Vamp Nails // Alice Had a Vision-Again // essence Twilight BreakingDawn Part Two

I picked up all four essence Twilight nail shades (as I mentioned in this haul) and thefirst one I chose to do a full mani with was Alice Had a Vision-Again. A blackbased filled with purple flecks and the odd aqua fleck as well, this is reallydark but shines purple when it hits the light. The flecks seem embedded in thenail and spread really evenly when painting it on, which made this a reallyeasy polish to work with.

 

 

 

 

I’ve also snuck some sneaky Dior holiday swatches into that last image, just in case you thought my hands were dirty. I’m tossingup between the two quints at the moment, and just can’t decide!

 

I really like the deep vampy purple of Alice Had aVision-Again and the flecks of aqua and purple are particularly beautiful indirect sunlight. I would recommend all of the new essence Twilight shades, eventhough I’m not a big Twilight fan the colours are gorgeous.

Are you going to watch the new Twilight film?

What new holiday collections are you lemming?

Recreating Myself // My Wildcard Entry for #BBU12

In terms of makeup, I switch up my look all the time. Some days are bright pink lips, other days it is bright green eyeshadow, but the one look I am afraid of, I decided to tackle for Sara-May's Makeup Utopia Wildcard. For those of you who are unaware, Makeup Utopia are hosting a Beauty Bloggers Conference in September and have 2 wildcard spots available... and I want one!

I present to you, my take on a 'dark and vampy' FOTD!

I used matte shades for the eyes as it is something I don't do often, and it forced me to work at blending a lot more than I normally would as well.

I used theBalm's Meet Matt(e) palette for my eyes, with Matt McDonald being the star player! I blended the edges out with Matt Gallagher and used Matt Chung as the hightlight. The lips were courtesy of MAC Plumful, until I thought of something vampier in my collection...

The new Nars Pure Matte lipstick in Amsterdam fit the vampy bill perfectly!

Whilst most of the other Wildcard entries are full on looks, I thought of this challenge as a way to recreate my way of thinking, and stop fearing certain looks! Makeup is all about having fun (after all, it washes off!) and so I'm grateful for this challenge, which has taught me to try all the looks in my head, and not fear new things!

What new things will you try this week?
What look are you most afraid of?


What do you think of my Wildcard attempt?!

L'Oreal Blue Reef + Darling Harlequin

Like most beauty bloggers, I am a magpie when it comes to pretty and sparkly things. When L'Oreal gifted me some of their new Colour Riche nail shades, Blue Reef* really stood out to me.

A dark teal creme polish, this was very opaque after one coat but I applied another as I like to do two coats of all of my polishes. The wide brush with these mini polishes is brilliant, I find them easier to use than regular polish brushes.

Never one to leave a nice manicure alone, I brought out one of my favourite glitter topcoats, Darling's Harlequin*. It's a mixture of small and large silver hex in a clear base, and is great because it looks good on such a wide range of nail shades.

Absolutely love this combination, it lasted quite a while on my nails and is something I think I will wear quite regularly as well.

The whole Color Riche Le Vernis range really appeals to me, I'm yet to use up a whole bottle of regular polish so the smaller sized bottle suits my needs (having said that, I can see myself finishing this whole bottle up and will be buying a replacement when that happens.) I have my eye on a few other shades from the collection (there is a purple with gold shimmer that is calling my name!) so I will be showing more of these here soon.

L'Oreal Color Riche Le Vernis are 5ml and retail for $6.95 AUD and are available from Target, Priceline, Pharmacies and anywhere else you find L'Oreal.

Darling polishes retail for $18.95 and can be purchased here.

Are you addicted to accent nails as well?

What do you think of these colours?

*These polishes were provided for consideration but my opinions and love for them are honest. Honesty, always.

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Vampire's Love

The last monthly release from Essence saw them leap onto the vampire trend with vigour. I don't mind the odd True Blood episode or Twilight tune out, but I'm definitely not in the 'vampire obsessed' category. I still fell for this collection, however, and think the execution tread the line between vampy and cute perfectly.

The Vampire's Love line is limited edition, and contains a range of polishes, two lipstains, one blush gelee, shimmer powder, lash thickener, perfume and an eyeshadow palette. I was a good girl and only chose a few items.

Only 5 things, see how restrained I was! (I have since gone back to get more...) I am planning on doing in depth reviews on some of these, but thought I'd post my initial thoughts now so if you were interested you could pick the pieces, as they are limited edition and will be gone soon.

Six gorgeous shadows for $7.50 AUD? It was an easy decision, and I think the shade selection in 'Love at First Bite' leaves room for wearable daytime looks as well as smokier night ones. I'll be doing a look with this palette soon, and more swatches.

This 'Bloody Mary' blush gelee gives a red flush to cheeks, and is sort of like the jelly version of Benefit's Benetint, but much more affordable. I love that the packaging is clear, I think it looks really cool. From memory it was around the $3 mark.

 I assumed that the two lip stains in the Vampires Love range were going to have slant tip applicators as the tube is squeezy, but I was delighted to see a doe foot inside! Best of both worlds, I am a happy little vampire girl and love the 'True Love' shade that I chose. As you can see from the above image, it really does 'stain', that was my attempt at rubbing away the swatch with a wipe.

To really appreciate how amazing these polishes are, you need to see them in person. Photos will never do them justice, especially Gold Old Buffy, which is officially the prettiest polish I own. Captivating, can't stop staring at it and I'm not even a dark nail lover.

Overall I think I did well with this collection, I went back to buy the speckled grey/white polish as I couldn't stop thinking about it. I think they pulled this theme off really well, and I appreciate the range of vampy influence they drew from (Buffy, Sparkly aka Twilight, darkness motifs, myths like Bloody Mary)

I'm very happy with my choices, what do you think of them? Did you pick anything up from the Vampire's Love collection?