other day I decided to dust off one of the pattern plates (M57) and this is how it turned out:



Chanel Gold Fiction with Konad Plate M57 and Borghese Espresso Brown F. My thumb has OPI Brisbane Bronze, but as you can see it came out a little too light.

The Konad stamper works best with polishes that are on the thick side. Konad polishes make the most crisp designs, but any thicker nail polish will work.

Once my poor broken nails grow out a little bit more, I'll be doing a post on the Konad French Manicure plates for wonderful reader Carla G.

Also, a small request from me!

As you can tell, I'm way behind on my swatching! I always take my pictures outside in full sunlight, but lately it's been too overcast to get a good picture. Is there a way to get good indoor pictures when it's dark outside? I bought one of those 200w Reveal bulbs yesterday to see if that works well indoors, but I haven't tried it out yet. Do you guys have any tips for me?

I'm currently waiting on some sunlight to do swatches of the China Glaze OMG and Kaleidoscope collections for another lovely reader, and those just don't turn out well unless there's bright light.

So, help! What do I do?

Random Swatches: OPI, Zoya, Misa and Urban Decay

Following up on a couple requests, here's OPI Mod About You for Tabe-Chan:


As you can see, it's a milky "white out" pink, very stark but also very cool. I like the way this stands out.

For Kittylamour, here's Misa Passion 4 Fashion:

It's a deep dark espresso shade that looks super rich. It also doesn't make my hands look red! Bonus.

And, here's some random swatches just because.


Following the brown trend, here's Borghese Espresso Brown F. I love the brush in this, it's the perfect shape! Maybe if the OPI Pro Wide brushes were shaped more like this they'd be easier to use. It's apparently two small brushes next to each other, but it's slightly rounded on the ends. It fans out perfectly at the cuticle and makes just the right shape.



Misa Moody Model. Like melted milk chocolate, right?



Zoya Pasha. I'm not sure what color this is, but I love it! Is it grey? Taupe? I have no idea. Whatever it is, it has this fine silver frost running though it that in certain lights gives the illusion of a blue reflection. Extremely unique, in my opinion.


Here's Pasha with a thin coat of Zoya Sparkle Gloss topcoat. Sparkle gloss is really interesting, it has very fine flat flecks of shimmer that look white. It's really sparkly but it doesn't look glittery at all. It almost reminds me of the edible glitter I used to use when making cakes.




Urban Decay Id. I tried to capture the green reflection in this, but I don't think I did a very good job. This color is amazing, it changes from gold reflection to green reflection depending on the light. Lots of pretty gold shimmer, and it has a "jelly" finish to it. Why on earth did they discontinue these?!?! They were awesome!


Petites Dare. This is another polish that has those flat glitter flecks. They look like tiny pieces of chopped up cellophane or something. I'm growing fond of these flaky-looking glitters.

What other brands have some good "flaky" glitter polishes? I have CND Limelight, but I need MORE!! What are your favorites?