Mani Monday!

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This week and possibly next week (depending on how well this polish holds up) is brought to you by Nailuv 12 piece Professional at Home Gel Nail System in the color Rum Cola. Here’s the kit in the box.

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I received this kit as a Christmas gift so I’m not sure where it’s from, probably Ulta. I’ve never used anything like this before and it was really fun to use! Yes time consuming, but enjoyable. I think with more practice I could cut down the time. More practice is definitely necessary lol! I can feel parts of my cuticle that I glued to my nails because I wasn’t careful enough with where I put the polish. Although simple, there are quite a few steps involved in this process and I can do a full review or tutorial if requested. I will warn you, be careful of lint/string/thread etc hanging around. It will get stuck in the hardened polish! I’m not sure what the consistency of the polish was like after the first curing session Bc I was too afraid to mess with it, but once the whole process was done these babies were dry and hard as rocks. I love it! I felt totally comfortable using my hands right away. Also, I definitely felt professional using the LED light. This color seemed to pool at the tips but again, with more practice I’ll learn what thickness to spread the polish. Random fact: this stuff smells great! I thought it would smell very heavy with that alcohol/nail polish smell, but it definitely doesn’t 🙂

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Thoughts? Have you ever used at home gel nail systems or anything like this? Let me know your thoughts on all this! Feel free to follow me on Instagram and Twitter @missal_leigh

New Year’s Eve Make Up Look – Dynamite Editorials!

http://www.tnt-tauna.com/new-years-eve-make-up-look-by-missal_leigh/
A New Year’s Eve make up look Tutorial I wrote, featured on TNT-Tauna.com

Please read, share, and follow my other blogging endeavor at TNT-Tauna.com!

Mani Monday!

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Today’s Mani Monday is brought to you by O.P.I in the color “Rising Star”. This is from the Burlesque Collection. Does anyone remember that movie with Christina Aguilera & Cher? I never saw it but I wanted to.

This is the first time I’ve used this color.
As usual with O.P.I. products, I’m not in love with the square brush, but the pigmentation is great. I didn’t use a base coat :/ but two coats of polish and top coat worked just fine.
The quality of this polish is great. One coat was enough to create a base with very little streaks. You could’ve left it alone if you wanted a very sheer shimmery look. The second coat was perfect for filling in spaces and creating a super shiny shimmery look. I feel like my nails look like brand new pennies lol.
For some holiday fun and to add a little color contrast, I glued on some nail gems from the dollar store. We’ll see how long those last lol.

All in all, great color & I’m pleased with the turn out, but I already passed it onto my mom. I’m not a huge sparkle/shimmer person and this color is overloaded! I can tell it looks nice on my nails & I’ve gotten a lot of compliments, but it just doesn’t feel like me. I know, I’m weird.
Does that ever happen to anyone else – a beauty product that just doesn’t feel quite right with your personality? Am I alone in this weirdness? Lol let me know in the comments!

As always, thanks for reading! Please follow me here & on Instagram & Twitter @missal_leigh

Mini Review – Beautifully Disney: Fantasy in Flight!

Disney Haul!
You may be wondering if such a thing exists. When you work for Disney and get 40% off stuff during the holidays….yes…Disney hauls DO exist. I personally didn’t walk away with too much stuff, however, I did come away with two products from the newest collection from “Beautifully Disney” cosmetics line. This newest collection is focused on Disney fairies. Personally I think they could’ve shown some of the other fairies. They skipped any and all fairy godmothers. The main faces are Tinker Bell (of course) from Peter Pan, and The Blue Fairy from Pinocchio. Anyways, I picked up the Fantasy in Flighty Eyeshadow Palette ($36.95) and the 4 Nail Polish Mini Set ($21.95). They also had a brush set that looked really nice, but I have a ton of brushes already and I wasn’t sure what their quality was. They also had some new blushes that were really pigmented, but they had faces of villains on the front, and I didn’t want that. So anyways, here’s the pictures and some thoughts on what I’ve got. Enjoy!

Thoughts:
Nail Polish: Upon reflection I have no idea why I bought these. I have 393838 bottles of nail polish, and I really don’t need any more. I was probably stoked because with the discount these were fairly cheap. I’m annoyed because the two gold colors are pretty similar, which would’ve dissuaded me from buying them if I’d thought about it a little more at the store. I’m interested to see how the bigger pieces of glitter will actually lay once applied to the nails. I can do a full review on these nail colors if anyone would like – let me know! I’m most excited  about the red color, which I believe is “Star Struck”. I’m  not pleased that the names of these colors are not labeled on the bottles or labeled in any obvious way. Based on the ingredients in the packaging this is what I’ve decided – “Spriteful” is the darker gold with bigger pieces of glitter because the packaging says it has Red Iron Oxide & Yellow #5 in it. I figured the Red Iron Oxide is what made it slightly darker…? “Wish Come True” is the softer gold color because it only has Yellow #5. “Star Struck” is the red because it has Red #7 in it. Finally, “Something Sassy” is the blue because it has Violet #2 in it. I feel like a really dumb scientist right now. I hope those are right… 😦 I apologize if I’m wrong, and if anyone knows  for sure the correct names I would really appreciate if you let me know!

Palette: I know this is not the same line of products as the Disney by Sephora collection but I feel like they’re about the same quality, so I pretty much bought this based on what the packaging looks like lol, just like I did with The Little Mermaid palette. As you can see from the swatches, the pigmentation is mixed. I passed my finger over the colors at a medium pressure, you could see where my finger had left a trace in the shadow, yet the colors were hit and miss in terms of pigment. Perhaps with a proper make up brush and technique the pigment will go on nicely if you apply it with a patting motion. I think the colors are nice. Again, no names for these colors which makes me unhappy, but oh well. They all have shimmer in them so be aware!I’m really looking forward to trying out the white as a highlight, the rose gold next to it as a lid shade, and the copper brown in the crease. Another option would be the same highlight/crease, but using the yellow as the lid shade. For a more dramatic look, I would again use the white as a highlight, the blue (above the yellow) as my lid shade, then put the dark blue/black (above the white) as my crease color. Just some ideas! Were you inspired by any of these shades, share your ideas with me!

Let me know what you think about these purchases in the comments and let me know if you’d like to see some looks created or full reviews 🙂 Please follow this blog & follow me on Instagram and Twitter @missal_leigh

Mani Monday!

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Today’s Mani Monday is brought to you by Sinful Colors polish in the color “Mambo Melt”. It’s a very shiny purple, no shimmer, not metallic but it’s certainly not matte. I guess I’d call this a satin finish.

Honestly not sure where I picked this color up from. I’ve had it for awhile and never used it Bc of the finish, I generally prefer solid matte colors. However, this is what got picked out of the nail polish bin so that’s what I went with!

Quality wise, this isn’t great. The first coat was very streaky, a second coat was definitely necessary. I always use base, two coats of color, and a top coat, but something went awry this time. The second coat made the polish look thick and fully covered the nail, but when I applied the top coat, is stripped some of the color away! I tried to take a picture of this but it’s kind of hard to see…(see pic below) I definitely waited a looong time between color and top coat, so I know it was dry. I’m not sure why that happened, if it was the quality if the polish or something I did wrong..? Any thoughts please let me know!

I’m going to let this polish wear for the week and see what happens, but at this point I don’t feel a strong inclination to keep this in my polish bin especially when I have much better quality. We’ll see!

Have you ever used Sinful Colors or experienced the color stripping I experienced? Please let me know in the comments!

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Mani Monday!

20131209-122909.jpgToday’s Mani Monday is brought to you by Sephora by O.P.I. In the color “Break a Leg-warmer!” I believe this is one of the colors from the NY Ballet inspired line…which would make sense given the name.

Usually I don’t like square shaped brushes. I prefer the rounded brush like the Sally Hansen Complete Salon Manicure. However, I didn’t want to stick to just one brand for the rest of my life so I picked up some Sephora colors during my Sephora haul that I blogged about in November.

This color is super rich and creamy, almost one coat is enough, but by default I did two, along with my normal base/top coat. I worry that this will leave my nails a little grey tinged when I take the polish off but hopefully the base coat stops that from happening.

Let me know your thoughts! Do you like this color? Do you like other Sephora by OPI colors? Other brands?