Makeup Withdrawal

Showing posts with label Coastal Scents. Show all posts

Saran Wrap Nails & Tales of A Broken Teapot

Thursday, June 21, 2012

My mom had this teapot. A few days ago, I took a snapshot of it because I thought that the glaze on it was really interesting, sort of marbled. I wanted to try to duplicate the look on my nails with Saran Wrap.

It was my first time using this Saran Wrap technique that I found at Nailed It. I used my COAT Lily Pad (that brand of polishes sold at Coastal Scents that I picked up during Black Friday sales for $2) and a white franken.

Notice how I said my mom HAD this teapot, past tense? The day after I took that picture above, I broke it by accident.

THIS IS WHY I CAN'T HAVE NICE THINGS.

What have you broken lately? Come on, spill! It'll make me feel less clumsy.

Products mentioned were purchased by me, for my own use. For additional information, please refer to my Disclosure Policy.

A Few Coastal Scents Hot Pots

Saturday, December 10, 2011

I mentioned previously that I made a small Coastal Scents order. I added a few shadows to my cart because some of them looked positively enticing.
I bought ME01, ME02, M17, S10, and S18. It's somewhat confusing on the site because each shade has a name, but the only way to identify these shades is a sticker on the back of each shadow which only lists a letter and number combination.
Anyways:
ME01= Dark Golden Olive (which is precisely that, a metallic dark golden olive)
ME02= Aluminum Taupe (a very light, frosty taupe sheen)
M17= Midnight Blue (a very dark matte blue)
S10= Green Steel (a very complex dirty metallic silver with a very subtle touch of green)
S18= Maize Yellow (a slightly shimmery bright yellow with a touch of chartreuse)

For each pair, the left side is without primer and right side on top of primer

The quality of these shadows really vary. The shades with more shimmer/frost are more buttery and soft, while Maize Yellow is somewhat of a disappointment. Rather poor pigmentation and it barely shows up even with a primer (I see what it was on clearance now, ack.) To be fair, that shade was an impulse buy. I was curious as to what I could do with yellow eye shadow.
The other four shades, Dark Golden Olive, Aluminum Taupe, Midnight Blue and Green Steel are quite good but definitely need a primer. They are extremely soft though, and I've noticed that in just a few days of playing around with them that I've already created a dip in the pans which is something that never happens with my higher quality shadows such as LORAC or NARS. They're extremely blendable, which is a nice perk.
So it's a trade off. Cheaper price ($1.99 each)- but also overall a lower quality. If you're interested in Coastal Scents Hot Pots, might I suggest that you pick up shades that you intend on only "playing around with". For instance, maybe a neon pink eye shadow that you've been suddenly craving and leave your every day reliable shadows to better companies. Coastal Scents also frequently has sales, so if you sign up for their emails you'll be alerted of the deals and score them for even cheaper.

Side story: I tried to take swatch pictures outside. That didn't work out since it was absolutely freezing outdoors so my arm was covered with gooseflesh. Kuma did enjoy it though, he loves the cold weather.

That's his supermodel wind blowing back his fur pose.

Thanks for reading!

Products featured were purchased by me, for my own use. For additional information, please refer to my Disclosure Policy.

Quick EOTD

Tuesday, December 6, 2011

Super quick EOTD. I used one of my new shadows from Coastal Scents- Hot Pot S10. I promise I'll do proper swatches and review soon.

Brows: NARS Bali shadow
Eyes: LORAC Behind The Scenes Eye Primer, Coastal Scents Hot Pot S10. Make Up For Ever #169 shadow, LORAC Beige shadow, L'oreal Lineur Intense, LASHEM Double Trouble Mascara*.

Shortest post. Ever.

* indicates a product that was sent to me for reviews. For additional information, please refer to my Disclosure Policy.

COAT Cosmic Polish

Monday, December 5, 2011

Good evening!
Last week, during Coastal Scent's Cyber Monday sale, I placed a small order. The first thing I intended on buying was this flake polish that I had noticed in their new COAT polish line. I had to take some quick pictures as soon as I got it.
This is Cosmic, a black base with green flakes that wink yellow-green and a tinge of gold-yellow.

These polishes are $3.95 regularly, but I got it at $2 because of the sale. They're quite small at 0.2oz, and thought I found the bottle very cute with the coat design, I despised the short handled brush. It was difficult to see around.
These flakes are chunkier than most others, such as Sally Hansen Hidden Treasure, the *new* NYX Ave polishes, or Essie Shine of the Times. They don't lie as flat on the nail, and I felt like I needed two coats of top coat to really gloss it over.
Since I'm a good blogger (har, har) I did a quick comparison shot. The middle and pinky nails are just three coats of Cosmic.

As you can see, Hidden Treasure is more dense, has smaller particles and is warmer in its range of colors. Also, one coat of COAT Cosmic looks pretty much the same as three coats of Cosmic. Perhaps you don't get quite the same depth... but I think it's close enough. Waste not polish, right?

Hope you enjoyed the pictures!

P.S. - I sincerely apologize that I haven't finished tallying my latest contest. There were many more entries than I expected and to make sure that I am as fair as I can be- I am dutifully checking each entry. Thanks for being patient!

Products featured were purchased by me, for my own use. For additional information, please refer to my Disclosure Policy.

ACW Order

Thursday, April 1, 2010

I love AllCosmeticsWholesale.com to death. I really do. It's a great site that sells middle end and high end cosmetics (some discounted or from previous seasons). It's absolutely terrible for my wallet though, because I'm always browsing their inventory (which gets updated all the time) and finding things I really want and can't resist because they're so cheap. I placed an order last Saturday, and this morning I got up early because I was so excited for it to get here (my desperation is indeed deplorable. Also, the mail man doesn't actually get here until 1pm, so I watched Weeds for five hours, with occasional peeks out the window.)
This time, I ordered a 12 slot SMH magnetic palette, a SMH single, Smashbox quads in Ambient and Electric and an Urban Decay single in Secret Service.
First, the palette. The 12 slot palettes made by Stars Makeup Haven are actually a little different than the ones from Coastal Scents. The divider (the part with holes that the pans fit into) from the Coastal Scents ones are made from neoprene, so it's more cushiony. I feel like it absorbs shock better (I drop things a lot, can you tell?) The divider in the SMH palette is molded plastic and the little hole on the side of each well isn't as deep as the CS version. This makes it a bit harder for my clumsy fingers to pry the pans out. Even with a bobby pin, it's still hard to get out. The differences are minute, and they're about the same price, so no biggie. (Coastal Scents version is $7.95 and the SMH version is $8.85)

I've had my eye on the Stars Makeup Haven singles for a long time, ever since I saw them swatched on KarlaSguar's blog. They looked really good and well pigmented. But they're only $4.95 each so I knew that if I wasn't careful, I'd probably go overboard. I only let myself buy one to start out with, to see what the quality was like. I'm very pleased! This particular shade, Carnal Knowledge is silky and smooth and the perfect light champagne shimmer. As an added perk, I also really like how there's a label on the back that tells you what shade it is, pretty convenient that I don't have to bust out my label maker.

My other single is Urban Decay's Secret Service. I only recently started getting into Urban Decay eye shadows, because I was frightened of the glitter I hear a lot about. So I decided to ease into the process with a matte shade. I got this for $7.99 (amazing price for UD shadows) and I'm glad I did, because it's discontinued. I have a confession to make, once I started to use LORAC matte eyeshadows, I never thought I'd be impressed by the texture of another brand again. Luckily, I was proven wrong. This single is the most finely milled eyeshadow I think I've ever touched. I'm not sure about the blendability or the staying powder yet, but I'm loving the taupe color. I like that it has a touch of dark grey, which makes it look very grown up. My family of taupe eyeshadow gladly flings open their arms to welcome such a nice shade.

The two items I was most excited about were the Smashbox quads. However, they did turn out to be much smaller than I had expected (I'm not sure why this matters to me, because as of today I have never ever finished an eyeshadow, so worrying about running out is a rather irrational fear). They're still lovely, nonetheless. Ambient contains rather generic earthy shades (all shimmers)- a creamy white, a orange tinged gold, a dusky olive and your very basic warm brown. The color I like the best in this quad is the olive. It's rather green in the pan, but on the skin it becomes wonderfully complex. It's one of those rare warm olives with soft hints of sienna.

The other quad was Electric and I have to start out by marveling at the pigmentation, especially in the dark teal. There's two shimmers in this quad and two mattes. There's a bright sunny shimmer yellow, a dark matte teal with silver glitter (for the first time in my life, I'm not repulsed by it), a matte chocolate brown and a dusky orange-peach shimmer. I suppose the two matte colors could be a little smoother but that's something that extremely hard to do with deeply pigmented mattes. Oh yeah, both these quads were $7.99, oh hell yeah.

I'm going to have to excuse myself so that I can play with my new toys. So, like what you see?