Showing posts with label Brown. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Brown. Show all posts

Friday, 3 September 2010

BB Couture Butt-Naked Bronze


This is 3 coats of BB Couture Butt-Naked Bronze, a caramel colored shimmer polish. Nice color and great formula as expected from BB Couture. The boyfriend and I really hated this one on me! It looks good in the pictures though and would look lovely on dark skin tones!


Thanks for reading!
April

Monday, 26 July 2010

Zoya Cheryl


This is 2 coats of Zoya Cheryl from their Wicked Collection for fall. I almost got away with just one coat and the formula is truly spectacular. I can't describe this color any better than Zoya does on their own website,
A smoky brown base completely packed with metallic copper, gold and mahogany metallic microglitter.
Here are my overall thoughts on both of Zoya's fall collections. I'll be posting more swatches soon.

Thanks for reading!
April

All opinions are my own & were not influenced by Zoya! For more information you can read my disclosure policy.

Tuesday, 15 June 2010

A Few BB Coutures

I won these along with Poison Ivy as part of an Earth Day BB Couture set. I love Poison Ivy, but unfortunately, I don't like any of these 3 brushstrokey frosts. I used 3 coats for each of them.

First we have BB Couture Espresso Dream which I would describe as a frosty, metallic tan.

There was a pretty little butterfly flitting around my garden while taking pictures of this one.


Next we have BB Couture Caramel Carma, a frosty metallic caramel.


Finally we have BB Couture Autumn Sunset, a rusty brown, frosty metallic. I thought I would like this one the most but it made me feel like a scary, mean, old lady! The kind that would play slots all day in Vegas with her hair all done up while she chain smokes menthols.

I put all three of them on my pinky and I like them together.

The formula was nice and BB Couture still has more colors that I want to own than any other company. These three frosty browns just don't do it for me though.

Thanks for reading!
April

Sunday, 16 May 2010

Zoya Underrated Beauties Giveaway! Ends 6/1. (Closed)

I asked Zoya if their staff had any favorite polishes that often get overlooked. They have over 300 colors and I felt sure that there were some gorgeous colors that hadn't gotten much attention. They sent me six colors to show you & I'm also including Pasha and Gaia which I purchased myself. So here we go, eight lovely Zoyas that you don't see very often. Lots of pictures!

First we have Zoya Bailey, shown here with four coats, but it would have been fine with three.

Zoya describes this color perfectly.
Light neutral pink sheer base with cool pink duochrome shimmer and sparkling silver microglitter.
The silver microglitter reminds me of lightly sprinkled sugar. This one looked pretty sheer, so I asked my sister Alisa to swatch it too, since my nails are lightly stained. Here's her photo. Thanks Alisa! Alisa used just two coats.

I ended up liking Zoya Bailey a lot more than I thought I would. It's a nice color, not really my style, but it works GREAT as a layering polish! I'll show it over Zoya Coco later in this post and will show it over other colors soon.


Next up is Zoya Brizia, shown with three coats. I love this one!


Zoya Brizia is a taupey lavender metallic with a silvery blue duochrome effect! I've never seen anything else quite like it and it goes with nicely with most of my wardrobe.


Zoya Coco is one of those colors I would never pick up, since I'm not really drawn to anything in the red family but I ended up really liking this one.

It's a dusty burgundy creme that looks like a dusty reddish brown in low lights. Beautiful color and easy application. This is two coats. Here's Zoya and my dog Wally with some very silly looking fur. What happened that day Wally?


Zoya Flowie is my least favorite because I don't find it very flattering with my skin tone. This is 3 coats.

I would call this a light, peachy brown creme. Easy application. This will probably look great on ladies with much paler or much darker skin tones than mine.


From my least favorite we go to my all time favorite, #1 nail polish, Zoya Gaia! You can read my full post on this beauty here. This is the polish I would keep if I could only have one for the rest of time. Soft white with gold microshimer. This is 4 coats and yes it's totally worth it!


Zoya Pasha is another favorite. You can read my full post about it here. This is 2 coats. I think it looks like iced coffee.


Zoya Raine is another sheer that works as an AMAZING layering polish. This is 4 coats.

This is another one that I thought might be too sheer for my nails. Here it is on my sister Alisa with just 2 coats. Thanks again Alisa!

Zoya Raine is a pink/purple duochrome. You can see Raine layered over Coco later in this post. I tried it later in the week over a green creme and it looked INCREDIBLE!


Last but certainly not least, we have Zoya Sasha. This is another color that I would never pick up but I love it!

Zoya Sasha is a cool toned, blood red creme.

This is 3 coats. I tried it with 4 coats but couldn't tell a difference.


Golly, that was a lot of pictures. This is the longest post I've ever done! Here's a couple of bonus pictures.
This is Brizia with a little Konad. I used Zoya Coco on my pinky and middle fingers and Zoya Sasha on my ring and pointer.


And this is Zoya Coco with one coat of Zoya Raine on the left & one coat of Zoya Bailey on the right. So cool!!! You can really see how lovely both Raine and Bailey are once they are layered over other colors! I'll be showing them over more colors in the next couple of weeks. See what I mean about Bailey's lightly sprinkled sugar effect?


So we have eight lovely, underrated beauties from Zoya! Zoya has kindly offered one lucky winner their choice of any three of these polishes!! You have Bailey, Brizia, Coco, Flowie, Gaia, Pasha, Raine & Sasha to choose from. This prize can only be shipped within the continental US shipping, no P.O. boxes.

RULES:
PLEASE READ ALL OF THE RULES BEFORE ENTERING.
  • You must be a follower of our Concrete and Nail Polish blog. If you have a question on how to become a follower contact April at lirpaskoorb@gmail.com.
  • This prize can only be shipped within the continental US shipping, no P.O. boxes.
  • This giveaway starts today, May 16th, and will end Tuesday, June 1st, 2010 at 11:59PM Central Time.
  • We'll select the winner with random.org's random number generator and notify the winner by email on Wednesday, June 2nd.
  • The winner will have 24 hours to respond. If the winner doesn't reply within 24 hours, that winner will forfeit the prize and an alternate winner will be selected via random.org.
HOW TO ENTER:
Each person is allowed to enter up to three (3) times as follows:
  • Be a follower of our blog and tell me which of the underrated Zoya polishes you would like to win. No entries will count unless this first entry is completed.
  • You can earn an optional second entry by posting about this giveaway on your blog. You can do this in a post (it doesn't have to be it's own separate post) or by posting in your sidebar. Just make sure you leave the link in your entry.
  • You can earn an optional second entry by tweeting about this giveaway. Leave the link to your twitter status update in your entry.
  • You only need to fill out the form once. This works MUCH better than comments, so I've turned them off for this post to avoid confusion.


I received six polishes from Zoya that I reviewed above. Gaia & Pasha were purchased by me at an earlier date. All opinions are my own & were not influenced by Zoya! For more information you can read my disclosure policy.

Thanks for reading!
April

Friday, 5 March 2010

Maybelline Bronze Beam


This is one of my Dollar Store Maybellines. I had high hopes for it, but it's pretty blah. I much prefer my Wet N Wild Rustic if I'm going for a brown shimmer. On the plus side it works well with Konad.

We have 415 followers!!!!!! Oh my goodness!!!! Woohooo! You still have a couple of days to enter our Follower Appreciation giveaway. I'll be announcing another giveaway over the weekend and I'm so excited about this one! It will be open to everyone worldwide! Here's a hint: It's something I recently won and posted on my blog. Any guesses?

Thursday, 25 February 2010

Nails to Match My New Boots


This is why I enter blog giveaways! I won this amazing pair of Sorel boots from the lovely Karen Vitt & her blog The Neat Sheet. These things have already made my life easier. I can wear them when I'm mixing my concrete and then just hose them off when I'm done instead of ruining endless pairs shoes. Thanks Karen!

Tulsa gets a lot of thunderstorms. Wally & I were outside playing the other day when the wind started up.

I decided to paint my nails to match my new boots. I used China Glaze Chocodisiac for the base, American Apparel Cotton & a Migi Nail Art Pen for the stripes.

And for all of you LOST fans out there, Sorel's logo is a polar bear!

Please remember to enter my giveaways! They are listed on the right side of my blog.

Just for the record, no one paid me to do this post. I won the prize fair and square and was so happy with it that I decided to share it with you.

Thanks for reading!
April

Thursday, 18 February 2010

Wet N Wild Rustic & A Giveaway Roundup


This is 3 coats of Wet N Wild Rustic. I love it! Not quite copper brown shimmer.

Giveaway Roundup
You still have one more day to enter my UPrinting giveaway for 250 custom stickers or labels. Look through the entries so far at all of the things people might do with this prize if they win! Be sure you've entered the nail polish giveaways at Naive Nails (#4) & You've Got Nail (#10) & enter #5! I LOVE Novica!!!!
  1. Win Adea Italian Lingerie from Jaebumfangirl. Hurry ends tonight!
  2. Win a pair of V-Moda Faze Headphones from the Funky Monkey. Hurry ends tonight!
  3. Win the item of your choice from Downeast & Tangled & True. Hurry ends tonight!
  4. Win 4 Milani Holos from one of my very favorite bloggers, gilded angel of Naive Nails. Hurry ends tonight!
  5. Win a $75 credit to Novica from Energizer Bunny's Mommy Reports. Ends 2/20.
  6. Win Lazar's Chocolate from One 2 Try. Ends 2/20.
  7. Win a case of Zevia from the Vegster. Ends 2/20.
  8. Win a $50 credit to N-Fini from Mommy Goggles. Ends 2/21.
  9. Win a Waterpik from Mom's Focus On Cyber World. Ends 2/21.
  10. Win Models Prefer B Bold nail polish collection from You've Got Nail. Ends 2/22.
Thanks for reading!
April

Sunday, 14 February 2010

My First Franken - Muddy Waters


This was so fun! I have been setting aside polishes that I don't work for me in anticipation of a day of mixing them up to see what happens. Here's my first attempt and I'm pretty pleased with result. I mixed this turquoise shimmer with Sinful Big Daddy. I knew these were complimentary colors so they would probably make a brown, but I didn't anticipate such an interesting result. I decided to name it Muddy Waters. This ended up being a nice dark mushroom color with a strong turquoise shimmery flash. I certainly don't have anything even close to this in my little collection. I think you could achieve a similar result by mixing any two complimentary colors. Maybe a yellow creme with a purple shimmer would give you a mushroom with purple flash. Green shimmer & a red creme might make a mushroom with green shimmer. Get out your unwanteds and start mixing up some mushroom shimmers! Let me know if you try it out!
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Here is my second Valentine's manicure. I used Muddy Waters as a base and my Migi Nail Art Pens for the hearts. I got the idea from Steph at Nail Juice. I call my version Valentine's Day Blues.


Enter blog giveaways! It's a great way to get new readers, make new friends and you might get lucky! I won a $75 gift certificate to L'Occitane just this morning!

Giveaway Roundup
  1. Win some great nail polish and nail art pens from Rhea at the Chain Nail. Hurry ends soon!
  2. Win a prize package from Etsy Latino. Hurry ends tonight!
  3. Win a SAG awards gift bag filled with incredible goodies including a $100 Macy's gift card from Pink and Posh. Hurry ends tonight!
  4. Win a $50 gift certificate to We Love Colors from One Bored Mommy. Ends 2/15.
  5. Win 500 business cards from UPrinting & Days Like These. Ends 2/15.
  6. Win a $50 gift card to Walmart from the Dirty Shirt. Ends 2/16.
  7. Win Cowgirl Chocolates from Sweet Deals 4 Moms. Ends 2/17.
  8. Win awesome polish prizes from Lacquered Lizard. End date unknown.
And don't forget to enter my first giveaway!
Happy Valentine's Day!
April

Sunday, 7 February 2010

Maybelline Red & Bronze Aluminum & A Giveaway Roundup


These are 2 more from my Dollar Tree haul. Maybelline Red Aluminum & Bronze Aluminum were a little thick and hard to work with. They are both okay colors but not exciting enough to make it into my regular rotation. Like all of the Maybellines I've written about so far, these work great for Konad so they are totally worth their $1 price tag. If you love Konad pick up any of the Maybelline Mattes or Aluminums!

Giveaway Roundup (Someday I'll win a Flirty Apron!)
  1. Win the Flirty Apron of your choice from Blessings Abound Mommy. Ends 2/8.
  2. Win a Charlie's Soap prize package from Sweeps4Bloggers. Ends 2/8.
  3. Win 5 nail polishes from the lovely Rebecca of Nails Etc. Ends 2/10.
  4. Win an Eberjay pajama set from the Penny Pinching Mama. Ends 2/10.
  5. Win a $100 Sam's Plus Membership Gift Card from Mommy Goggles. Ends 2/10.
  6. Win a $200 Pottery Barn gift card from the Stylish House. Ends 2/11.
  7. Win the bag of your choice from Handbag Heaven & Thanks, Mail Carrier. Ends 2/11.
Thanks for reading!
April

Thursday, 4 February 2010

Maybelline Mattes: Blue, Rose, Grey, & Stone

I've had lots of fun & frustration with all of my Dollar Store Maybellines. Khaki Fringe made it into my top 5 favorites, Matte Sapphire is lovely but others have just been a pain to work with. Here are 4 of the Maybelline Matte series. The first two are big losers but I LOVE the last two.

UGH! These are NOT self leveling. They were so gloopy that the polish just made little brushstroke mountains. Those are not my nail ridges but just evidence of how thick this stuff was. I didn't like the color of either of these enough to bother with trying to make them work for me. Steph's Closet has lots of great pictures of some other Maybelline Mattes with topcoat if you're interested.

Now onto Matte Rose & Matte Blue which I think are gorgeous. I had been meaning to pick up a bottle of thinner for some time now. These two colors finally sent me to Sally's and the results were worth it. I added 2 or 3 drops to each of these before I applied them and it helped a lot!

I'm not usually interested in reds of any kind for my nails. Matte Rose made the jump into my regular rotation though. This is a gorgeous color but not really rose in my opinion. I think of rose as a dark, dusty pink & this is more of a dusty burgundy. 3 coats. I used a topcoat on my ring & pinkie.

Matte Blue is fairly unique in my opinion. Dusty, sky blue with shimmer. I love it. This is 3 coats.

Overall, at $1 a bottle these are totally worth it! All 4 of them work great with Konad which means that even the Grey and Stone are worth there $1 price tag.

I am putting together a giveaway soon and Maybelline Matte Rose & Matte Blue will be two of the 10 polishes I'll be offering as a prize! There will also be something from MAC & a Kevin Aucoin lipstick.

Thanks for reading!
April

Sunday, 20 September 2009

Zoya Pasha & Givaway Roundup

I got this one from the Zoya twitter sale. I loved the pictures I saw online, but when I did a quick swatch on one finger, I was worried it would clash with my skin tone. I finally got around to doing a full manicure and boy was I wrong! This will be one of my new go to colors. Super easy to apply and goes with most outfits. I finally decided the color looks like the iced coffee that sits in the little bowls of your ice. Zoya Pasha is a lovely polish!


Giveaway Roundup!
Thanks for reading!
April

Friday, 28 August 2009

MAC Dry Martini

I just wanted to do a quick post and show you guys the polish I bought yesterday. April and I had both been wanting an olive green color and wanted Rescue Beauty Lounge's No More War, but couldn't imagine spending $18 and having to pay shipping. So when I saw that MAC was releasing a dark olive color I was so excited!

As you can see from the picture it is a very brown olive color and even though I like this one a lot, i'm still craving for one that's a few shades lighter and a little more green.
It took two coats to reach bottle color and applied very smoothly.
Oh, and this is my first MAC nail polish and now officially my most expensive.
-Ashley