E.L.F. Nail Polish Royal Purple

Sorry about the lack of post yesterday. We had a small family emergency. This year is turning about to be crazy.

So how was everyones Halloween? We had a lot of fun as it was a combo birthday for my niece and trick or treating event. Check out this awesome decoration we saw! Dracula actually pops up inside the carriage.

Anywho, onto the swatch. I painted my nails purple for Halloween. I used E.L.F. Royal purple which is a deep sparkley purple. Very lovely.

E.L.F. (EyesLipsFace) Royal Purple

In bright light it looks warmer medium purple, in darker settings its way more deep and cool. I used some matching purple nail art on it after Halloween, but it blended too well in dark settings.

Under lower light

This unfortunately was one of my funky E.L.F. polishes though, this particular bottle was a bit thicker and had fibers in it. Made it a little hard to paint but not impossible. It also dries fast like most of the E.L.F. polishes. A good base and top coat is required to prevent staining and to make it very shiny.

See below for coupon

Another reason I wanted to post this is E.L.F. is currently doing a %50 off their 25 fave  items, which includes nail polishes! So if you've been hankering for some items from Eyes Lips Face now is a good time to jump on it. If you need fillers, I totally recommend the mineral line (especially the eyeshadows), and the studio brushes. I especially LOVE my Studio Kabuki brush as it's the softest mineral brush I've ever used. The other studio brushes are great for acrylic nail art paint (not good for use with acetone however).

Half Off 25 Insider Faves with coupon code FAVES through 11/23. Minimum order $25.

E.L.F. Dark Navy Nail Polish

Sometimes I place something aside for awhile and forget how much I love it. I've been all over M.A.C. and O.P.I. lately I've been neglecting my E.L.F. polishes. So I took out Dark Navy the other day and began swatching. I didn't have time to clean up around my cuticles, please excuse the sloppy job.

E.L.F. Dark Navy Nail Polish ($1)
http://www.eyeslipsface.com

Dark Navy is an incredibly deep blue, almost black. The blue is barely visible unless under sun/bright lighting. It would be great for many applications where you wouldn't want to use a black but still need something dark.

Eyeslipsface Dark Navy - No Flash - Indoors

What I love most about this nail lacquer, besides the color, is that it goes on smoooth. It's not a thick polish, but this particular color went on with full coverage with only one coat! Yay! It also dries much faster than most of my other brands of polish. At $1 a bottle how can one go wrong?

Eyes Lips Face

The only downside I've found to E.L.F. polishes is some colors can dye nails to match your painted color. Always use a base coat to prevent that from happening. I didn't have much trouble removing the offending dye however. Dark Navy has a slight dyeing effect, so your nails could turn blue-grey(the worst offender I've found so far is Punk Purple, however).

If you're just interested in a few polish from E.L.F. it's usually a sound idea to wait for a %50-%75 site wide sale(shipping kills it), but they happen once maybe twice a year from what I've seen. There's always great coupon codes flying around online. This month SHIP25 is free shipping over $25 or EYES50 for %50 off eye makeup (through 10/31). Their absolute best eye makeup is the mineral eyeshadow (in my opinion), I'd avoid the $1 eyeshadows, I didn't like them too much.

Easy Nail Patterns for Halloween

I love Halloween, and it's a good time of year to use colors or nail designs you would otherwise avoid. I wanted to do something that looked good from afar and not over the top. It started off a perfect project, but I think I took it too far. I guess I was really bored. This is really easy to do, since you stamp the nail on on and none of it was freehand.

Simple Halloween nail design
Konad M70

For the above pattern I used O.P.I. You Don't Know Jacques! for the base then did some Konad stamping art with image plate M70 and O.P.I. Take the Stage. This could easily be replicated with a very skinny nail art brush too, but I used stamps since I have trouble using brushes with my left hand. I need to practice my freehand art more for sure.

Embellished even more with Spiderwebs and Moon

For the moon pattern I used GCOCL plate M10 and Konad special white polish. The moon was way too white for my tastes, so I used a nail art brush and went over it with E.L.F. Moonlight nail polish. The GCOCL and other knock off Konad plates are NOT as nice as Konad by far, and you can see that it didn't transfer well. Even toned down it was too much.

The Spiderwebs were done with GCOCL plate m93, which stamped far better than the moon. I used Konad special polish in black. Overall if I sport this again I think I'll just stick with the orange and maybe the spiderwebs. The moon took it too far over the top for nail designs, in my opinion. Then again, Halloween is about being over the top.

What are you sporting on your nails for the Halloween season?

Nail Designs : Ruffian Manicure

I've been trying to think of the easiest way to do a Ruffian Manicure design. Which is (in my mind) a reverse french manicure. It's one of the more popular Nail Art designs in 2010. I really like the overall look, especially since you can wear a black nail without looking goth. So here is my How To Do a Ruffian manicure the easy way!

Ruffian Design

I watched some freehand tutorials on how to do this, and decided I just don't have a steady enough hand for this. I'm usually quite well with freehand, but not smile lines (or in this case, a frown line?).

Wet N Wild Precious Metals #351 Steel
E.L.F. Nail Polish Black

Step by step, here was how I did it. 

First I painted Wet N Wild Precious Metals in Steel after a base coat. I usually leave a gap between my cuticles but it made this design look silly. So I painted the steel color as close as humanly possible to my cuticles and sidewells without causing a mess. This was tough, but easy to do with this particular nail polish. I used 2 coats and let dry for quite awhile.

E.L.F. black is not creme, but has red sparkles visible in very bright lighting

Then I used sticker guides from a Sally Hansen French Manicure kit to create the reverse smile line. I never ever use the guides for actual french manicures as I either freehand my manicures, or clean it up with an art brush and acetone. You can purchase Sally Hansen Manicure Aides French Manicure Guides  separately  for $1 on Amazon and save some money.

Ruffian Design is a popular in 2010

The trick is to work fast when using guides. Make sure the sticker is FLAT, if it bubbles the polish will run underneath the guide and cause a mess. Paint your 1-2 coats of black as quickly as possible and remove the guide by pulling straight up. Use a new guide for every nail.

The design may not come out perfect, and thats OK. If your shimmer coat is completely dry and you worked fast with the black portion it will be easy to fix. Dip a stiff very small craft brush in acetone and carefully remove any small imperfections. Since the shimmer polish is dry (and hard to remove anyways) and the creme color is still wet you should be able to remove most of the black imperfections without ruining the overall design. Don't worry about imperfections you can see 1-2" from your face, only the ones visible 1-2 feet away as no one else will notice them anyways... Unless you're a perfectionist. I went a bit overboard and had to touch up my silver after (again, with a craft brush, as it's more precise then using the brush that comes with the polish.

I did my Tips rather far up, in most cases it's further down. But I really wanted to show the contrast and it still looked beautiful

Let the black dry VERY well. Then finish with top coat. You'll have a beautiful Ruffian Nail Design.

ELF Moonlight and MAC Earthly Harmony GCOCL m10

It's my friday! Somehow I ended up with not one, but three bottles of E.L.F. Moonlight nail lacquer. Figures? I guess I really liked it.

I was going to stamp with black, but I realized the tiny bits of my MAC nail polish would look much better. I actually am beginning to think my little one only poured out about half the bottle.




E.L.F. Moonlight ($1) is much like OPI Kyoto pearl, only a warmer color. It has a slight golden hue to it which is beautiful.

The Earthly Harmony ($13), which was recently sported on Lady Gaga, perfectly complements it for a stamp. It also stamped exceptionally well, even though it has sparkles.

For the plate, I used my E-Bay image plates to find something that reminded me of cherry blossoms. This design is on plate m10. Although I don't enjoy most of the images on GCOCL plates I was surprised by this design.

I did mess up a little trying to fill in some gaps, but overall am pleased with the outcome. My short nails have not been fun lately, but I've begun using Mavala Nail Hardener. I hope they start growing soon!




Have a great weekend! I hope it's warm enough to go fishing.

E.L.F. Nail Polish Swatch Sunset

Sorry it's been a slow week. I must be stressed much more than I think over the sinking bed because I landed in the E.R. on Saturday night with chest pain and heart palpitations. I think everything's O.K. but I have to follow up. As you can imagine, I haven't been feeling well enough to paint my nails as much.

Last night was good enough to give it a try. So I did a quick swatch and snapped some pictures as best I could. I realized after the pinky looks distorted but it looked beautiful actually on my nails. 

E.L.F. Polish Sunset

E.L.F. Sunset nail polish is a beautiful deep pink color. Not something I'd associate with the name "Sunset". I guess I envision a different time of the evening (orangey-pinks).

 It's still a beautiful color, and application was so easy. Most of my ELF colors dry super fast, and this one is no exception. By the time I finished my pink the thumb was completely dry. I finished with Sally Hansen hard as nails UV top coat.

I've been trying out Blogger's compose instead of edit HTML. So if you notice any issues with the posts, let me know.

Art Deco nails with Konad stamping

I did a lot of polish swatches and stamp designs Friday & Saturday. So originally I had planned on posting my art deco nails and speaking about the free pants I got from Eileen Fischer, as I imagine it would be a topic you gals would much prefer. I'll have to place that topic on the back-burner.
Something happened over the weekend. My grandmother's(in-law) cousin passed away. To most Americans this might seem like a distanced relative, but my in-laws are Laotian Buddhists. Cousins can be as close as brothers, and the community (through temple, friends, word of mouth) pulls together strongly for joyous and sorrowful events.
This is really different from my catholic upbringing. Last night we all got together to party to release the spirit. It wasn't extremely joyful, but it also was not at all what I'd consider mourning. It was quite nice and I definitely would prefer "checking out" like this. Services will continue for anywhere from 1-3 weeks and it is unknown(yet) exactly which days I won't be around. I'll try to post when I can, but family comes first.

I had done my nails a few times over the weekend before the bad news arrived. My first design was like an art-deco type. I'm not sure really what else to call it.



I used E.L.F. punk purple for the base, although I meant to use Mod Mauve and grabbed the wrong bottle! *00PS* For the stamped pink nails I used an old unlabelled bottle of Pure ICE that is a hot pink color and filled the squares with a nail art felt tip pen. The black stamps were done with Konad special polish in black. Image plate used was Konad brand m61.
I tried really hard to remove the black polish from my cuticles but it would not budge.



I wasn't crazy about the design and so it didn't last long. It seemed very "80's" to me though. If I kept it on I might have put on a side ponytail and tied my T-shirt into a knot!



In the meantime between posts, don't forget our giveaway for a Konad kit.

Would you sport a purple and hot pink "art deco" manicure? Do you think it looks very 80's?

Coach Poppy nails and an E.L.F. polish Konad

Want to win 4 Konad image plates? Then please enter our giveaway! (links above). So far there isn't a whole lot of entries and it's a really nifty Konad prize where you can pick what YOU want.

I'm really liking the Coach Poppy project. It has connected me to many blogs I might not have otherwise stumbled upon! So I did a little Konad tribute. I can't tell you the name of the polish, its completely unlabelled. I think it came from a Nail Color Institute kit I got for Christmas. I'm not wanting to win the $2500 Coach gift certificate, I just like being involved.



After I cleaned that off I wanted to do a white Konad with review. E.L.F. white nail polish is OK. I mean, it's streaky and sheer. It took me 3 coats to get this look and it was still streaky, luckily the Konad nail stamp hid it well.



For the stamping I used Konad image plate m71 which is a really vintage looking girly plate. It's one of my faves so far and I nabbed it on an Amazon sale for about $4 or so. Woo!



The stamp color is Konad Sky Pearl special polish. I love this color - it's a medium sparkly blue but the shimmer isn't overbearing. Really lovely.



My stamping didn't come out perfect. I was OK with that. Unfortunately after adding a top coat it wouldn't dry! *SAD* So I had to remove it. I need to find a really good opaque white polish, any suggestions?

E.L.F.'s (not) Waterproof eyeliner pens... But still good

We should be having another giveaway soon! This one will be sponsored by DesignUrNails - an online retailer of Konad stamping nail art. I'm very excited about this one, and I really hope you all are too.

Last night I meant to take swatch pictures before I left for Cheesecake factory. Time got the best of me and before I knew, it was time to leave. I completely forgot my camera, which was a bummer because it was also my best buddies birthday. We had a lovely time regardless, but I had to prep for my eyeliner pictures today while my daughter took her afternoon nap. Onto the review!



E.L.F. Waterproof eyeliner pens are nice. They're definitely my first choice for my daily activities. They go on dark and heavy, with a clean line. It can be smudged right after application but not as easily as a cream or pencil liner.

As far as "water-proof" I'd say a little bit. I've been splashed in the face twice without any runs. Twice (in one day!) at Six Flags New England, and once at Old Orchard Beach in Maine. Luckily, neither time did I have a makeup mishap. Don't dry/pat your eyes after they get wet though!!! Here is an image of my hand where I ran cold water over the liner.



It sticks pretty well with water, but you can see some drips and bleeding. Also, if you touch the liner after it gets wet then you're definitely OUT OF LUCK. It's a mess.

As far as the color goes, the black is nice but I prefer Plum. Plum is actually more dark then black and coats really well. I cannot give a good review of Midnight because my pen arrived dried out. I tried reviving it with water but you can see it didn't work.





Any other eyeliner's you gals use that claim to be water-proof when they're really not? I'd like to know so I can avoid them.

E.L.F. Studio Cream Eyeliner midnight madness

EyesLipsFace co recently came out with new shimmer eyeliner. I'm a bit bummed because it came out after my last haul. More excuses to shop from them again.

Next up for review is E.L.F. cream eyeliner in midnight. This liner is part of their studio line of cosmetics. I really love this stuff.



The great thing about it is it really is waterproof. I did a swatch my hand and ran water over it and it didn't budge at all. I've fallen in love! It smudges well with a smudge brush but otherwise stays put. You'll still want to keep your hands away from your eyes though. The only downside, if you see it as such, is you'll need an eyeliner or angled brush to apply it. If you're beauty and makeup crazy like me you'll already have a good assortment of brushes to work with. If not, Eyeslipsface brushes are best and inexpensive. Skip on the basic line of brushes though.

The midnight blue is a great color. It can be applied light, or packed on for a darker look. Even better it brushes on lashes extremely well so the blonde base gets good coverage. I even brush it on my lower lashes to get a lot of pop!



To get this look I used E.L.F. Shimmer facial whip for an eyeshadow base. It works great for everything. I especially like it as an eye shadow base or like a lip gloss. I then used Bare Minerals Glee for the contour of my eye. Then I brushed on Premium Minerals Candy and Bare Minerals Soft Focus Romance on the lid. For the brow line and corners of my eyes I used E.L.F. mineral eyeshadow Angelic. I like shimmery eyes. The facial whip doesn't crease like some eyeshadow primers and it sticks all day. Plus, I use colors that closely match with whatever eyeshadow I'm using.



If you haven't already, you should try studio cream eyeliner.

Want an everyday eyeliner? E.L.F. pencils fit the bill

As a continuation of our Eyeslipsface eye liner mega mashup I now bring you the E.L.F. pencil eyeliner review.

I had some camera troubles, because I was taking pictures alone. Some turned out yellowy but I'm sure you can get a decent idea of the eyeliners. Black is shown on the left, plum on the right.



I didn't want to do up my eyes a lot. I wanted you to be able to see the actual liner. I brushed on Bobbi Brown's shimmer brick in gold as a base, with a dab of E.L.F. mineral eyeshadow in Socialite for slight shadowing. I did not use any mascara, again, I didn't want to take away from the eyeliners.

Here is an view of the E.L.F. eyeliner pencil in Black.

It's quite dark for a pencil and easy to smudge. If you want a dark bold line I'd definitely suggest smudging this first, then going back over with a liquid liner as close to the lash line as possible. Layering too much causes clumps - EW.


Shown below is the eyeliner in plum.

Plum, In my opinion, is harder to work with. No amount of layering will make it any darker. It also smudges well and can get clumpy with too much application. It sure does make my eyes pop. If I was going out for the night I'd apply a rather thick smudged line, and finish with a liquid liner in purple for a bolder look.

Neither fare well on the lower lash line because the pencils are too soft. You will get a lot of clumps, but I prefer my eyeliner to be rather dark so I overdo it. I definitely will say never use these on the lower lash line if you're wearing contacts!

I do really like these, although pencil is never my first choice. E.L.F. pencil eyeliners are inexpensive (as is all their makeup), comfortable to wear. They won't run when wet, but will wash off easily. If you're going for a bold look I'd stick to the black one however.

E.L.F. Liquid Eyeliner review

Earlier I posted the E.L.F. eyeliner mega mashup. Today I'm going to touch base on eyeslipsface co liquid eyeliner line.



I'm going to be completely honest here: SKIP buying this product. It's color is great, it's staying power amazing. It's more waterproof then any of their other eyeliners.

It has a major flaw though. It smells like industrial plastic burning. Then, when you put it on, it feels like industrial eye burning! OUCH! I refused to even take a swatch picture on my eyes(sorry!).

You can see that the plum color is more of a golden hue of purple, rather that being actually purple. The black however, is a deep perfect black. Sadly, these would be great if they didn't smell so bad or burn your eyes. I even wonder if they're safe to wear.



Later I'll cover the MUCH better eyeliners Eyes Lips Face offers in pencil, cream, and waterproof liquid pen.

E.L.F. Eyeliner Mega Mashup

I love eye liner. Really, I can't get enough. So of course, I had to purchase a bunch from E.L.F.
Here's a wrap-up that will touch base closer with each kind of the next week.



From left to right: E.L.F. liquid eye liner in Black and Plum, E.L.F. eyeliner in Black and plum, E.L.F. cream eyeliner(studio line) in midnight, E.L.F. liquid waterproof eyeliner pen in Black, Plum, and Midnight.

As you can see I really like Black, Purple and blue colors. Each of these have their pro's and con's from set to set. The color, intensity and the lasting power is definitely different for each group. Some smudge easier then others. I will cover this in more detail later on in the week.

Right now I will say, I definitely prefer the liquid waterproof eyeliner pens and the E.L.F. Studio Cream eyeliner. Depending on what look I'm going for.

These eyeliner swatches show the difference in color between the different types. These are left to right the same as the image above.




Have you tried E.L.F. (eyeslipsface co.) yet? What do you like/dislike?

Konad m2 + E.L.F. Bubble Gum Pink on my piggies

I originally covered my big toes with stamps, and it just looked sloppy. So I re-did it today. I used the m2 plate by Konad. Let me say, it gave me a good way to review E.L.F.'s Bubble Gum Pink polish. HUGE thumbs down.
I really love the color but it seems to pool or coagulate. It's very streaky, and requires so many coats (4+) for even coverage. I painted my nails about 4 times today as each time I'd smudge in the drying process.

This color has been great on my daughters nails, but they're too tiny to see any imperfections. I'd avoid for adult sized nails though.

I do love the Konad though, and I think I did a lot better this time. On another upbeat note, I ordered 10 GCOCL plates off of Ebay today. They're coming from Hong Kong so it may take a week... or 10. These plates are also called "Fauxnad plates" as they are not made by Konad.

I'll start pulling out my other brands soon, I've just been using E.L.F. nail polish lately because I recently purchased a big haul.

More pictures of the piggies!

Trying out my new Konad + E.L.F polish Black

As previously mentioned I purchased a Konad Set Starter Kit for Stamping Nail Art. It arrived lightening fast. I believe I ordered it Friday(?) and it arrived Monday. Great seller. It actually came with the new style stamper and not the one pictured.

My first attempts yesterday were awful. I couldn't pick up images or Konad designs. I stretched them horribly laying them down. I figured out I was applying WAY to much pressure both picking up and placing the stamp. All the Vlogs and Blogs say you need quite a bit of pressure but so far I'd say "Just enough to roll the stamp".

My transfers still aren't great, and it isn't fool proof. Practice will make perfect?

This was done with E.L.F. nail polish in Black and special Konad white stamping polish.
Black usually isn't my color for nails, but this Eyeslipsface nail polish is great in black(besides the smell) this color was achieved with only two coats. Love it!

These were all taken pre top coat. Unfortunately, after trying 3-4 different top coats I realized most of the images smeared. I still have a lot of figuring out to do.

E.L.F. Punk Purple Swatch and review time

I purchased this beautiful polish myself recently during a large E.L.F. Haul.
Punk purple is a gorgeous pink purple. Id say the color is very true to its name. It coats in 1-2 coats (I use 2 for full coverage). This is a glossy polish, however can easily be made matte with E.L.F matte topcoat!

I HIGHLY suggest using a base coat. I personally have yet to have nail discoloration with E.L.F. polish but as you may know cheaper polishes tend to cause this.
It does chip easily when using their topcoat, but wears well with a quality topcoat!


Chip resistant 4/5
Color 5/5
Application Coats 5/5
Price 5/5

Cons: I had hot pink staining after using this. I dont know whether it was the E.L.F. polish or my new nail polish remover (Equate Strengthening). Ive used %100 pure acetone in the past with no issues and am going to try that at a later date.

E.L.F. Punk purple is available at eyeslipsface.com for $1 a bottle