Nails and frankenpolishes

Firstly - I am lazy. Very lazy and I admire people who have the patience to apply the undercoat, then 2-3 layers of polish and the top coat and wait at least 30 minutes for it all to dry. IMHO nails take at least an hour to do. They loose their luster on the second day and wear/chip off at the third day the latest and then you have to do it all over again! Not to mention - nail polish removers stink quite unpleasantly and they do not get everything off.

My nails always come out as a total mess, therefore it's not worth the trouble. The only way they can look good with polish is when I use just one layer of protective undercoat - that dries up quickly enough and I do not have the opportunity to mess them up. I usually wear my nails clipped short and do not think about them much. I promise I'll start wearing nail polish regularly when it only takes one coat to apply and it would take at least a week to even show some signs of wear.
But since I am willing to go through a lot just to do some research I got myself among other things some bottles of nailpolish: black, white and blood red. Why black? Naturally because of all the hilite and interference colors I recently acquired from TKB that  look their best over dark base. Luckily the polishes were on sale in local store - dollar per bottle.

 

 All these are mixed with black polish: 24K Gold, then Crucible Red, Hilite Green, Hilite Red, Radiant Gold, Satin Orange Gold, Sparkle (this does not look like much at all), Travel to Earth (my favorite - warm greenish tint) and Travel to Jupiter. Since I mixed the polish and the powder right there, on my nails - the surface is not nice smooth and pretty - sorry, it's all about color here.

Only now did it occur to me that I could have left my poor nails in peace and done the swatches on some piece of plastic instead. Would have been easier to mix too. The colors would look a lot better if mixed properly - the polish and powder poured in a fresh bottle, added a metal ball and shaken well - at the moment I just dipped the polish brush in the polish and then in the powder and just wiped the brush clean with tissue paper.

EOTD Plummy Pink

This weekend was busy and fun – went to the country. Winter wonderland continues still… Tried to do some EOTD’s during last week too but I was so disappointed with the results that I did not want to post them. The problem is the lack of light in the morning – and what seems ok in the early morning is not so ok later on in  daylight.
During the weekend I decided to play some with my piggies: Smokey XXX has a lot of black iron oxide as base and when one smudges it (instead of patting it on) it becomes dark murky gray and looses it’s pink sheen.  So I mixed it with the TKB Trading eye shadow base (white), added some Raspberry, Paris Pink  and Travel to Mars. Result is matte dark plummy pink with the slightest red sheen.  Goes well with my dark pink office suite too.

On the pics: Conservatorie's Caramel light in Deluxe as foundi
EDM's Pearl Sunlight under the eyes
"Winter Sunset" as I call it all over lid and
Paris Pink diluted with TKB eyeshadow base as blush.

Ever heard of stuff called Vahar?

Well neither had I. Apparently it's mostly propolis (strong antibiotic properties), beeswax and pollen (beebread?) mixed with oil (usually sunflower oil). Saleslady swore it's good for herpes and  it makes the starting herpes go away in 3 hrs or so - if one applies the cream every 20 minutes. Also recommended for cold sores and extra dry skin. We'll see, at least it smells nice - like honey - and there's no preservatives etc in it. It's made by a couple who keep a bee farm somewhere in Põlva county. Small jar for 50 EEK~ 3,3 EUR.

Sai ostetud uut ja huvitavat kraami koduselveri looduspoest - vaatame, mis tulemused on. Kreemi nimeks vahar ning toodetakse mesitarus leiduvast - mesilasvaha, taruvaik, õietolm segatuna tõiduõliga. Kuna kreemis taruvaik, mil tugev antibakteriaalne ja raviv toime, siis on tõenäoliselt tegu hüva kraamiga. Ja loomulikult - ei sisalda säilitus- ega värvaineid. Soovitatakse ohatistele ja igasugustele nahalõhedele, ka lihtsalt kaitsva kreemina kuivale nahale.

PS! Delfi naistekas oli juttu, et vaha põhjustab pooride ummistumist - mul pole punne juurde tulnud. Ju propolis tasakaalustab. 

In an Estonian beauty forum it was told that beeswax causes pores to clog up - so far I have not noticed. But I do think that all people allergic to honey should keep away from Vahar.

EOTD Travel to Mercury with Hilite Copper

One thing - Travel to Mercury was not as reddish orange when I applied it in the morning in artificial light - it was much more bronze then, more yellowish. Now in bright daylight it looks bright reddish orange. Travel to Mercury is applied dry all over lid and wet as liner, some Hilite Copper is used just above the crease and as lower liner, dry (totally unvisible).

This time used the primer and EDM's Pearl Sunlight under the eyes, foundi is Conservatories' Caramel Light and blush is a mix of TKB's Paris Pink, Winter Rose and Apple Blossom.

I'll use the same post for Sunday's eyes too: TKB's Radiant Gold all over lid and Forged Gold wet as liner, Hilite Gold above the crease. Note: Radiant Gold is very sheer! But - on blue eyes the yellow-golden colors really rock!

Nice subtle colors these gold ones, will use primer next time I'm using them. TKB's Radiant Gold reminds me a lot of The Conservatorie's 18K Gold.

First Meow swatches featured in this blog by Ms K.

In the comments of the previous post Ms K. gave some links to her swatches of EDM and Meow light foundations (the Inquisitive - ones). I think they'd be more easily accessible if I'd put them here as a post too. Thanks to Ms. K!

From Everyday Minerals, left to right:

Fairly Light (original glow)

Golden Fair (matte)

Fair Intensive

Fairly Light Neutral (semi-matte)

Sandy Fair (matte)

Meow swatches in Pampered Puss (?), from top to bottom:

Sphynx

Chausie

Bengal

Mau

Siamese

Meow homepage used to give me the creeps but they have improved their homepage considerably. The foundation color charts are added and the overall structure makes a lot more sense then it did a year ago.