Swatches & Review: Catrice Sand Francisco

(Still on vacation; back on the 18th)

Today's polish is Catrice Sand Francisco, a gorgeous pale gold shimmer/frost. The reason I hesitate to call this a straight-up frost is because there's hardly any brushstrokes and it dries extremely shiny. It might have been intended to be worn sheer, but it's opaque in two easy coats. I guess it would work better with a darker skintone, but I kinda dig the way this looks with my pale complexion. :)

What do you guys think? I'm really not a fan of frosts or golds, but I like this one.

Swatches & Review: Catrice Amazonian Gold

Happy Monday, lovelies!

Again, this is another scheduled post.

Today's polish is one of the two polishes I bought from Catrice's recent Papagena collection. Can I just say that I love the collection just for the name? I adored that opera as a kid. I'd listen to it before going to bed every single day. I still know some of it by heart. <3

Amazonian Gold is a lovely, neutral gold shade, if such a thing exists. What I mean by that is that isn't too warm or too cool, though to me it's definitely more on the cool side. I wouldn't call this a proper frost, because it's barely brushstroke-y. I'm almost tempted to call this a foil. Almost. Honestly, I'm not quite sure what to call this finish, but I like it. I was hoping that the third picture would show the complexity of the tiny glitter in there. Maybe if you enlarge it you'll be able to see it.

I used two coats for these pictures. The formula was super nice and I had no problems with application at all.

Have a good start of the week, everybody!

Swatches & Review: China Glaze Chiaroscuro

Happy Sunday, lacquered lovelies!

Today I have for you China Glaze Chiaroscuro, which is a nude-ish, peachy, slightly frosty shimmer. Oh yay, everything I usually hate thrown into a single polish! Right? WRONG. It is awesome, ladies. Trust me. I saw this on another blog - I'm not sure who posted it, if it was you, please let me know and I'll link to your post! - and I just knew I had to have it.

First two pictures were taken inside, the other two in sunlight.

Let me say this straight away: These pictures do not do the polish justice. Chiaroscuro is a warm, peachy, golden shimmer. It's slightly frosty, but not too much. Now, none of this sounds very interesting, does it? However, this has the most awesome green duochrome. It is stunning. Also, this seems like a bit of a chameleon to me; here it looks mostly peach, but in low light it looks almost mauve-y.

I think this is as close as I'll ever get to wearing nude polish.

Formula was okay on this. It's a little bit thin and runny and I did need three coats to get it opaque (You could still see VNL at certain angles, but not enough to bother me). Then again, I think this is actually intended to be worn sheer. It did take quite a qhile to dry, even with Seche Vite on top.

That's it from me for today; I managed to hurt my shoulder/back yesterday so I'll just do some more relaxing.

Swatches & Review: MAC Surfbaby Collection - Eyeshadows

Hello lovelies!

The weather here was so gorgeous today. Perfect swatching weather....... Except that I'm running low on sleep and spent the day with the lovely Christina, trying to find a lipstick for her and buying way too much myself. Ah, well. Finally got those two OPI glitters from the Burlesque collex that I wanted. And I got each 10% off, yay! :D Also, I finally bought the MAC brush cleanser. Woohoo!

Today's post is, you guessed it, another makeup related post. As I've said before, my passion for nailpolish and my passion for makeup go hand in hand, so you'll have to put with these posts. :)

These are the eyeshadows from the recent MAC Surfbaby Collection that I mentioned in a previous post. I've had these eyeshadows for a bit already, but I really wanted to play around with them before giving my verdict, hence the delay.

There is a total of five eyeshadows in the collection and these are the three I got:

Sun Blonde, which has a frost finish.

 Surf USA, which also has a frost finish.

Saffron, which has a satin finish.

And here are all three together; from left to right, Sun Blonde, Surf USA, Saffron.

Here they are swatched on my arm on bare skin, no primer. Left to right, Saffron, Surf USA and Sun Blonde. (The colours look somewhat washed out in these pictures; not sure why. They're more vivid in person.)

Saffron is a lovely reddish-orange rust colour. I do have to say that this was the least pigmented of the three. It still has plenty of colour payoff (especially once applied to the eyes), but not as much as the others. It blends out fairly easily and doesn't fade or crease much.

Surf USA is a medium turquoise and surprisingly not too frosty. It's very soft and blendable and has great colour payoff. Again, doesn't fade or crease very much.

Sun Blonde is... Hm. That's a hard one to describe. It's a mustard yellow but with gold shimmer. Very unique and beautiful colour! Again, blends out easily, not too frosty and doesn't fade or crease much. This one is definitely the most unique colour out of the collection and also the most pigmented one.

Like I said, there are two more eyeshadows in this collection (a frosty white and a frosty grey). I only got these three because they looked like the most unique in this collection and in my collection. Really happy with them. :)

That's it from me for today; I seriously need some sleep. Ta-ra! :D