Rainbow Honey - October 2014 Mystery Bag

Well hi!

I picked up Rainbow Honey's mystery bag this month because *mysteries* but also because I haven't gotten one in a while and I missed it. I went with the $10 mini version because *broke* and still made out like a dang bandit.

Included in this month's mini mystery bag:

Cafe Con Leche 5mL - Basically couldn't have been named anything more appropriate. Super creamy nude with gold and silver shimmer: the perfect polish for my skin tone for mannequin hands! Smooth, easy formula. 2 coats + topcoat under OttLite.

Zi 5mL - Purple jelly packed with blue, gold, magenta and silver micro glitter. It almost looks like a glass fleck, but like, a micro glass fleck, if that makes sense. A bit on the thin side color-wise, this guy built to opacity in 3 coats. The first picture is under OttLite, the second is under crappy kitchen light to show more accurate color/shimmer (both swatches are with topcoat).

All Your Base base coat 15mL - Full size! Yeah girl! I, uhhhh, very rarely wear base coat (scoff!) because of how often I change my polish, but this one apparently has pretty good reviews. I actually got the mini size of All Your Base a few months ago and HAVE used it, thank you.

L'orange Ganache nourishing lip balm .15oz - I can never have enough lip balm during the winter. This one smells like chocolate with maybe a hint of orange, but I mostly just get chocolate. And it tastes kind of sweet, which is nice, because nothing is more disappointing than a yummy smelling lip balm that tastes like nothing. :( I have it on right now, and it feels, you know, nice. My lips are happy.

Sweet November Eu de Parfum Rollerball 4mL & Shimmer Soap .5oz - I loooove sweet scents, so this couple is perfect for me. I'm glad RH includes an info card detailing the products or I would have described this scent as 'Um... sweet... there's like, vanilla and maybe, like, some caramel notes..?' Officially, Sweet November is "a warm sweet musk with notes of coconut and vanilla sugar". It makes me want to wrap up in a big, warm blanket and lay in front of a fire surrounded by Christmas lights.

Like, I HATE winter, mind, but I really love feeling cozy. This smell makes me feel very cozy.

So heck yeah, right? I'm never disappointed with these bags, especially for the price. I love how much of a variety of products are included, too. It's nice to see an October mystery thing that isn't specifically Halloween-related.

Sinful Colors - Splatter Spell, Cauldron Couture and Mystery Moonshine Swatches & Reviews

Firstly, these swatches suck large amounts of horse hineys (autocorrect wants to change "hineys" to "chimneys" which, if horse chimneys were a thing, these swatches would be sucking those as well). I wouldn't even pretend to be mad if somebody told me so, either. I agree with you, friend. Such suck.

But it's what I have, soooooooooooooooo...

Found these bishes at Walgreens a couple weeks ago on an un-built display, still in their boxes. I sneakily snuck one of each out, even though I'm pretty impartial to glitter toppers. I figure for Halloween maybe I can get into it a little bit.

Bleh.

The problem with drugstore glitter toppers, I've found, is that the ratio of glitter to base is pretty weak. I mean, obvs I'm not looking for a full-coverage glitter, but as thick as these polishes were, I would have liked to have gotten a better payoff, you KNOW? I had to do some fishing for an even layer of glitter. All swatches were taken under OttLite (even though it's a beautiful day out and likely one of the last of its kind this year :/  ).


First up is Splatter Spell which is a metallic orange shard/hex and various-sized black hex glitter mix in a clear base. Shrug. I kind of wish the orange was more saturated, I guess.

Shown below is two coats plus a few dabs over Sinful Colors - Enchanted.

Cauldron Couture is similar to Splatter Spell but it's, oh you know, metallic green and black instead. There also seemed to be a much higher glitter concentration in this one, making it my favorite of the three, and I still don't really even like it that much.

Shown below is two coats plus a few dabs over Sinful Colors - Innocent.

I thought Mystery Moonshine was going to be my favorite because of the lack of black hex glitter, but this one can just go straight to heck. It was a goopy nightmare with very little glitter payoff, plus the super-thick base was tinted pinkish (though I don't know if it was intentional or because of glitter bleeding).

Shown below is two resentful coats plus countless dabs over Sinful Colors - Cool Gray.

I'm only keeping these guys because I collect Sinful Colors and they look pretty in the bottle, but I very highly doubt I'll be actually using them anytime soon. Whatever, they were $2 a pop (because somebody didn't just wait until Walgreens was having their $.99 Sinful Sale...).

Whatever, I say. Hey, Halloween isn't until, like, a month from now. I have time to find successful Halloween polishes, right?

PinkDipsyBulle Franken Polish - Queen Conch, Golden Apple, Nebula and Lady of the Lake Swatches & Reviews

GUYS HEY!

I'm 23 weeks pregnant yesterday and I can no longer bend over without grunting. So, anyway...

I actually have some swatches for you today! That is your reward for still subscribing to my junk... you get to see some stuff sometimes. Quality blogging, right there!

*Hallelujah Chorus interlude*

It's no secret that I'm a total PinkDipsyBulle fangirl, and I could not have been more excited to review some polish at the request of The Shimmer Wizard herself (which I'm going to call her from now on... sorry). If you'll recall, my first favorite indie polish ever was Indian Ocean and it continues to reign as champion of my heart; it's also the only polish in my entire (kind of pathetic, comparatively) 300-ish bottle collection that I have a backup of. That being said, my fanatic raving is completely genuine and honest.

First up is Queen Conch, a cool-toned bubblegum pink with electric blue flash. Good formula on this guy; the brushstrokes are much less apparent in person than the OttLite picture would have you believe, so don't let that deter you. The blue flash is also more flash-tastic in real life, of course.

Shown below is three thin coats with topcoat.

Sunlight

Sunlight

OttLite

Sunlight

Next stop: Golden Apple, a soft mint green with bright golden flash that seriously glows on the nail. The way this dude looks in the bottle makes me want to eat it... it looks as though maybe it would taste like the best, like, magic taffy in the universe. Can we just pretend there's any amount of sense in that? Thanks. So, uh, yeah... I've always wanted a shade like this but none that I've found that were similar (mint base/golden flash) had enough oomph, you know? Another good formula, also less brushstroke-y in reality.

Shown below is three coats with topcoat.

Sunlight

Sunlight

OttLite

Sunlight

OttLite

Now we're at Nebula, one of three recently released multichrome toppers. This guy shifts between violet to blue to teal, and has gold to green shifting glitters. Pretty much bottled divinity, if you wanted to know how I really felt.
A bit on the thicker side but not in an unreasonable way, which made for an easier application as I only needed one steady coat to achieve righteousness. If this polish doesn't make your extremities tingle even a tiny bit then I don't even know if we can be friends anymore.

Shown below is one coat with topcoat over black.

Sunlight... kinda

OttLite

OttLite

Shade

Shade

OttLite

And lastly, we have Lady of the Lake, a grape-violet jelly base with bright blue shimmer. Reminds me of Rescue Beauty Lounge - Scrangie, except with a cooler, jelly-er base. A bit less opaque than the first two, I was still able to build to opacity in three coats. Lady of the Lake is a limited edition polish (read: she's only going to make a handful so I suggest jumping all over that noise if you want it). The blue shimmer in this is effing glorious -- it almost reads as a duochrome in some lights, and it has this sparkle that is just so yes.

Shown below is three coats with topcoat.

Sunlight

Sunlight

OttLite

Shade

Sunlight

Sunlight

So, right? And she has a whole shop full of polishes like these -- here! Each goes for $6 for 10 mL and they're 3-free. She's also releasing two other limited edition polishes along with Lady of the Lake and they're also gorgeous, and that's all you get to know.

On a side note: my pinky nail snapped in half the day after I was asked to swatch these, so I kept the nail in order to glue it back on for swatch purposes, but then I lost the damned nail. So I'm wearing a false nail for the photos which is why it looks kind of bizarre compared to the rest of my nails, in case you noticed that. Poor little freak-nail. 

Well maybe I'll see you around soon, you know? I'm still buying crap-tons of polish, just not swatching them so much these days. I've been workin' from home, with two endlessly energized children and the third in my belly, making not taking naps pretty much not an option if I get the opportunity. 

Oh, by the way, he's a boy. A little boy without a name yet and he's currently kicking me just to the right of my belly button. THERE IS A SMALL HUMAN BEING LIVING INSIDE OF MY BODY. It seriously doesn't get any less freaky the second time around. Pregnancy is SO WEIRRRRDD.

I used to seriously get gaggy thinking about just having organs. A HUMAN. Anyway. Hope you're all well. I miss you. XOXOX

Enchanted Polish - May 2014, June 2014 and July 2014 Swatches & Reviews

Heeeyoooo.

I was in my first online semi-argument with a delightful gal in a CVS couponing Facebook group in which she suggested I stick coupon tearpads up my hindquarters and find a male chicken to entertain myself with (note: paraphrased for the younger readers). The thread was sadly deleted, but it all started when another member of the group called a fellow out for selling coupon tearpads which he very unlikely procured legally. Some members were saying there's nothing that can be done about it and that our having a discussion about it was a waste of time. Long story short, my whole thing was that regardless of HOW wrong what he's doing is, it's still wrong. Then we had the whole "there are murders happening and you're worried about THIS?" comments. I just... I guess I'm lucky to have been raised with a conscience and a clear outline of the difference between right and wrong. I'm not saying that coupon fraud is on the same level as murder, but it's still a crime, you know? Shoplifting something for $2 isn't a major offense, but it's still punishable by law, dawgs. 

I mean seriously. Hrrgrgg. The worrrrsssst are comments that are like "you're stupid for spending time arguing about it blah blah blah". Like, what are you LITERALLY doing right now? I just can't even.

So anyway, Enchanted Polish Monthly Mysteries versions May, June and July; editions 2014: I'm slightly underwhelmed.

May is this pumpkin orange jelly with some linear holo and that sparkle I always talk about that EP has, except in pink. It has a lot more dimension on the nail than my photos show; it almost looks like a glass fleck buuut not. This one had the best formula -- two easy coats and required zero cleanup. I like this one the best out of the three which kind of indicates my underwhelm-ed-ness since I'm pretty "meh" about orange in general.

Shown below is two coats without topcoat.

Sunlight

Sunlight

Shade

June is a plum-my purple/berry pink metallic duochrome with linear holo and that pink sparkle action. It reminds me of all those purple-toned multichromes except instead of going all the way to gold, this one stops at pink. The formula wasn't as smoothy-smooth as May but it was still pleasant.

Shown below is two coats without topcoat.

Sunlight

Sunlight

Shade

Shade

Shade

While this one is the most interesting in terms of what's going on in a nail polish, I'm not in love with it like I think a lot of people are. Some people, maybe. A few. I don't know if it's the shade of purple or what, but I was just kind of like, okay, neat. *shrug*


July 2014 is a metallic bright cherry red with linear holo and pink and blue sparkle which very barely shows up on the nail. Pretty basic and uninspired-feeling, which bums me right out since July is my birth month and I was hoping for something blam-tastic. I don't, like, LOVE rubies or anything, but I kind of wish this was a jelly instead of being metallic to emulate July's birthstone more. Deep cherry jelly with red shimmer and linear holo... that's a monthly I would campaign for, yo. I don't hate this polish, but I don't see myself reaching for it anytime soon. The formula on this guy was also pretty suck -- quite goopy compared to what I've become used to with EP formulas. Sigh for days.

Shown below is two coats without topcoat.

Sunlight

Sunlight

Shade

The shade picture definitely makes it look a lot more interesting than it actually is, just FYI. If it looked like that IRL I would be all about it.

Aaaanyway, that's that. Five more months of this mystery stuff and I kind of think I might be done with Enchanted Polish. Unless something in the next five months blows me right the heck away, I'd rather spend my dolla-dollas on polishes that I know I'll love.

Catrice - Dirty Berry

Hey!

I am 1.) tired and 2.) nauseous. Like, soooooooooooooo tired. So tired.

Today I have a have an infamous little friend named Dirty Berry by the German brand Catrice, which I happily received in a swap.

Dirty Berry is a dusty medium purple with scattered holo that, due to the misfortune of partially cloudy skies, is pretty much invisible in the pictures. Regardless, it's a pleasant color that's quite shiny without topcoat. The formula was a bit runny (despite the Catrice website going on about perfect coverage in one coat and all of that... no way, man) but I'm not even mad about it. Runny, shmunny. This polish isn't available in the ol' States, plus it's discontinued, so I don't know what to tell you.

Worst. Blogger. Ever.

Swatches show three coats without topcoat under indirect sunlight, OKAY??

Ah, so... yeah. Dirty Berry.
I should be receiving some pretty awesome polishes in the mail over the next couple of days so hopefully my blog will be able to climb out of the rut of suck.

Hey, how about Mountain Dew Baja Blast being sold outside of Taco Bell now? I'm pretty okay with it! You know what I'm not okay with? Taco Bell discontinuing the cheesy bean and rice burrito. Holy shmow, I just got THE STRONGEST CRAVING for one of those. It's been, like, three years almost since they did, but I can still taste it. I don't typically advocate fast food, but every so often my body requires it. Gross and awesome.

omg all I want in this entire world is a cheesy bean and rice burrito. OOH OR MAYBE CHIPOTLE.